We now come to the core ecological function of nonsense: preserving surplus potential.
If Post II established that meaning is an ecosystem rather than a hierarchy, Post III asks: how does nonsense occupy its niche?
The answer: by holding indeterminacy in play while maintaining patterned constraint.
1. Surplus as Structural Condition
All meaning systems confront the same structural reality:
Potential exceeds any single instance.
Ordinary discourse, philosophy, or science reduces surplus. It seeks closure, resolution, or stable reference.
Nonsense, by contrast, sustains surplus. It activates patterns without demanding final determination.
-
A poem or a Carrollian narrative does not collapse the field into referents.
-
It actualises locally but leaves global potential intact.
-
The field remains available for further activation.
Surplus is not noise. It is latent structure, the raw material for new construals.
2. Grammar as a Scaffold
Some have assumed that nonsense is anarchic. This is false. Grammar remains the organising principle.
-
Words may be invented, but their syntactic roles are preserved.
-
“Slithy” functions adjectivally.
-
“Toves” functions nominally.
-
Actions like “gyre and gimble” remain verbs.
The impossible content rides on possible structure. Grammar constrains without collapsing potential.
In ecological terms, grammar is the scaffolding that allows surplus to exist without collapse.
The reader’s task is to construe — to activate meaning locally — without exhausting the systemic field.
3. Lexical Edges and Systemic Exploration
Nonsense explores the margins of semantic possibility:
-
Novel word formation
-
Category blurring
-
Improbable collocations
These are not chaotic experiments. They are exploratory traversals of the structured potential space of language.
The “impossible” is a low-probability path through a well-formed system.
By highlighting these edges, nonsense preserves richness that more disciplined discourse would immediately reduce.
4. Controlled Surplus
Importantly, nonsense does not destabilise the system entirely:
-
Syntax is intact
-
Repetition, rhythm, and patterning remain
-
Construal remains guided
It is surplus within bounds. Not every trajectory is activated; the field is preserved for ongoing exploration.
Think of it as a semiotic reserve — a pocket of potential that sustains the ecosystem’s resilience.
5. Why Surplus Matters Ecologically
Surplus is the raw material for:
-
Novel insights
-
Unexpected associations
-
Threshold exploration
-
Adaptive interpretive flexibility
By preserving surplus, nonsense performs a critical ecological function: it prevents semiotic monoculture, ensuring that meaning-making remains dynamic, not rigid.
6. Implications for Reading
When a reader engages with nonsense, they are not merely “decoding nonsense.” They are participating in structured exploration:
-
Construal is local, provisional
-
Surplus is maintained globally
-
Activation occurs without closure
Grammar, rhythm, and pattern act as stabilising scaffolds, allowing the impossible to persist.
In other words: nonsense trains the system itself — not by fixing meaning, but by sustaining it.
Next Step
In Post IV, we will examine thresholds and the managed risk of collapse.
Nonsense preserves surplus — but every system has limits. The next post asks: how does nonsense operate at the edge, where over-constrained expectation could produce systemic catastrophe?
No comments:
Post a Comment