Beyond the Element: A Relational Reframe of the Periodic Table

1 The Periodic Table as a Semiotic Construct

In our relational ontology, grounded in the cline of instantiation and the unfolding of process, even the most familiar scientific artefacts can be re-seen. The periodic table is no longer a map of objectively existing substances. It is a semiotic system: a structured construal of meaning potential that instantiates through patterns of interaction within and across fields of unfolding.

We begin by asking not what an element is, but how it is instantiated. An element is not a substance, nor even a particle configuration. It is a relational affordance—a field of potential interactions made actual in specific unfolding processes. The identity of an element like carbon or oxygen does not reside in an atom as an independently existing object. It emerges through configurations of unfolding fields—primarily electromagnetic and quantum—and is construed by observers through experimental, technological, and theoretical systems.

The periodic table itself is a semiotic construal of these potentials. It does not represent the elements as things, but rather organises them according to patterns of resonance and coherence across fields. What recurs is not an object but a configuration: similar patterns of orbital stability, bonding capacity, or energetic transformation. These are not fixed properties but probabilistic patterns—meaning potentials instantiated under specific material and experimental conditions.

From this view, the periodicity of the table reflects not the existence of a hidden structure of matter, but the regularities in how different configurations of potential unfold. These regularities are relational: they depend on how processes interact, not on any inner essence. The table, then, is not a periodic table of substances, but of unfolding constraints and affordances—a catalogue of relational coherence.

Moreover, the very classification of an “element” requires observer participation. It depends on how scientists choose to stabilise patterns of measurement, identify boundaries of coherence, and assign symbolic identity. The periodic table thus sits at the intersection of material and semiotic systems: it is a meaning system that organises biological and technological engagements with the material field.

In this light, each element is an instance of meaning, drawn from the collective potential of chemical experience. Like all meaning systems, the periodic table is not a window onto reality as it is, but a coordinated construal of experience—a way of making sense of patterns that repeat, resonate, and endure.

In the next post, we’ll explore how these configurations form and stabilise—how coherence is achieved not by intrinsic identity, but by configuration across interacting fields.

2 Configurations of Coherence — How Elements Stabilise Across Fields

If elements are not fixed substances but configurations of unfolding potential, then we must ask: how do these configurations stabilise? What gives rise to the relative regularity and durability that allows us to speak of “hydrogen,” “oxygen,” or “gold” as if they were discrete entities?

In our relational ontology, coherence does not result from essential properties, but from the persistence of relational patterns across interacting fields. For chemical elements, these patterns are stabilised configurations of quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear fields, structured by constraints such as charge balance, spin symmetry, and energy quantisation.

What we traditionally call an “atom” is itself a field configuration—not a nucleus orbited by particles, but a resonance between potentials. The so-called “orbitals” are not miniature planetary systems, but probability topologies: wave-structured regions of potential in which the presence of matter-energy can be instantiated. What stabilises is not a particle in motion, but the pattern of resonance between nucleus and electron fields—a pattern that resists transformation under a given range of interactions.

From this perspective, the coherence of an element arises not within a single structure, but across systems of relation. A hydrogen atom is not defined by an independently existing proton and electron, but by the persistent field relations that give rise to their observable properties. If these relations were to destabilise—if energy input shifts the configuration—the “hydrogen-ness” of the system ceases to hold. Instantiation shifts to a different region of potential.

This process is deeply context-dependent. Coherence only holds under specific conditions: of temperature, pressure, field intensity, and system isolation. The fact that elements behave “predictably” is not evidence of essential identity, but of the repeatability of coherent constraints under shared experimental affordances.

This view also casts new light on chemical bonding. Molecules form not by combining solid pieces, but by co-instantiating patterns of shared field resonance. Covalent bonds are not threads of matter, but stabilised overlaps of potential topologies, where multiple nuclei and electron fields unfold coherently. Ionic and metallic bonds instantiate different forms of coherence—through long-range electrostatic patterns or delocalised field sharing.

