In most biological writing, genotypes are treated as blueprints and phenotypes as their inevitable products. Relational ontology offers a different lens: a genotype is not a fixed plan but a structured potential — a theory of the possible forms a phenotype may take. Phenotypes, in turn, are instances, actualised trajectories that emerge from this potential under the influence of context.
This perspective reframes the fundamental question of biology: How do possibilities become particular, individuated forms? And how can we describe the transformation from potential to instance without invoking static determinism?
Structured Potential and the Perspectival Cut
In relational terms, a structured potential is a system of possibilities — a field of differentiation defined by constraints, relationships, and the capacities to produce varied outcomes. The genotype exemplifies this: it does not dictate a single phenotype but specifies the potential for many.
The emergence of a phenotype is an actualisation of this potential. Each instance arises through what we can call a perspectival cut — the selection of one trajectory among many within the structured potential. The environment, developmental architecture, and stochastic processes all participate in defining which path is actualised.
This is the core insight: phenotypes are not predetermined objects; they are individuations within a relational field of possibility.
Phenotypic Plasticity as an Illustration
Consider the remarkable case of phenotypic plasticity. A single plant genotype may produce markedly different morphologies depending on light exposure, water availability, or nutrient distribution. The same genetic system yields distinct individuals, each valid within its environmental context.
Similarly, in reptiles with temperature-dependent sex determination, the same genotype can generate either males or females depending on incubation temperature. The actualisation is contingent, relational, and perspectival — the genotype is a theory of what the phenotype could be, and the phenotype is a cut through that theory in a given environment.
Implications for Understanding Biological Systems
Viewing the genotype as structured potential shifts the conversation from “what genes code for” to what genes make possible. It foregrounds relationality, contextuality, and the layered architecture of biological individuation.
It also primes us for evolution: if the genotype is a theory of possible phenotypes, then evolutionary change can be seen not merely as the selection of traits but as the transformation of structured potential itself — the reshaping of the very field of possible individuations.
Transition to Post 2
In the next post, we will explore the role of developmental environments in shaping which potential trajectories are actualised. Phenotypic plasticity is not an exception; it is the norm. Understanding how the environment participates in individuation will allow us to see evolution not as a mechanical process of selection but as the historical transformation of structured potential in action.
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