Affordance and the Field of Becoming: 3 The Affordance Field — Topology of Mutual Readiness

Gradients of offering reveal the local differentiation of readiness, but the full field is more than the sum of its parts.

Affordance is not an interaction between things; it is the field itself — the ongoing topology through which readiness configures its own possibility.

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1. The Field as Pre-Relational Ontology

In classical thinking, the world is often treated as a stage for relations: objects exist, and relations occur upon them.

Relational ontology inverts this: relations are primary, objects are cuts through them.

The affordance field is not a background; it is the ontic substrate — the continual self-articulation of readiness as offering.

Local actualisations — whether events, actions, or utterances — are resonances within the field, points where inclination and ability temporarily align.

Each actualisation is not imposed from outside but emerges naturally from the curvature of readiness in that locality.

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2. Resonance and Local Actualisation

The field is never static.

Gradients create potential, but actualisation occurs where readiness finds local resonance: a temporary alignment of differential inclinations.

These resonances are not singular events; they are relational harmonies, the dynamic crystallisations of the field.

Examples across domains:

• Physical: A photon’s transition is a local resonance in electromagnetic readiness.

• Biological: Molecular binding is the resonance of complementary chemical inclinations.

• Semiotic: A coherent utterance emerges where the semiotic field resonates with interpretive readiness.

In each case, what occurs is neither dictated nor random; it is the natural consequence of the field’s topology.

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3. Topological Patterns and Attractors

Repeated resonances give rise to patterns — attractors in the field of readiness.

These patterns are not laws, but stable configurations: regions where offering naturally persists.

Attractors are the seeds of structure, allowing the field to maintain continuity without prescribing deterministic outcomes.

Through these attractors, the field learns to sustain itself, reinforcing relational pathways that preserve potential for future offering.

Structure emerges not by imposition, but by the self-organising logic of the affordance field.

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4. Nested Networks of Offering

The affordance field is inherently multi-scalar.

Gradients and attractors exist at multiple levels: microscopic, macroscopic, and semiotic.

Domains — physical, biological, symbolic — are differentiated patterns of the same underlying field, each nesting and constraining the others through shared readiness.

Semiotic systems, for example, are networks of affordances: registers, genres, and symbolic orders reflect stabilized gradients that preserve interpretive potential.

Meaning emerges not from arbitrary coding but from field-level resonance: offering and uptake across scales.

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5. Toward Differentiation of Domains

The field’s unity is punctuated by differentiation:

• Some regions favour material interactions.

• Others favour biological organisation.

• Still others favour semiotic structuring.

Each domain is a patterned expression of readiness, a local mode of the field’s affordance.

The next post will explore how these domains of offering emerge, how readiness differentiates into semiotic and material strata, and how this sets the stage for coherence.

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Next: Domains of Offering: Differentiation of Material and Semiotic Systems