Importantly, these configurations are semiotically construed: the concepts of “valence,” “reactivity,” and “electronegativity” are all meaning instances in a disciplinary semiotic system. They emerge not from matter itself, but from patterns we observe, formalise, and teach.

The coherence of an element, then, is always both material and semiotic: a relational pattern in the unfolding of fields, and a symbolic pattern in the construal of knowledge.

In the next post, we will examine how this system of relations becomes systematised into the periodic table—a meta-semiotic framework for organising and predicting the relational affordances of the elements.

3 Reading the Table — Periodicity as Semiotic System

If the chemical elements are stabilised field configurations—coherent patterns in the unfolding of quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear potentials—then the periodic table is not a map of things, but a semiotic architecture: a structured construal of how coherence itself patterns and re-patterns across interactional contexts.

The periodic table does not catalogue substances. It organises relations. Its iconic structure reflects observed regularities in how configurations of fields behave: how they stabilise, bond, transform, and reconfigure. These are patterns in the system of potential, not in any fixed underlying substance.

From our relational perspective, the table performs three vital semiotic functions:

1. Construes Similarity as System
   Elements are grouped not by what they are, but by what they do under shared conditions. Groupings reflect regularities in ionisation energy, bonding patterns, atomic radius—relational properties that arise across interactions. The periodic table projects these affordances as a meaning potential: a system of options for chemical unfolding.

2. Stratifies Fields of Constraint
   The table compresses multiple dimensions—quantum shell structure, valence electron configuration, atomic number—into a unified semiotic form. This stratification allows users to read across symbolic, mathematical, and physical domains simultaneously. It is a meta-semiotic interface, enabling the interpretation of field-level phenomena through symbolic means.

3. Predicts Coherence Across Contexts
   Because the table reflects relational potential, it functions as a model for predicting which configurations are likely to stabilise under given conditions. It is a semiotic technology of projection: not a passive record but a means of guiding scientific practice, experiment, and interpretation. Its regularity reflects the regularity of coherent constraints—not the repeatability of fixed objects.

This makes the periodic table a paradigmatic example of how meaning is made in science. It is a social semiotic construct—a system instantiated through centuries of experimentation, theory, revision, and pedagogy. It embodies both historical individuation (in its development) and systemic instantiation (in its ongoing use).

It also demonstrates the profound affordance of compressed symbolic form: the table fits a vast field of unfolding relational potential into a portable, readable, teachable structure. It bridges disciplines, institutions, and levels of expertise. It does not just represent the elements—it reconfigures our relation to them.

In this light, the periodic table stands not as a mirror of material order, but as an interface between semiotic system and relational process. It helps shape how the scientific community construes, projects, and instantiates the coherent configurations we call “elements.”

Coda: Reconstructing Reality — Meaning at the Heart of Matter

In this trilogy, we’ve followed the periodic table back to its relational foundations. What began as a catalogue of substances has emerged, in our ontology, as a semiotic construal of coherence—a map not of things, but of recurring relational potentials instantiated under specific conditions of unfolding.

This perspective changes everything.

We no longer seek the ultimate substance beneath the elements. We seek the conditions of coherence: the stabilising of field relations, the constraints that select configurations into persistence, and the symbolic technologies that let us read those selections as meaningful. Chemistry becomes not the science of stuff, but the study of structured unfolding—of how quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear interactions are selected, individuated, and instantiated into the patterns we interpret as atoms and molecules.

The periodic table, in this light, is not a static inventory of the real, but a dynamic semiotic scaffold—a human artefact that makes the relational intelligible. It allows us to project from past regularities to future potential. It connects the quantum architecture of matter to the social architectures of meaning-making. And it reminds us that science itself is not the decoding of a mind-independent reality, but the collective construal of experience through patterned, disciplined, and evolving systems of meaning.

In other words, the periodic table is not the periodic table of the elements. It is the periodic table of relational unfolding.

And in recognising that, we are invited not just to read the table differently—but to reimagine what it means to know.