A system is a structured possibility space, not a machine, engine, or causal apparatus. Its structure delineates which cuts — potential actualisations — are admissible. It does not determine which cut will occur, only which cuts are possible without violating its internal relations.
Defining Structured Possibility
Structured possibility is a relational property. A system is a set of distinctions, relations, and dependencies that organise the space of what can be actualised. These relations are not laws in the causal sense; they are constraints on admissibility. They do not act or push, they simply define the domain of coherent cuts.
Within this space, some configurations are admissible, others are impossible. Impossibility is not an error; it is a structural feature. A system may allow many divergent actualisations simultaneously, or only a narrow subset, depending on the shape of its internal structure.
Cuts and Internal Relations
A cut is a selection within the possibility space: an actualisation that is consistent with the system’s internal structure. Cuts are perspectival: what is admissible from one vantage may be inaccessible from another if the structure is interpreted differently or approached via a different relational path.
This perspectival quality ensures that systems are open to multiple actualisations without implying indeterminacy in a causal sense. Each admissible cut is coherent relative to the structure; actualisation is simply the selection of one such cut, not the consequence of an external cause.
Examples of Structured Possibility
Consider a simple combinatorial system, such as a grid of switches. Each switch has an admissible set of positions defined by the system’s wiring. Not every configuration is permitted; some are physically or relationally inadmissible. The system does not push the switches into place; it only allows certain combinations.
In more abstract terms, a network of conceptual distinctions can form a system. Each distinction constrains what can be meaningfully asserted, observed, or distinguished elsewhere in the network. Admissibility emerges from the relational structure, not from any actor or causal process.
Systems Without Teleology
Structured possibility spaces are non-teleological. The system does not aim at, progress toward, or produce any preferred outcome. Admissibility is not guidance; it is permissibility. This reframing avoids the covert introduction of purpose or goal-directed causation into the analysis.
Understanding systems in this way foregrounds possibility rather than inevitability, and relational structure rather than agency or force. It allows us to see what a system allows without collapsing into what it “causes.”
What Comes Next
Having defined systems as structured possibility spaces, the next step is to examine actualisation as selection among admissible cuts. This will show how events, actions, or phenomena appear within a system without invoking teleology or causation, highlighting the perspectival and contingent character of actualisation.
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