If potential is the readiness of reality to incline and vary, then it must also be interpersonal. Readiness implies address: a relation through which the possible becomes negotiable.
Halliday showed that modalisation (probability, usuality) corresponds to propositions, while modulation (obligation, inclination) corresponds to proposals. But when we reconstrue modality through the relational ontology, we discover a deeper symmetry. Probability is not just about knowledge; it is the epistemic form of potential. Readiness is not merely about volition; it is the ontic form of potential.
Thus, probability aligns with propositions — where the universe construes its inclination toward a truth. Readiness aligns with offers — where the universe extends its readiness toward relation. In contrast, commands represent an actualised readiness, the imposition of a relation already fixed. They are the fossils of readiness, the remains of once-living offers turned to law.
This inversion carries an irony that runs through the history of science: the world has been spoken to as though it obeyed, when in fact it continually offers. Classical physics imagined nature as a subject commanded by “laws.” Relational ontology re-hearses this construal: not the Law of Gravity, but the Offer of Gravitation — a readiness of spacetime to incline toward relation.
To treat physical law as offer rather than command is not poetic indulgence; it is ontological precision. It restores potential to its dialogic nature, freeing the cosmos from unilateral direction and returning it to relational negotiation — the ongoing speech-functioning of being itself.
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