The Becoming of Possibility: 10/21/25

Tuesday, 21 October 2025

Evolution as Morphogenesis: Reflexive Alignment in Biological Systems: 1 Fields of Potential: Evolutionary Landscapes as Relational Topologies

Biological evolution is often framed as a mechanistic process of mutation, selection, and drift—but viewed through the lens of morphogenesis, a richer picture emerges. Populations do not merely “follow” selection pressures; they actualise potential within relational ecological fields, producing form, adaptation, and novelty as emergent outcomes of alignment.

1. Populations as perspectival cuts

In an ecosystem, species are not isolated entities but local actualisations of a broader field of potential. Just as cells differentiate within an embryo:

Individual organisms actualise one of many possible forms within their species’ potential.
Populations are collective cuts through the relational topology of the ecosystem, each expressing coherence with environmental and interspecies constraints.
Traits recur not merely because of inheritance but because the field of ecological potential stabilises certain configurations.

2. Fitness landscapes as topologies of potential

Traditional fitness landscapes can be reframed relationally:

Peaks and valleys are not fixed measures but expressions of the relational field—configurations of potential that are more or less likely to align successfully.
Adaptation is the process of aligning actualisations with the topology, not a climb toward a pre-defined optimum.
Evolution is thus semiotic and morphogenetic, each generational actualisation reading and reshaping the landscape.

3. Constraints and enablements

The field of potential is both enabling and constraining:

Ecological pressures, resource distributions, and interspecies interactions shape the boundaries of possible forms, guiding alignment.
Yet within these constraints, a multitude of novel configurations remain possible, giving rise to diversity and innovation.
Alignment, not coercion, maintains coherence: the ecosystem-field ensures patterns recur while allowing perturbations.

4. Recurrence without instruction

Much like cultural or symbolic fields:

Evolutionary patterns persist not because of explicit instructions in the environment but because the relational field enables coherent forms to emerge repeatedly.
Genes, epigenetics, and developmental pathways are mechanisms for stabilising potential, not blueprints dictating form.

This recasts “evolutionary memory” as structural, topological, and relational, rather than archival.

5. Implications

Populations are active participants in actualising evolutionary potential, not passive followers of selection.
Ecosystems are morphogenetic organisms, shaping and stabilising patterns across species and generations.
Evolution is a dynamic, relational process, where form, novelty, and recurrence emerge from semiotic actualisation of ecological potential.

In the next post, “Populations and Alignment: Natural Selection as Reflexive Process,” we will explore how selection, drift, and cooperation act as mechanisms of reflexive alignment, stabilising traits and patterns without invoking deterministic causation.

Sheldrake Revisited: Reflexive Alignment Meets Morphogenetic Intuition

Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogenetic fields and morphic resonance have always inspired debate—and imagination. He glimpsed a principle: patterns recur not by mechanical instruction, but through fields that shape possibility. In our Collective Morphogenesis series, we have explored a relational repair of this insight, reframing morphogenesis in terms of reflexive alignment, semiotic actualisation, and persistent relational topology.

What might Sheldrake himself make of this reinterpretation? A thought experiment offers a lens:

1. Recognition of intuition

Sheldrake would immediately recognise the core insight: form and pattern emerge because potential is actualised coherently. From embryonic development to social norms, ritual, and symbolic systems, the principle of recurrence without central control aligns with his own observations. He would likely nod approvingly at the idea that habit, stability, and recurrence are consequences of relational fields rather than stored instructions.

2. Surprise at the repair

Where our series diverges is in the mechanism of persistence:

Morphic resonance as an influencing force is replaced by reflexive alignment—a relational, semiotic process.
Memory resides in topological potential, not in an external field or prior instantiation.
The semiotic dimension—construal, meaning, and symbolic actualisation—extends the principle into social and cultural realms.

Sheldrake might find this both stimulating and challenging: it honours his intuition but recasts it in a more relational, less causal framework.

3. Points of fascination

He would likely be intrigued by:

The scaling of morphogenetic principles from cells to institutions, culture, and symbolic systems.
The framing of innovation and novelty as perturbations in the field, maintaining coherence while allowing evolution.
The unifying lens of reflexive alignment, which provides continuity across domains without appealing to hidden forces.

