Meaning Is Not Guaranteed by Form
This claim runs against several entrenched assumptions:
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that if a signal is transmitted, meaning has occurred;
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that if behaviour is coordinated, meaning must be present;
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that if a formal structure exists, meaning can always be extracted from it.
A relational ontology rejects all three. Meaning is not automatic. It is fragile, situated, and capacity-dependent.
Symbolic Value Revisited
Symbolic value arises when a construal:
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actualises a distinction,
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stabilises it as experience,
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and renders it legible across horizons.
This is first-order meaning: the phenomenon itself, not a reflection upon it. There is no unconstrued meaning waiting to be decoded; there are only relational potentials that may or may not be successfully actualised.
What has been missing from many accounts of semiosis is an explicit condition on this actualisation. That condition is readiness.
Meaning as Readiness-Bound Actualisation
We can now state the core claim precisely:
Meaning is the successful actualisation of symbolic value under conditions of readiness.
Readiness names the relational capacity of a system to support further differentiation once a construal has occurred. Where readiness is insufficient, construal may still happen — but meaning will not hold.
This immediately explains why meaning can:
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collapse without error,
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evaporate without contradiction,
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or fail despite perfect formal well-formedness.
Three Things Commonly Mistaken for Meaning
Clarifying readiness allows us to distinguish semiosis from phenomena that resemble it superficially but lack its conditions.
1. Signal Transmission
Signals can be transmitted without meaning.
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Electrical impulses,
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molecular bindings,
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digital packets.
No readiness is required beyond mechanical or causal compatibility. Signal transmission is indifferent to horizon, perspective, or symbolic uptake.
Signals move. Meaning does not.
2. Behavioural Coordination
Coordination can persist after meaning collapses.
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Ritualised responses,
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bureaucratic procedures,
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algorithmic optimisation,
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social compliance.
These involve value, but not symbolic value. They operate on stabilised patterns of action, not on living horizons of interpretation.
Coordination consumes readiness; it does not generate it.
3. Semiosis Proper
Semiosis occurs only where:
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symbolic value is at stake,
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construal actualises a distinction,
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and sufficient readiness remains for that distinction to participate in further relational alignment.
This is why meaning is never guaranteed by grammar, code, or convention alone. These encode inclination, not ability.
Meaning requires room.
Why Meaning Is Fragile
Seen relationally, meaning is not mysterious — but it is precarious.
Every construal:
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consumes potential,
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narrows horizon,
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risks over-closure.
Successful meaning is not maximal precision or total clarity. It is the preservation of further differentiability after actualisation.
This is why:
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over-interpretation can destroy meaning,
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enforced clarity can hollow it out,
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and formal perfection can coexist with semantic emptiness.
Meaning does not scale automatically. It must be held.
Payoff: What This Changes
Foregrounding readiness immediately reframes the ontology of meaning:
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Meaning is situated, not abstract.
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Meaning is capacity-dependent, not guaranteed by form.
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Meaning is relational, not representational.
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Meaning can fail without error and collapse without contradiction.
This does not weaken semiosis; it explains it.
In the next post, we will examine construal itself as a readiness-sensitive cut — showing how acts of interpretation can either preserve or exhaust the very conditions that make meaning possible.
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