If constraint structures the field of possibility and sedimentation stabilises it over time, then cuts are what actively drive its transformation. Possibility does not evolve passively. It is reconfigured through repeated acts of distinction — perspectival cuts that foreground some relations, background others, and in doing so reshape what can emerge next.
Cuts do not operate within a fixed space of possibility. They constitute the space itself.
1. What a Cut Does (and Does Not Do)
A cut is not a boundary imposed on a pre-existing world. It does not divide what is already there into discrete pieces. Rather, a cut is a relational articulation that makes certain distinctions operative and others irrelevant.
What matters is not what the cut excludes, but what it makes intelligible.
Each cut:
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establishes a perspective,
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selects a set of distinctions that can function,
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and thereby configures a local field of possibility.
This is why cuts are not merely epistemic. They are ontologically productive. They do not describe possibilities; they generate them.
2. Cuts as Conditions for Emergence
Novelty requires more than variation. It requires a shift in perspective — a rearticulation of what counts as a difference that matters. Cuts provide precisely this shift.
When a cut changes:
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previously irrelevant distinctions can become salient,
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formerly dominant patterns can lose traction,
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new trajectories can become available.
The emergence of new possibilities is therefore not a matter of adding options to an existing list. It is a matter of restructuring the criteria by which options can appear at all.
3. Sequential Cuts and Trajectories
Cuts do not occur in isolation. Each cut is made against the background of sedimented prior cuts, and each one conditions the next. Over time, this produces trajectories — paths through possibility space that are neither random nor preordained.
These trajectories explain why systems exhibit:
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directionality without teleology,
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coherence without design,
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innovation without rupture.
Possibility evolves because each cut changes the conditions under which future cuts can function.
4. Why Cuts Are Perspectival, Not Temporal
It is tempting to think of cuts as events that happen in time. But this is a mistake. A cut is a perspectival operation, not a temporal one. It is the selection of a relational frame within which phenomena can appear as such.
Time matters only secondarily, through sedimentation. What drives possibility is not succession but rearticulation — the repeated establishment of new perspectives that reorganise relational fields.
This is why the same system, at the same moment, can sustain multiple cuts, each generating a different field of possibility without contradiction.
5. Possibility as Actively Shaped
Once cuts are understood in this way, possibility can no longer be treated as neutral or passive. It is actively shaped by the distinctions systems enact and maintain.
Possibility evolves not because the world “changes,” but because the ways in which relations are articulated change. What becomes possible next depends on how the present is cut.
Conclusion
Cuts are not optional refinements layered on top of an already-structured world. They are the engines of possibility’s evolution. By articulating new perspectives, cuts reconfigure constraints, redirect trajectories, and open spaces for novelty to emerge.
In the next post, we will widen the frame to examine emergence and systemic coordination, showing how cuts, constraints, and sedimentation operate not just locally, but across interconnected systems.
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