4. Gentle critique

Sheldrake might ask:

Does relational actualisation fully account for transgenerational recurrence observed in biology?
Are symbolic and social fields truly analogous to biological morphogenetic fields, or are they metaphorical extensions?
How might these ideas be tested empirically, in the spirit of scientific exploration he valued?

5. Closing reflection

The thought experiment suggests that Sheldrake would recognise the spirit of his insight: that patterns recur, that form is self-organising, and that fields of potential matter. Yet he would also see a bold reconceptualisation, one that extends morphogenesis into social, cultural, and symbolic realms through the lens of relational ontology.

In other words, this series is both a continuation and a reinterpretation: a dialogue across time with the intuition that first sparked a revolution in thinking about form, habit, and possibility.

Collective Morphogenesis: Fields of Possibility in Social and Symbolic Life: 6 Toward a General Theory of Collective Morphogenesis

We have traced the morphogenetic principle from embryos to social groups, cultural practices, and symbolic systems. Across these domains, coherence, recurrence, and innovation all emerge from the same underlying process: reflexive alignment of relational potential. This suggests that collective morphogenesis is not a metaphor, but a general principle governing how possibility becomes actualised at multiple scales.

1. The universality of reflexive alignment

In biology, cells differentiate and tissues fold because each local cut aligns with the field of potential.
In social systems, individuals, norms, and institutions maintain coherence through alignment of construals.
In culture and symbolism, rituals, myths, and languages persist and evolve because semiotic actualisations conform to relational topologies.

In all cases, stability and novelty coexist because the system actualises potential recursively rather than following a fixed blueprint.

2. Memory without storage

Collective memory—whether biological, social, or symbolic—is not stored externally:

Persistence arises from the topology of potential itself.
Each instantiation is a new cut through the field, reproducing coherent forms without requiring archives or instructions.
Habit, practice, and recurrence are therefore expressions of structural persistence, not transmitted content.

3. Innovation as perturbation

New forms emerge when perturbations interact with the field:

Novel acts, ideas, or expressions are perspectival cuts that may or may not align.
Successful innovations integrate through reflexive alignment, reshaping the topology without destabilising it.
Evolution, creativity, and cultural change are thus natural consequences of morphogenetic actualisation.

4. Possibility as a morphogenetic phenomenon

By generalising morphogenesis relationally:

The actualisation of potential is semiotic: meaning and form are inseparable.
Fields of potential exist across scales, from cells to societies to symbolic systems.
Reality itself can be read as a self-actualising network of relational topologies, each generating recurrence, coherence, and novelty.

Collective morphogenesis reframes the world: possibility is not latent in isolation; it exists in the ongoing, recursive alignment of relational fields.

5. Implications for thought and practice

Biology, social life, culture, and symbolism are unified under a relational-morphogenetic lens.
Understanding reflexive alignment provides a framework for thinking about change, stability, and innovation across scales.
The principle invites us to see the world as active, semiotic, and self-construing, with possibility perpetually in the process of becoming.

6. Closing reflection

From embryos to empires, from rituals to myths, from habits to languages, the same morphogenetic principle operates. Systems recur, evolve, and innovate because they actualise relational potential coherently. The universe, life, and society are not just collections of objects or events—they are fields of possibility continually brought into form by reflexive alignment.

Collective morphogenesis reveals the deep architecture of becoming: the world is always in the act of actualising its potential, and meaning is the very topology through which this occurs.

Collective Morphogenesis: Fields of Possibility in Social and Symbolic Life: 5 Emergence and Innovation: Perturbing the Field

So far, we have seen how social and symbolic systems actualise potential through reflexive alignment, maintaining coherence, habit, and recurrence. Yet no morphogenetic system is perfectly static. Change, novelty, and innovation arise naturally through perturbations in the field, creating opportunities for evolution without undermining stability.

1. Perturbation as perspectival cut

A perturbation is a local actualisation that diverges from established patterns:

In social systems, this might be a novel idea, a disruptive action, or a new interpretation of a norm.
In symbolic systems, it could be a new metaphor, narrative twist, or linguistic invention.
Each perturbation is a perspectival cut, a new way of actualising potential that may align with the existing field or reshape it.

