We have followed worlds from their first actualisation in living systems, through the disciplined constraints of physics, to the stabilising and narrowing power of language. We have seen that worlds overlap, sometimes align, sometimes fail to couple. Now we reach the series’ culmination: worlds without foundations.
No single world, no privileged perspective
Throughout this series, the temptation to appeal to a singular, foundational world has been evident. It is a seductive thought: if we could find the one true world, disagreements would vanish, and coordination would be effortless. Relationally, however, this is incoherent. There is no neutral vantage point from which all worlds can be accessed. There are only systems enacting worlds under constraint.
Coordination without reduction
This does not preclude alignment. Systems can coordinate their cuts to achieve partial, stable overlap. Physics, biology, language, culture — each can interact, synchronise, and even co-stabilise phenomena. But such coordination is structural, not foundational. It arises from the compatibility of constraints, not from appeal to an external truth.
The implication is profound: there is no ultimate arbiter of reality. What exists for a system is what its constraints allow it to hold as real. Coordination is negotiated, maintained, and sometimes transient.
Relinquishing the foundation
Worlds without foundations embrace contingency and multiplicity. They recognise that stability is local, objectivity is contextual, and meaning precedes symbols. The pursuit of a single, encompassing world is replaced by attentiveness to how systems cut possibility, how constraints interact, and how overlaps emerge.
This is not relativism. Systems are not equal in all respects, nor is every coordination trivial. It is a disciplined acceptance of non-foundationality: understanding that existence, intelligibility, and meaning are always perspectival, actualised, and constrained.
Series conclusion
From first phenomena in living systems, through disciplined physics, to the stabilising effects of language, we have traced the architecture of worlds. We have seen how they are made, maintained, and occasionally collide. We have come to the edge where no single world can claim supremacy.
Worlds are not given.
Worlds are not discovered.
Worlds are made.
They are made by systems.
And they hold because of constraints, couplings, and actualisation — not because of foundations.
From this vantage, the path forward opens to exploration of new mythos, ethics, and coordination. Systems can continue to enact, align, and diverge — with no ultimate world required to anchor them.
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