The Becoming of Possibility: Opening the Field

Everything we have just dismantled — images, beliefs, selves, free will, truth, ethics, consciousness — was an attempt to stabilise the world within us. Once those stabilisations are removed, we are left not with emptiness, but with possibility itself.

Possibility is the substrate of relational existence. It is not somewhere “inside” the mind. It is the space in which coordinated activity, meaning, and experience emerge. Possibility is always actualised perspectivally, never pre-given, never stored, never contained.

Possibility as Relational Field

To say that something is possible is to say that:

• it can be enacted in a relational system

• it is coherent with stabilised distinctions

• it is actionable, interpretable, or recognisable

• it opens new patterns of coordination without collapsing old ones

Possibility is not hypothetical. It is dynamic actualisability. It exists in the moment of relational negotiation, not in a repository of “what could be.”

From Constraints to Opportunity

Possibility is not unlimited. It is always structured by:

• historical patterns

• social coordination

• material and situational affordances

• linguistic and semiotic frameworks

These constraints are not limitations of freedom; they are what give possibility its shape. Possibility is never free-floating. It is scaffolded.

The Role of Relational Cuts

Each relational cut — the act of stabilising distinctions — generates both:

• closure: a coherent actualisation

• opening: new potential for further cuts

Possibility is the interplay between closure and opening. Every moment of understanding, decision, or coordination actualises a cut, which simultaneously constrains and enables the next moment. This is the engine of becoming.

Possibility Without Inner Repositories

Traditional metaphysics assumes that potential exists either in objects (the world contains possibilities) or in subjects (the mind contains them). Relational ontology shows that possibility is distributed across relations, emerging when systems interact, not stored anywhere.

• A melody exists as a possibility when performers, instruments, and listeners intersect.

• A scientific hypothesis exists as a possibility when observation, reasoning, and communicative practice intersect.

• An ethical action exists as a possibility when norms, actors, and contexts intersect.

No interior containers are required. No metaphysical “could have been” is invoked. Possibility is actualised in the relational field.

Possibility as the Continuity of Becoming

The becoming of possibility is continuous. It is:

• generative: producing new patterns

• contingent: responsive to context

• relational: dependent on coordination

• open-ended: always capable of novelty

This is why creativity, innovation, and knowledge are never fully predictable. They are not stored, retrieved, or manufactured internally. They are grown in the ongoing interplay of relations.

Implications for Knowledge, Value, and Action

Once possibility is central:

• Knowledge is not accumulated. It is surfaced, stabilised, and extended through relational practice.

• Value is not intrinsic or symbolic. It is emergent, contingent on ongoing coordination.

• Action is not executed by a hidden agent. It is actualised in relation, constrained but never determined by prior cuts.

The horizon of human life becomes a dynamic interplay of actualisations, stabilisations, and openings — a landscape of becoming rather than a museum of mental objects.

The Cut Ahead

This post opens the door. The next instalments in the series can explore:

• Coordination and Culture: How social systems structure and extend possibility

• Language and Semiotics: How meaning itself evolves through relational cuts

• Ethics and Value Systems: How norms and practices emerge and stabilise

• Technology and Knowledge: How human innovation expands the field of possibility

The becoming of possibility is not abstract. It is happening now, in every interaction, every distinction made, every coordination stabilised. It is the most ordinary and the most extraordinary fact of existence.