1 From Dissipation to Directionality — Entropy and the Patterning of Possibility
In the previous posts, we reimagined force not as an external agent of push and pull, but as a pattern of deviation from systemic potential — a relational shift within structured possibilities. We saw how Newton’s laws and Einstein’s curvature could be reframed in this light, and how quantum theory introduced the role of potentiality, actualisation, and observation. With this unified relational ontology of force and causation in hand, we now turn to a concept traditionally seen as a limit to order and complexity: entropy.
Entropy as Constraint or Reconfiguration?
In classical thermodynamics, entropy is often presented as the harbinger of disorder — the measure of unavailable energy, of microstates, of systemic decay. The Second Law, in this view, governs a universe trending irreversibly toward equilibrium, where differences are smoothed out and distinctions dissolve. But this framing rests on a particular ontology: one that treats systems as aggregates of parts, and change as the movement of energy through inert matter.
Our relational ontology opens another view.
If we begin not with objects but with processes, and not with substance but with structured potential, then entropy no longer represents disorder in a static system. It becomes, instead, a transformation in the space of possibilities — a reconfiguration of what can be actualised within a given relational field. Entropy, in this light, is not the erosion of order but the modulation of meaningful process.
Relational Potential and the Grammar of Change
Processes unfold within systems of relation. When energy is redistributed — as in the diffusion of a gas, or the flow of heat from hot to cold — what changes is not just a physical state, but the relational coherence of future unfolding.
A high-energy configuration (a compressed spring, a hot object) has many pathways for further process: it is rich in potential. As that energy dissipates, the system transitions to states where fewer meaningful transformations remain available. But this isn’t disorder — it’s a shift in which patterns are viable.
We might say:
The Second Law is not about the inevitable approach to chaos, but about the directionality of actualisation within a relational space.Entropy marks a constraint on what kinds of processes can be realised, not a loss of structure but a shift in its affordances.
This recalls the grammar of a language: not everything is possible, but what is possible is patterned, systemically constrained, and deeply meaningful.
Dissipation as the Condition for Patterned Emergence
Far from resisting entropy, the complex systems of biology, cognition, and culture seem to dance with it.
Life does not violate the Second Law — it channels it. Organisms maintain local order and complexity by participating in larger dissipative flows. A tree, for example, harnesses photons to construct intricate chemical structures, but in doing so, it increases the entropy of its environment. It sustains its internal patterning by acting as a conduit for larger-scale dissipation.
In this light:
-
Entropy is not opposed to emergence, but enables it.
-
Complexity does not grow despite dissipation, but because of it.
-
Local reductions in entropy are part of a broader systemic shift — where new patterns arise to accommodate and channel energetic flow.
From our relational standpoint, force becomes pattern, causation becomes actualisation, and entropy becomes the grammar of what can still unfold.
Semiotic Entropy and the Meaning of Change
These insights invite an expansion beyond physics.
In our earlier posts, we emphasised that meaning arises in patterned relation — that the actualisation of potential follows not arbitrary motion, but semiotic organisation. Might we then speak of semiotic entropy — the constraint on a system’s capacity to mean?
Indeed, every process of meaning-making — whether in language, culture, or thought — involves a narrowing of options. To say one thing is to not say another. To adopt a pattern is to exclude others. Yet this reduction is not loss; it is selection, delicacy, instantiation. Semiotic entropy, then, becomes the shaping of meaning potential — a shift not toward disorder, but toward a new configuration of resonance.
Looking Ahead
In reinterpreting entropy as a transformation of potential, we uncover a richer view of thermodynamics — not as a tale of decline, but as a story of unfolding constraints, of the systemic reorganisation of what can be realised. From this relational perspective, the Second Law speaks not of the end of structure, but of its continual recalibration.
This post opens the way to further explorations. If entropy is not the death of meaning, but its modulation, then what might this imply for:
-
Biological evolution — as a history of emergent pattern under constraint?
-
Cognition and consciousness — as dynamic equilibria of semiotic potential?
In the next post, we begin with the evolutionary implications — tracing how life itself may be seen as the structured expression of entropy’s direction, actualising possibility in forms both adaptive and meaningful.
2 Evolution as the Actualisation of Potential — A Relational Ontology of Life
In previous posts, we traced a path from Newtonian mechanics through Einstein’s geometric revolution to quantum entanglements of potential and observation — culminating in a unified relational ontology of force and causation. We now turn to a different, yet equally profound, domain: biological evolution. Can we reinterpret the evolutionary process not merely as a competition for survival, but as the actualisation of relational potential within a dynamic ecology of meaning and becoming?
From Selection to Actualisation
Darwin’s theory of natural selection reframed biology in terms of differential survival: traits that confer an advantage in a given environment are more likely to be passed on. But this framing tends to suggest a linear causality — as if the environment imposes constraints and organisms adapt in response, almost mechanistically.
Our relational ontology invites a different view. Rather than seeing the environment as a set of external forces acting upon passive organisms, we see both organism and environment as co-constituted: relational instances of potential, becoming actual in their mutual interaction.
