Building on the insights of structured potential and perspectival cuts, we now examine construal in practice: the way events, outcomes, and meanings are instantiated across diverse domains. Construal is the process by which possibilities are selected, differentiated, and rendered intelligible. It is where relational ontology moves from principle to practice.
The Mechanics of Construal
Construal is not mere interpretation; it is the active process by which potential becomes actual. It involves three intertwined components:
Selection: Choosing among the possibilities available within a system’s structured potential.
Differentiation: Drawing distinctions that define the actuality of events, entities, or outcomes.
Constraint Awareness: Operating within the boundaries that render choices coherent and intelligible.
Without these components, neither events nor meanings can emerge. Construal is therefore both epistemic and ontological: it defines what occurs and how it can be known or understood.
Biological Systems: Construal in Evolution
In biology, construal manifests as the interplay between genetic variation and environmental constraint. Mutations introduce potential; selection actualises some and not others. Ecosystems impose constraints, shaping the range of viable possibilities. The organism that emerges is a product of these perspectival cuts: it is neither wholly determined by prior states nor wholly random, but actualised through structured, relational processes.
Here, relational ontology illuminates the subtle dynamics of emergence: the event of an organism’s existence is not a mere outcome, but a construed actuality within a field of potentiality.
Social Systems: Construal in Coordination
Social life is similarly structured. Interactions, norms, and institutions emerge from a landscape of possible actions. Individuals and groups enact cuts when they interpret rules, negotiate expectations, and actualise decisions. Construal here makes social reality intelligible, revealing the dependence of outcomes on perspective, position, and relational constraints.
For example, the emergence of a law or social convention is not simply a reflection of a pre-existing reality; it is the result of collective perspectival cuts that render certain behaviours permissible, expected, or consequential.
Symbolic Systems: Construal in Meaning
Language, mathematics, and other symbolic systems are landscapes of potentiality constrained by grammar, semantics, and shared convention. Meaning arises when choices among symbolic possibilities are actualised. Each utterance, formula, or sign is a perspectival cut, a deliberate instantiation from a field of potential meanings.
Relational ontology emphasises that meaning is inseparable from the act of construal. It is neither purely subjective nor fully objective; it exists where constraints, possibilities, and actualisations intersect.
Generalising the Pattern
Across these domains, the pattern is clear:
Potential exists within constraints.
Cuts are made to actualise events and meanings.
Responsibility emerges from recognition of constraints and the act of selection.
This is the operational core of relational ontology: it is not a static description of reality, but a practical methodology for engaging responsibly with structured potential.
Toward Responsible Engagement
Understanding construal allows us to recognise where responsibility resides. Every actualisation—whether a physical measurement, a biological development, a social act, or a symbolic utterance—carries implicit commitments. Awareness of these commitments is the first step toward responsible action.
The next post will examine the ethics of actualisation, showing how relational ontology guides engagement with structured potential in a way that respects both possibility and constraint, and avoids the evasions that have historically plagued discussions of reality in physics and beyond.
No comments:
Post a Comment