Relational Ontology of Evolving Potential: 2 The Recognition Moment — Relational Ontology Emerges

In exploring structured potential beyond semiotics, a pattern becomes unmistakable. Across domains — cultural, technological, social — the same dynamics recur:

• Actualisation narrows potential along a vertical cline

• Variation across actors produces a lateral density distribution

• Repeated engagement reshapes density over time, producing development, evolution, sedimentation, and innovation

These dynamics are systematic, invariant, and relational. They do not depend on language, text, or symbolic representation. The semiotic case is merely one instantiation of a more general principle.

1. Naming the Principle

We can now state it calmly, without rhetorical fanfare:

What we have observed is a relational ontology of evolving potential.

This term captures the essential idea:

• Relational — meaning and possibility emerge from the interplay between structure, instances, and agents; no element is independent

• Ontology — this is a domain-general framework describing what exists as structured potential, not a specific semiotic system

• Evolving potential — density redistribution, sedimentation, and thinning drive ongoing transformation

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2. Implications of the Relational Ontology

1. Predictable dynamism: Any structured system with repeated actualisation will exhibit patterned redistribution of potential.

2. Historical contingency: The density landscape is shaped by past actualisations, producing sedimentation and tradition in any domain.

3. Space for novelty: Thin regions of density are the loci of emergent innovation, guiding system evolution without external imposition.

4. Universality without reductionism: The principle applies across domains, yet preserves the specificity of each instance and context.

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3. Visualising the Ontology

We can extend the vertical/lateral/temporal axes introduced in semiotic systems:

• Vertical: potential → actualisation

• Lateral: variation across agents, entities, or loci

• Temporal: cumulative evolution and reweighting

Every system is thus a dynamic topology of possibility, continuously shaped by density redistribution.

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4. Calm, Systematic Revelation

By framing the principle in this way, the word ontology is neither sensational nor forced. It emerges as the natural abstraction of observed relational patterns. The semiotic case is exemplary, but the logic is domain-independent.

In the next posts, we will explore how this relational ontology manifests across:

• Multiple instances interacting in parallel or sequentially

• Historical accumulation of patterns

• Emergent structures of stability and novelty

This sets the stage for a full exploration of topology, innovation, and collective evolution in general potential fields, completing the bridge from semiotics to a domain-general ontology.