Life as Coordination: 6 Meaning in Value Fields: Coordination of Semiotic Systems

Value circulates before meaning.

But once coordination reaches certain thresholds of complexity, value alone is no longer sufficient.

At that point, systems begin to coordinate about coordination.

This is where meaning enters.

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1. Meaning as a Secondary Regulatory Layer

Meaning does not originate coordination.

It regulates it.

Semiotic systems emerge when:

• value flows become indirect or delayed

• coordination spans heterogeneous roles

• repair cannot be achieved by coupling alone

Meaning allows participants to:

• stabilise expectations

• negotiate misalignment

• project future coordination

This is not interpretation in the philosophical sense.

It is operational intelligibility.

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2. What Meaning Coordinates (and What It Does Not)

Meaning does not coordinate bodies, energy, or material flows directly.

It coordinates:

• commitments

• obligations

• roles

• permissions

• futures

These are virtual structures — not physical, but no less real in their effects.

Meaning operates by shaping what can count as a valid move within the field.

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3. Semiotic Fields Are Value-Dependent

Crucially, meaning cannot float free of value.

A semiotic system only persists if:

• it enables value circulation

• it reduces coordination cost

• it increases revisability

When meaning loses contact with value flows:

• ritual replaces function

• ideology replaces coordination

• legitimacy replaces viability

This is how symbolic systems become parasitic rather than regulatory.

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4. Intelligibility as Uptake Capacity

Meaning works only when it can be taken up.

Intelligibility is not clarity of expression.

It is fit between semiotic structure and coordination field.

A symbol is intelligible if it:

• constrains action productively

• aligns expectations

• allows revision under stress

Unintelligible meaning does not merely confuse — it blocks revisability.

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5. Why Meaning Scales Differently Than Value

Value scales through aggregation and exchange.

Meaning scales through standardisation and abstraction.

This difference matters.

As meaning scales:

• it simplifies local variation

• it suppresses edge cases

• it privileges stability over sensitivity

Scaling meaning always risks freezing coordination.

Hence the permanent tension:

Meaning enables large-scale coordination,

but threatens local revisability.

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6. Moralisation as Semiotic Overreach

When value flows fail, systems often respond by:

• intensifying symbolic regulation

• moralising coordination

• fixing meanings as non-negotiable

This produces:

• rigid norms

• sacralised roles

• moral insulation against feedback

Moral language accelerates unrevisability because it converts coordination failures into identity claims.

Once meaning becomes moralised, revision looks like betrayal rather than repair.

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7. Meaning Must Remain Revisable

For meaning to serve coordination rather than dominate it, three conditions must hold:

1. Traceability — symbols must remain connected to value flows

2. Negotiability — meanings must be contestable without collapse

3. Replaceability — no semiotic structure is indispensable

When these conditions fail, meaning becomes authoritarian.

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8. The Core Distinction Restated

Let us state the distinction cleanly:

• Value concerns viability within a field.

• Meaning concerns intelligibility of coordination.

They interact, but they are not the same system.

Confusing them produces:

• moral inflation

• ideological rigidity

• coordination failure disguised as principle

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Closing the Arc

Across this series, we have traced coordination from:

• morphogenesis

• colonial life

• collective motion

• value exchange

to the emergence of meaning as a secondary, fragile, but powerful layer.

Meaning does not ground life.

Life grounds meaning.

The task is not to abolish meaning, but to keep it revisable, intelligible, and answerable to value.