Hunting the Snark: Ontology at the Edge of Meaning: 3 Collective Construal and Distributed Individuation

No one hunts alone. The Snark is a system; the crew its field.

The Bellman charts, the Baker navigates, the Butcher notes, the Banker measures.

Individually, they are placeholders.

Collectively, they are a distributed construal, coordinating attention, expectation, and differentiation across a field of pure potential.

Each role is a perspectival cut, a partial actualisation, a node in a relational network that sustains the hunt without ever stabilising the Snark as object.

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1. Roles as Distributed Vectors

In representational readings, the crew are whimsical personalities.

Relationally, they are functional positions, necessary for the integrity of the hunting system:

Role	Function in Relational System	Cut Type
Bellman	Organises the field; directs attention	Systemic
Baker	Navigates potential paths; explores corridors	Actualising
Butcher	Differentiates signals; marks distinctions	Analytic
Banker	Measures density and probability; sustains structural constraints	Regulative
Others	Provide redundancy, feedback, and resilience	Distributed

• Clinical: Each role is a vector in the field of construal. Individuation is perspectival; identity is functional, not psychological.

• Satirical: Victorian readers expect heroes and villains; Carroll offers a role hierarchy that is perfectly absurd but structurally elegant.

• Mischievous: The text implicates the reader: by following the narrative, you are already assuming a functional cut in the system.

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2. The Hunt as Relational Process

Hunting the Snark is not chasing a thing. It is managing density across a distributed network:

• Roles coordinate to maintain system integrity.

• Individual actions are meaningful only in relation to others’ cuts.

• The potential (the Snark) only persists because the network of construal is active.

Without distributed attention, the field collapses. Without cuts, the Snark cannot exist.

This formalises the hunt as systemic generativity, not representational pursuit.

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3. Satirical Undercurrent: The Illusion of Autonomy

Each crew member seems autonomous.

Each seems to act independently.

Yet their autonomy is illusory: meaning only emerges in relation to the system.

• The Bellman may order.

• The Baker may explore.

• But neither can sustain the field alone.

This mocks the human tendency to overemphasise individuality: the absurdity is that agency is always distributed, yet Victorian narrative seeks heroes.

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4. Mischievous Layer: Reader as Node

You, the reader, now have multiple roles:

• Observer: noting structural relations.

• Participant: your construal contributes to the relational field.

• Potential victim: mismanaged density may collapse your expectation (Boojum logic, imminent).

Every inference you make, every mental image of the Snark, is a cut.

You are not outside the system. You are already inside it.

The series itself enacts the principle: distributed construal extends beyond the page.

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5. Towards Catastrophe: Preparing for Boojum Logic

Distributed individuation is a precursor to density catastrophe:

• If the system is intact, potential remains generative.

• If a cut exceeds system absorption, a Boojum emerges: the Baker vanishes, the relational field partially collapses.

• The network must maintain both stability and flexibility — density without catastrophic actualisation.

The reader has now felt the first tension: a generative network sustained through distributed construal, yet teetering at the edge of collapse.

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The Snark is not alone. Neither are you.

Each role, each node, each construal contributes to a delicate equilibrium — a field alive with possibility.

And within this field, the next cut will test the limits.