We have established two things.
A system has a potential: a structured field of possibilities.
An event can be an instance: one particular actualisation within that field.
But possibility alone does not give us value.
A system can actualise one possibility rather than another without either possibility mattering very much.
So we can now ask the question at the heart of this post:
When does a difference matter?
The answer begins with consequence.
A difference matters when its particularity makes a consequential difference to the organisation of a system.
That sounds simple.
But it takes us into the origins of value.
Not every difference matters
The world is full of differences.
One patch of light differs from another.
The air changes temperature.
A sound occurs.
A chemical concentration rises.
A movement takes place.
Most of these differences are irrelevant to most systems.
Others are consequential.
A tiny change in temperature can affect an organism's regulation.
A faint sound can redirect attention.
A chemical trace can trigger a behavioural response.
A subtle change in rhythm can alter an entire musical performance.
The size of the difference is therefore not what makes it matter.
What matters is its consequence within an organised system.
We can put the idea simply:
A difference matters when it changes what the system can do, become or maintain.
Value is relational
This means that value is not simply a property of an object.
A sound does not possess value in isolation.
It matters to an organism.
A gesture matters within an interaction.
A musical event matters within a performance.
A place matters within a history of relations.
The same event can therefore matter differently in different systems.
A sound that means nothing to one listener may be immensely important to another.
A temperature change that is trivial for one organism may be dangerous for another.
Value is relational because consequence is relational.
Something matters to something.
Biological value
This brings us to the biological roots of value.
Gerald Edelman's idea of biological value is useful here because it locates value within the organisation of living systems rather than treating it as a later psychological addition.
An organism cannot respond equally to every possible state.
Its continued organisation depends upon differences among conditions.
Some support viability.
Some threaten it.
Some changes recruit responses.
Others do not.
The organism therefore inhabits a world that is already differentially structured according to consequence.
It does not first encounter a completely neutral world and then add value to it.
Its organisation has already made some differences matter.
Mattering without evaluation
This does not require conscious judgement.
An organism need not think:
This is valuable.
A change in temperature can affect it before it knows anything about temperature.
A sound can alter its behaviour before it identifies its source.
A chemical signal can change its internal state without ever becoming a symbolic representation.
Value is therefore not synonymous with preference.
It is a feature of the organisation of a system that some differences have greater consequences than others.
This is one reason mattering is a useful term.
It allows us to talk about significance without assuming a mind standing outside the event and evaluating it.
A world of differential consequence
We can therefore imagine a living system as inhabiting a field in which possibilities are not equivalent.
Some states are easier to maintain.
Some are dangerous.
Some changes open possibilities.
Others close them.
The system is organised around these differences.
Its responses are selective.
Its history matters.
Its present condition matters.
The same event can therefore have different consequences depending on the state of the system encountering it.
Mattering is dynamic.
It is not simply a fixed property of a stimulus.
The instance matters because it changes the future
This returns us to the distinction from the previous post.
An instance is one actualisation within a potential.
Why should that actualisation matter?
Because it can alter the possibilities that follow.
A particular event changes what the system can do next.
A nutrient makes some metabolic processes possible.
A threatening movement makes escape more urgent.
A musical phrase changes what can plausibly follow.
A word changes the possibilities of a conversation.
Mattering is therefore closely connected to future possibility.
An instance matters partly because it changes the field from which subsequent instances can arise.
The actual enters the history of the possible.
Music makes this particularly clear
Consider a musical phrase.
A performer begins with a potential for many possible continuations.
A particular chord is played.
That chord changes what the listener expects.
A phrase can establish a direction.
A delay can prolong it.
A deviation can disrupt it.
A return can fulfil an expectation.
The musical event matters because it changes the possibilities of the music that follows.
This is a form of value that does not depend upon symbolic representation.
The event is significant because of its position within an organised temporal system.
The groove
The same principle operates socially within an ensemble.
A drummer's timing affects the bassist.
The bassist responds.
The drummer hears the response.
Other players adjust.
The listeners become coupled to the resulting pattern.
A tiny difference in timing can change the character of the whole performance.
The difference matters because it reorganises relationships.
This is not merely an individual response.
It is value distributed across a system of interaction.
The groove is a particularly vivid example of socially emergent value.
Its significance is not contained in any one player's action.
It arises from the consequences that circulate among the participants.
From organism to organism
This brings us to an important expansion of the idea of value.
Within an organism, a difference can matter because it alters internal organisation.
Between organisms, a difference can matter because it alters interaction.
One organism becomes part of another's environment.
A movement can attract or repel.
A sound can recruit or inhibit.
A posture can invite or threaten.
A gesture can coordinate action.
Mattering has therefore become interorganism.