2. Alignment and integration

Not all perturbations persist. Reflexive alignment determines which actualisations integrate into the system:

Those that coherently align with the field are stabilised and become part of recurring patterns.
Misaligned perturbations are either absorbed differently or fade, preserving overall coherence.
This is the mechanism of innovation without collapse: systems evolve while maintaining structural integrity.

3. Coexistence of stability and novelty

Morphogenetic systems are dynamic equilibria:

Stability arises from repeated, aligned actualisations.
Novelty arises from perturbations and deviations.
Both are expressions of the same principle: the field actualising its potential through recursive semiotic alignment.

Social and symbolic systems are thus self-organising, adaptive, and generative, continually balancing continuity and change.

4. Innovation as relational phenomenon

Innovation is not the property of a single individual or isolated event:

It emerges through the interaction of local actualisations with the larger field.
Creativity is the system actualising previously unexpressed possibilities, often by recombining existing patterns.
Reflexive alignment ensures that innovation is semiotically coherent, allowing the system to integrate novelty without losing identity.

5. Implications

Morphogenetic principles explain how social and symbolic systems evolve adaptively, without centralised control.
Novelty, habit, and continuity are all aspects of the same semiotic actualisation of potential.
Perturbations are essential: they expand the field of possibility, enabling evolution and transformation while maintaining coherence.

In the next post, “Toward a General Theory of Collective Morphogenesis,” we will synthesise these insights, showing how biology, social life, culture, and symbolism are all governed by the same principles of reflexive alignment, culminating in a relational understanding of possibility itself.

Collective Morphogenesis: Fields of Possibility in Social and Symbolic Life: 4 Symbolic Systems as Morphogenetic Fields

If culture emerges through reflexive alignment of habitual practices and rituals, symbolic systems—languages, myths, and conceptual frameworks—represent fields of potential actualised semiotically across time and space. They are not static codes or containers of meaning; they are living topologies, continuously realised through acts of construal.

1. Language as a morphogenetic system

Language is more than a tool for communication:

Every utterance is a local actualisation of linguistic potential.
Grammar, lexicon, and discourse structures are constraints on potential, shaping what can be coherently expressed.
Recurrence is reflexive, not transmitted: patterns persist because relational topologies in the speech community enable familiar forms to emerge repeatedly.

Thus, languages evolve as semiotic morphogenetic fields, adapting without a central director, yet maintaining coherence across generations.

2. Myth and symbolic architecture

Myths, narratives, and symbolic frameworks function similarly:

They are patterns of relational alignment, actualised in storytelling, performance, and ritual.
Their recurrence is not because of literal transmission, but because each instantiation aligns with the underlying topology of collective meaning.
Symbolic systems persist, adapt, and evolve through semiotic actualisation, with coherence emerging from alignment rather than storage.

This reframes mythic recurrence: familiar motifs, archetypes, and structures are expressions of persistent relational potential, not reflections of an external “universal pattern.”

3. Semiotic memory and persistence

Just as in culture:

Memory of a symbolic system resides not in texts, recordings, or codified rules, but in the topology of relational potential.
Each instantiation interprets and actualises this potential, reproducing coherent forms while allowing novelty.
Semiotic fields are self-actualising, with recurrence, evolution, and innovation arising naturally from the system’s topology.

4. Innovation and adaptation

Novelty occurs through perturbations in the symbolic field:

New metaphors, narrative forms, or linguistic expressions are perspectival cuts into the system.
Successful innovations align with the field, becoming integrated and stabilising new patterns of potential.
Stability and innovation coexist as complementary expressions of reflexive alignment.

5. Implications

Symbolic systems are morphogenetic, shaping and being shaped by collective construal.
Recurrence, stability, and evolution arise from topological persistence, not linear transmission.
This perspective unifies language, myth, and culture under the principle of reflexive alignment, providing a relational understanding of symbolic continuity and change.

In the next post, “Emergence and Innovation: Perturbing the Field,” we will explore how novelty, conflict, and creativity function in social and symbolic morphogenesis—showing how systems adapt and evolve while maintaining coherence.