In this framing, evolution is not the result of external pressures alone. It is the unfolding of possible configurations of life — a dance of constraints and affordances, where every organismal trait is both a response to and a contributor toward the shifting space of potential.
The Organism as a Relational Node
Every organism is a point of intersection in a web of relations — ecological, genetic, behavioural, semiotic. It is not a static entity, but a dynamic pattern of becoming. The genome, rather than being a blueprint, is a reservoir of potential whose actualisation depends on context: epigenetic influences, cellular microenvironments, developmental histories.
Selection, then, is not merely eliminative but generative. It filters actualisations of potential — and in so doing, reshapes the relational space in which new potentials emerge. Variation is not noise but the condition of emergence: the opening of new paths through the landscape of the possible.
Toward a Processual Biology
Traditional evolutionary theory tends to focus on entities (genes, species, traits) and their statistical distributions over time. But a relational approach foregrounds processes: the continuous reconfiguration of relations that define and redefine what counts as a viable form of life.
This aligns with recent trends in evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), ecological evolutionary theory, and biosemiotics — all of which resist the atomistic, gene-centric view in favour of more integrated, relational models.
In such models, causation is no longer a push from the past but a pull from the possible — a shaping attractor in the space of developmental and ecological potential. Evolution, in this view, becomes the history of such attractors: of those relational patterns that, once instantiated, reshape the field of future actualisations.
Looking Ahead
Having reinterpreted thermodynamics and evolution through the lens of relational actualisation, we might next explore how these principles apply to the emergence of consciousness and meaning-making itself. Can mind, too, be seen as a patterned relation — an attractor in the unfolding of potential within a semiotic universe?
That’s where we’ll go next.
3 The Emergence of Mind — Consciousness as Semiotic Actualisation
In our journey through force and causation, we have followed relational patterns across physics, thermodynamics, and biological evolution. Each domain has revealed its processes not as the outcomes of isolated pushes and pulls, but as structured actualisations of relational potential. We now approach perhaps the most enigmatic domain of all: consciousness. What does a relational ontology reveal when applied to the emergence of mind? Can thought, awareness, and meaning be understood within this evolving tapestry of patterned becoming?
From Brain to Mind: Beyond the Mechanistic Metaphor
Traditional cognitive science often describes the brain as a machine — processing inputs, computing outputs, and storing representations. But this mechanistic framing fails to capture the lived texture of experience — the feel of thought, intention, and interpretation.
A relational ontology reframes the question: not what causes consciousness, but how does it emerge as a patterned relation — as an actualisation of potential within a relational field?
The brain, in this view, is not an isolated computer but a self-organising material system embedded in — and constituted by — its dynamic relations with body, environment, and social world. The mind is not in the brain; it is instantiated through the unfolding of relational processes that the brain participates in and constrains.
Consciousness as Semiotic Process
We draw here on Hallidayan linguistics and Edelman’s Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. From this combined perspective, consciousness arises as the semiotic actualisation of experiential potential. That is:
-
The brain selects and reinforces neuronal patterns not arbitrarily, but in relation to structured histories of interaction.
-
These patterns become systems of meaning potential — systems that can be further instantiated in the unfolding of thought, perception, and behaviour.
-
Consciousness, then, is the symbolic construal of experience, emerging from — and feeding back into — this relational field.
It is not merely that we have experiences; it is that we mean them — and it is in the structuring of this meaning that consciousness takes form.
The Semiotic Universe of Mind
Mind is the site where potential becomes patterned — where a myriad of virtual affordances condense into the singularity of attention, interpretation, or action. This is not a reductive causality, but a semiotic unfolding:
-
Attention is the focusing of relational potential.
-
Interpretation is the construal of patterns in relation to meaning systems.
-
Action is the material actualisation of meaning in the world.
In this sense, consciousness is not an entity but a process: the instantiation of semiotic potential within a history of relational constraints.
Individuation and the Personal Meaning Field
Earlier, we reframed evolution as the shaping of meaning potential within biological systems. In consciousness, this individuation continues: each mind becomes a unique attractor in the space of semiotic possibility. The individual does not stand apart from the systems of meaning it inherits — language, culture, embodiment — but instantiates these systems anew in every moment of thought and speech.
Consciousness, then, is not private in its origin, but particular in its instantiation. It is where the collective symbolic order becomes uniquely actual.
Consciousness as the Semiotic Horizon of Force
In Newton, force was a push. In Einstein, a curvature. In quantum theory, a potential that becomes actual through observation. In life, a path through constraint toward new forms. In mind, force becomes intention — the shaping of becoming through meaning.
Just as gravity guides the motion of matter through curved spacetime, intention guides the motion of meaning through the curved topologies of semiotic systems. Consciousness, then, is not the cause of meaning, but its apex — the point where potential, pattern, and purpose converge.
Looking Ahead
Having reached the horizon of mind, we might now ask: what unites these domains of force, entropy, evolution, and consciousness? Can we model their common structure — not just metaphorically, but formally, as patterns of constraint and possibility?
In the next post, we’ll return to this question and attempt a synthesis: a view of the relational universe as a self-structuring system of semiotic actualisation — governed not by mechanical causality, but by the patterned pull of potential itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment