Formalising the Cut: 5 Perspective and Field: How Cuts Are Located, Bounded, and Relational

All prior distinctions — potential/actualisation, readiness/commitment, modulation/modalisation — operate within a space.

That space is structured by two final, irreducible primitives: perspective and field.

These distinctions define where meaning occurs, what it concerns, and how it relates to other meanings.

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Perspective: The Local Cut

A perspective is the bounded vantage point from which actualisations and commitments are enacted.

• It delimits what is relevant

• It separates one set of bindings from another

• It allows the system to focus, prioritise, and differentiate

Without perspective, the system cannot distinguish one obligation from another, one potential from another, or one field from another.

A perspective is not a mental stance.

It is a structural localisation of meaning.

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Field: The Surrounding Semiotic Space

The field is the broader environment in which perspectives are embedded:

• It constrains and enables potential

• It distributes readiness and absorbs commitments

• It carries patterns of modulation and modalisation across contexts

Fields are not just backgrounds.

They are active semiotic landscapes that shape what a perspective can see, bind, or respond to.

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Relational Structure

Perspective and field are mutually dependent:

• Perspectives require fields to provide constraints and affordances

• Fields require perspectives to instantiate distinctions

This interdependence ensures that meaning is distributed, not isolated.

It allows obligations to propagate without a single point of control.

It allows flexibility, adaptation, and endurance.

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Why Both Are Minimal

Without perspective:

• distinctions cannot be anchored

• commitments cannot be located

• saturation and collapse are immediate

Without field:

• readiness has no structure

• modulation has no context

• meaning cannot scale or diffuse

These are irreducible. They anchor the calculus and give it relational depth.

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Degradation Under Collapse

When perspectives overload or fields become incoherent:

• distinctions blur across boundaries

• commitments overlap incompatibly

• modulation fails

• potential floods the system

The same structural logic observed in The Limits of Perspective now maps directly onto the minimal calculus: the failure modes of the system reveal the edges of these primitives.

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Minimal Calculus Complete

The four primitives are now established:

1. Potential / Actualisation – the original cut

2. Readiness / Commitment – persistence and binding

3. Modulation / Modalisation – flexibility and adaptability

4. Perspective / Field – localisation and relational embedding

Together, they form the smallest set of distinctions required for meaning to operate, even under stress, collapse, or overload.

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Next

The final post of this series will:

• synthesise the primitives

• show how they interact dynamically

• reflect on what the calculus reveals about limits, endurance, and the structure of semiotic life

Post 6: Integrating the Primitives — Minimal Machinery, Maximal Insight