Semiosis, Cosmos, Mythos: 3 Semiotic Drift and Cultural Morphogenesis

Having examined semiotic scalability and cross-domain alignment, we now turn to the temporal evolution of semiotic potential. Semiotic horizons are not static; over time, they drift, innovate, collapse, and morph, producing the emergent forms we recognise as culture. This post traces the processes of semiotic drift and cultural morphogenesis.

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1. Long-Term Evolution of Semiotic Potential

Symbolic horizons evolve through cumulative semiotic activity:

• Each construal actualises potential, leaving residual affordances that shape future construals.

• Recurrent patterns stabilise semiotic ecologies, while less compatible patterns drift or fade.

• Over time, these dynamics generate multi-scale cultural structures, from local practices to enduring institutions and traditions.

The evolution of semiotic potential is non-teleological: it does not proceed toward a predetermined form, but unfolds through recursive relational dynamics.

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2. Innovation as Semiotic Perturbation

Innovation introduces new relational potentials into the semiotic ecology:

• Novel symbolic constructs, practices, or narratives destabilise existing alignments.

• Innovations propagate recursively, influencing subsequent construals and reshaping horizons.

• Some innovations integrate successfully, expanding semiotic potential; others collapse, leaving traces in the relational field.

Examples:

• Linguistic innovation creating new semantic distinctions.

• Technological or artistic inventions generating new affordances for cultural expression.

• Emergent rituals that reorganise social alignments.

Innovation is the engine of cultural morphogenesis, producing divergence, novelty, and adaptive flexibility.

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3. Collapse and Cultural Drift

Just as innovation can expand horizons, collapse reduces them:

• Semiotic structures that fail to align with broader relational potentials erode over time.

• Cultural collapse is not merely destructive; it releases potential, allowing new configurations to emerge.

• Drift and collapse are essential mechanisms for semiotic evolution—they prune redundant or maladaptive patterns and open space for generative recombination.

Example: fading languages, obsolete practices, or destabilised institutions give rise to new cultural forms, narratives, or semiotic alignments.

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4. Emergent Cultural Forms

Through the interplay of innovation, drift, and collapse, new cultural forms emerge:

• Patterns stabilise across temporal and spatial scales, producing mythic motifs, social conventions, and narrative archetypes.

• Cultural morphogenesis is recursive: emergent forms influence subsequent semiotic events, reinforcing or destabilising horizons.

• Over long timescales, these processes produce complex, multi-layered semiotic ecologies capable of sustaining and extending human symbolic life.

Key insight: culture is a dynamic semiotic ecology, continually reorganising relational potential through recursive processes.

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5. Implications for Relational Semiosis

1. Semiotic ecologies evolve organically: innovation, drift, and collapse drive long-term change.

2. Cultural morphogenesis is distributed and emergent: no single agent controls outcomes, yet coherent patterns arise.

3. Semiotic horizons are soft yet persistent, balancing stability and flexibility across generations.

The evolution of semiotic potential is cultural becoming in action, demonstrating how symbolic life transforms relational horizons over time.

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6. Takeaway

• Semiotic drift: ongoing changes in relational potential through minor perturbations, shifts, and reinterpretations.

• Innovation: introduction of new symbolic affordances, destabilising and expanding horizons.

• Collapse: pruning of maladaptive patterns, releasing potential for recombination.

• Cultural morphogenesis: emergent, recursive formation of complex, enduring semiotic structures.

This foundation prepares us for Post 4 — Relational Cosmology: Becoming-Meaningful, where we extend semiotic evolution into cosmic-scale relational and symbolic processes, connecting human, ecological, and technological semiotic activity to the broader universe of relational potential.