In the preceding posts, we established non-meaning as structured potential and framed affordances as relational vectors within that potential, conditioned by perspective. Here, we examine how the actualisation of potential — the act of illumination — constitutes ontogenesis: the becoming of phenomena, meaning, and experience itself.
1. Actualisation is relational, not representational
Meaning does not “attach” to a pre-existing world. Instead, each act of construal phases a pattern out of potential:
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Instance = the lantern lowered into the relational field
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System = the structured potential from which the pattern emerges
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Non-meaning = the relational horizon that both permits and constrains the act
In this view, ontogenesis is continuous: every act of actualisation is a local shaping of potential, a folding of non-meaning into the temporarily illuminated space of meaning.
2. Temporal dynamics of illumination
Every illumination occurs within a temporal gradient:
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Past actualisations create pre-lit lanterns, structuring subsequent perception.
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Present attention lowers new lanterns, phasing fresh phenomena into experience.
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Future potential remains dark, a field of relational affordances waiting to be actualised.
The ontogenetic process is therefore a dance across time, where each act of illumination both stabilises and reconfigures the relational field.
3. Recursive shaping of potential
Crucially, every instance of meaning modifies non-meaning:
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It strengthens some affordances while shading or attenuating others.
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It creates relational textures that future construals will encounter and navigate.
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The system is never static: it co-evolves with its actualisations.
This gives us a dynamic model of meaning evolution: the interplay of past, present, and potential generates a continuously phasing cosmos of relational phenomena.
4. Implications for perception and cognition
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Construal is ontogenetic: Every act of perception is a creative, relational emergence.
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Potential is dynamic: Non-meaning is not inert; it is continually reshaped by the phasing of actualised meaning.
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Phenomena are emergent: What appears as stable or “real” is simply a temporarily coherent pattern in the ongoing process of illumination.
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Participation is constitutive: Observers and systems are co-ontogenetic; meaning exists only through relational engagement.
5. Summary
Illumination is becoming in action: each act of construal phases the field of non-meaning into structured meaning, reconfiguring potential for what can next be actualised. Ontogenesis, in this sense, is not creation ex nihilo but phase-shifting within relational affordance — a continuous, participatory unfolding of the semiotic cosmos.
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