2 Life Reconstrued: 2 Relational Fields: How Viability Is Maintained Without Computation

If a living system is more than a list of features, how does it actually operate? Series 1 taught us what life is not: it is not computation, it is not code, it is not symbolic communication. Series 2 now asks: what is life, operationally? The answer lies in the concept of relational fields.

A relational field is the network of potentials, constraints, and actualisations that constitutes a living system at any given moment. It spans multiple scales: molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, and, in social species, collectives. Each level contributes to the modulation of value — the maintenance of viability — without invoking representation or symbolic processing.

Consider how this works:

1. Local dynamics: At the cellular level, metabolic reactions, ion gradients, and enzymatic activity continuously adjust the immediate chemical and energetic environment. Each adjustment is not a computation; it is a modulation of potential, shaping which reactions, signals, or behaviors become possible.

2. Networked interactions: Cells interact, not by sending “messages,” but by influencing each other’s local potentials. Synapses, astrocytes, and glial networks in the brain illustrate this principle: their coordination is relational, contingent, and context-dependent.

3. Emergent regulation: Across scales, these interactions create patterns of viability that constrain and enable higher-level phenomena. In a multicellular organism, tissue and organ systems arise not as programmed modules, but as emergent relational regimes that stabilize conditions of possibility.

4. Adaptive modulation: The relational field is self-modifying. Perturbations — internal or external — do not trigger symbolic computations. They provoke value-regulating adjustments, redistributing potentials to maintain viability. This is life’s intrinsic dynamism: continuous, contingent, and inherently relational.

What becomes clear is that life is fundamentally a process of relational modulation. Metabolic flux, neuronal firing, hormonal cycles, and social coordination are not discrete computations or representations. They are the system actualising constraints and potentials, a choreography of value that sustains the field of possibility.

Understanding living systems as relational fields also clarifies why the metaphors of computation and information fail. These metaphors presuppose discrete units, fixed architectures, and symbolic encoding, none of which exist in biological regulation. Life is continuous, contingent, and field-like, dynamically modulating the conditions under which its own activity becomes possible.

In the next post, we will explore “From Potential to Actualisation: Value as the Axis of Biological Becoming”, showing how relational fields translate potential into emergent patterns, and how this provides a foundation for understanding living systems without invoking computation, code, or meaning.