Why meaning is neither mental nor value
Having established the architecture of system, instance, and actualisation, we are now positioned to confront the problem of meaning — not as an addition to physics, but as a structural feature of intelligibility itself.
Meaning as relational condition
Meaning arises whenever phenomena are actualised through cuts within systems. It is not a property of minds, nor a value judgment, nor a social convention. Rather, it is the set of relational constraints that make a phenomenon intelligible within its context.
Every cut presupposes a framework in which distinctions are coherent. Every instance presupposes a system that stabilises potentialities. Meaning is precisely this coherence: the structural condition under which something can be recognised, articulated, and distinguished as a phenomenon.
Why meaning is not mental
It is tempting to equate meaning with consciousness or cognition. This is a category error. Meaning is present wherever cuts stabilise distinctions — whether in a human observation, a detector, or a chemical interaction. Consciousness makes meaning experienced, but does not generate it. The relational structure that produces intelligibility exists independently of any mind.
Why meaning is not value
Meaning is also distinct from value, social coordination, or biological fitness. Those are systems of evaluation and preference. Relational meaning is purely structural: it arises from the necessary conditions that render phenomena intelligible. A phenomenon can be meaningful without being valuable or preferred. Value systems are contingent; relational meaning is necessary for intelligibility.
Physics made it visible
Modern physics forced the presuppositions of meaning into view. Bohr, Heisenberg, and Wheeler highlighted the limits of description, the constitutive nature of observation, and the interdependence of observer and observed. They did not, however, provide a structural account of meaning itself.
Relational ontology shows that meaning is embedded in the very act of actualising phenomena. It is the relational glue that makes system, cut, and instance intelligible. Without meaning, cuts would be arbitrary, instances would be unintelligible, and systems would remain unactualised potential.
Structural payoff
Recognising meaning as relational constraint completes the core architecture introduced in this series:
Systems define potential.
Cuts define actualisation.
Instances are perspectival actualisations.
Meaning ensures the intelligibility of these phenomena.
Nothing mental, social, or moral is required. Meaning is a structural property of relational existence itself.
In the next instalment, we will examine limits and incompleteness, showing how paradox and self-reference arise naturally within this framework, and why such limits are not failures but constitutive features of intelligibility.
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