The Spatial Fold — Worlds in Extension: 2 Boundaries and Edges — The Limits of Worlds

Worlds are not amorphous; they articulate themselves through boundaries and edges. Yet these are not fixed demarcations imposed from without, but relationally enacted distinctions — modulations of presence, influence, and interaction. Boundaries define what a world sustains as coherent while simultaneously opening points of contact with other worlds. In this sense, edges are both separating and connecting: they delimit without isolating, constrain without negating potentiality.

Edges emerge from relational intensity. A boundary is shaped by the degree of influence a world exerts, by the resonance of its patterns with neighbouring worlds, and by the degree to which its extension is recognised, responded to, or resisted. Boundaries are dynamic, constantly negotiated through interaction and attunement. They are not barriers but relational thresholds, sites where worlds measure, modulate, and adapt their presence in relation to others.

Permeability is central to the relational character of edges. Worlds are seldom fully closed; they allow selective transmission of influence, enabling adaptation, co-modulation, and hybridisation. Permeable boundaries facilitate the circulation of potentialities, while still maintaining coherence. Conversely, rigid boundaries may preserve identity but risk stagnation, constraining emergent possibilities and limiting relational resonance.

Edges also mediate scale. Micro-worlds, meso-worlds, and macro-worlds define boundaries differently according to their relational reach. What counts as an internal limit in one scale may appear as a shared periphery in another, producing layered topologies of relational engagement. Negotiating edges is therefore an iterative, multi-scalar process: boundaries are enacted, contested, and reconfigured across relational strata.

By attending to boundaries and edges as relational phenomena, we see that spatiality is not merely a field in which worlds reside, but a medium through which worlds articulate presence, interact, and modulate possibility. Edges are the loci of relational negotiation, the folds through which extension, adjacency, and co-individuation are continuously enacted.

Next in the series: Adjacency and Proximity — The Grammar of Spatial Relations, where we will explore how the relational positioning of worlds shapes interaction, influence, and emergent coherence across the spatial field.