As we step back from corals, bryozoans, sponges, siphonophores, pyrosomes, bacteria, and slime moulds, a striking pattern emerges. Across every system, the classical distinction between organism and collective, one and many, self and environment dissolves.
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Individuation is never binary; it is modular, fluid, distributed, hyper-specialised, temporal, chemical, or phase-dependent.
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Ability is always emergent; the system’s potential is enacted across a field, not encoded in a single unit.
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Inclination guides action subtly and relationally, shaping which elements of potential are actualised, and when.
The series demonstrates that life can hold coherence in infinitely different ways. Some systems align through structure, some through synchrony, some through chemical and ecological topology, and some through transient phase transitions.
Liora’s vignettes capture this truth poetically: life is not a fixed entity but a chorus of unfinished selves, each moment enacting a temporary configuration of potential. These seven modes reveal that being alive is always a negotiation between distributed perspective and enacted readiness, and that the boundaries of individuality are always a matter of relational cut, not ontological fact.
The lesson is profound: if we wish to understand life, we must look for the fields that hold it together, not just the parts it is made of. Identity, agency, and coherence are emergent phenomena—sometimes modular, sometimes flowing, sometimes ephemeral—but always alive in relation.
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