Affordance and the Field of Becoming: 4 Domains of Offering — Differentiation of Material and Semiotic Systems

The affordance field is continuous, but it is not uniform.

Gradients and local resonances differentiate into domains — patterned regions where readiness expresses itself in distinct modes.

These domains are not pre-given; they emerge as the field organises its own relational potential.

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1. Emergence of Domain

A domain is a stable pattern of readiness: a way in which the field systematically distributes its inclination and ability.

Domains are neither substances nor containers; they are configurational modes of offering.

They arise wherever the field sustains a particular coherence of gradients across time and scale.

Examples:

• Material domain: where physical inclinations dominate, shaping matter and energy.

• Biological domain: where molecular, cellular, and organismal readiness aligns into sustaining life.

• Semiotic domain: where symbolic inclinations form stable patterns of meaning, communication, and interpretation.

Domains do not exist independently; they are differentiated expressions of the same underlying affordance field.

Each expresses the field’s topology in a specific register of relational potential.

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2. Interdomain Resonance

Domains interact not by causal influence but by relational resonance.

The semiotic domain, for example, does not “control” the material domain; rather, it tunes itself to gradients emerging from biological and material configurations.

Similarly, physical processes unfold in ways that are coherently aligned with biological exigencies, not by imposition but by the self-organisation of readiness.

This interlocking produces nested affordance networks, where each domain is both differentiated and mutually attuned.

The field remains continuous; domains are local articulations of readiness, not separate entities.

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3. Semiotic Differentiation

In the semiotic domain, differentiation creates registers, genres, and symbolic conventions.

Each of these is a pattern of affordance, a topology of interpretive readiness stabilised through repeated uptake.

Semiotic systems exemplify reflexive affordance: they not only emerge from the field, but they reshape the field itself, guiding future inclinations and potentials.

This recursive structure allows meaning to propagate, evolve, and persist: the semiotic field becomes a living archive of readiness, maintaining coherence without collapsing openness.

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4. Material and Biological Differentiation

Material and biological domains follow the same relational logic.

• Physical structures stabilise gradients, producing coherent matter configurations.

• Organisms embody patterns of readiness, sustaining life through the alignment of molecular, cellular, and systemic affordances.

Each domain manifests the same ontological principle: offering and uptake occur where inclination and ability find local resonance.

Domain-specific constraints are thus expressions of the field’s self-organisation, not externally imposed rules.

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5. Toward Coherence

With the emergence of differentiated domains, the field begins to show the architecture of sustained potential.

Affordances now operate in patterned networks: local gradients, nested attractors, and interdomain resonances create conditions for continuity.

The stage is set for the next series — Coherence as the Stabilisation of Becoming — where we will examine how these differentiated offerings are preserved, tuned, and sustained without collapsing the field into rigidity.