The value of an instance can now belong partly to the relation between systems.
And this is where the possibility of signalling begins to emerge.
The social difference
Suppose one organism changes its behaviour and another responds.
The response changes the first organism's possibilities.
The first adjusts again.
The second responds again.
The interaction develops a pattern.
What began as an event has become part of a relation.
Now a particular instance can matter not merely because of its effect on one organism but because it changes the organisation of the interaction itself.
A social system is beginning to appear.
This does not yet require symbolic meaning.
Coordination can emerge through differences that matter.
Repetition gives value a history
An instance can also become significant through repetition.
A single event may matter intensely and then disappear.
A recurring event becomes familiar.
Familiarity creates expectation.
Expectation changes the consequences of subsequent instances.
A repeated pattern can become socially stabilised.
A practice can form.
The significance of the original difference may become part of a history.
This gives us a possible pathway:
mattering → repetition → expectation → practice
The sequence is not inevitable.
But it shows how value can become durable.
From private significance to shared significance
A difference may initially matter only to one organism.
Over time, similar relations can matter to several.
A particular place can become important to a community.
A song can become associated with an event.
A ritual action can acquire collective significance.
A musical pattern can become part of a shared practice.
The value is no longer merely individual.
It is becoming social.
This is one of the ways culture accumulates.
It does not begin with an archive of symbols.
It can begin with histories of what has mattered.
Repertoire and what can become salient
Our previous discussion of meaning potential gives us one further insight.
Participants do not all encounter a cultural world with identical resources.
Their repertoires differ.
This affects which distinctions they can readily notice and construe.
A trained musician may hear a rhythmic relation that another listener barely notices.
Someone familiar with a tradition may recognise a gesture that appears ordinary to an outsider.
A scientific observer may notice a pattern in an image that another person sees only as noise.
This means that repertoire shapes the field of possible salience.
But it is important not to confuse salience with value.
A distinction can be available for noticing without being consequential.
So we can preserve the distinction:
repertoire shapes access to distinctions; consequence makes a distinction matter.
Mattering is not interpretation
This distinction also prevents us from making value dependent upon conscious interpretation.
An organism can respond before it interprets.
A performer can coordinate without verbalising what they are doing.
A listener can feel rhythmic tension without formulating a theory of harmony.
A social practice can persist without an explicit account of its value.
Meaning may later provide such an account.
But mattering can precede it.
This is why the emergence of meaning must be explained from a world that already possesses organised value.
When value becomes social
As patterns of mattering stabilise, they can become part of shared practice.
A group may learn what to attend to.
What to avoid.
What to repeat.
What to celebrate.
What to protect.
The significance of an instance becomes distributed across the social system.
At this point, one organism's production of a particular instance can matter predictably to others.
And that gives us a new possibility:
signalling.
The signal
A signal is an instance that matters within a relation between systems.
A sound can recruit a response.
A gesture can alter another organism's behaviour.
A rhythmic cue can coordinate an ensemble.
The crucial point is that the signal need not represent anything.
Its significance lies in its consequences.
We can represent the basic relation like this:
instance → changed disposition
The receiver does not have to formulate a symbolic interpretation.
The instance matters because it changes what the receiver can or is likely to do.
That is enough for signalling.
Signal before sign
The distinction between signal and sign will become central to the rest of our investigation.
A signal can matter without meaning.
A sign can mean because it participates in a semiotic system.
The sign is not simply a stronger or more sophisticated signal.
It introduces a new kind of organisation.
The difference becomes available not merely to response but to symbolic construal.
We are now approaching the threshold at which mattering becomes meaning.
But the transition is not automatic
Not every signal becomes a sign.
A bird's alarm call can be highly effective without becoming symbolic in the human sense.
A rhythmic cue can coordinate a performance without representing anything.
A repeated social behaviour can become habitual without becoming a sign.
Mattering can stabilise.
Signalling can stabilise.
And yet semiosis need not follow.
The emergence of meaning therefore requires something additional.
We will need to ask what kind of system can make a difference available as a difference that can be construed.
What we have learned so far
We began with possibility.
A potential provides structured alternatives.
An instance actualises one of them.
Now we have added value.
An instance matters when its particularity has consequences for the organisation of a system.
Those consequences can occur within an organism.
They can occur between organisms.
They can become socially distributed.
Repeated significance can produce expectation and practice.
And when a consequential difference operates between systems, signalling becomes possible.
We have therefore moved from:
possibility → actuality
to:
actuality → consequence → value → signalling
The next step is the decisive one.
At some point, a difference that matters may become available not merely to response but to construal.
Something can begin to function not only as an event that changes what another system does, but as a form through which something can be understood.
That is where the sign appears.
When does a signal become a sign?
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