Participating in the Real: A Relational Ontology of Meaning and Science

1 Seeing Meaning in the World

Constraining Reality – A Relational View of Meaning, Science, and System

What we call reality is not made of things. It is made of meanings. And meaning is always construed.

Seeing the World, Seeing Meaning

Every day, we perceive the world around us.

We hear a sentence.

We feel the weather.

We observe the track of a particle in a detector.

In each case, we are not receiving a reality that was simply there, waiting.

We are construing meaning—bringing forth significance from patterned unfolding.

But what are we seeing as meaningful?

In every case, what we call an “instance”—a sentence, a storm, a detection—is not raw data.

It is a construal of an event, interpreted within a wider system of possibility.

We see this most clearly when we compare three domains:

language, weather, and quantum physics.

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1. Language: From Text to System

When we read or hear a sentence, we do not just decode words.

We perceive it as an instance of a larger system: the grammar of a language.

That grammar is not “behind” the sentence, waiting to be found.

It is a potential—a theory of meaning possibilities, constructed by observing patterns across many such instances.

In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), this is explicit:

Language is not a list of rules—it is a theory of instances.

From texts, the linguist abstracts the system: a network of structured choices.

From use, we model potential.

So:

• Instance = text

• Potential = system

• Relation = perspective

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2. Weather: From Weather to Climate

The same holds in meteorology.

We feel the wind shift, or watch a storm roll in.

We experience an instance—the weather.

But we make sense of it by relating it to a larger theory of potential: climate.

Climate is not a fixed reality.

It is a theory constructed from patterns of weather.

It is a system of expectation, probabilities, structured tendencies.

And: every new storm subtly reshapes that system—just as every text reshapes the potential of language.

So:

• Instance = weather

• Potential = climate

• System is built from instances

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3. Physics: From Particle to Field

In quantum physics, we observe a track on a detector screen.

We interpret this as a particle—a meaningful event.

But this meaning comes not from the track itself, but from a theory of potential:

the wavefunction or the quantum field.

That theory is not simply “what the world is made of.”

It is a structured potential—a model of what instances could unfold, and how.

A measurement doesn’t uncover a hidden particle.

It instantiates a possibility, and in doing so, it reshapes the potential itself.

(This is sometimes called the “evolution” of the wavefunction.)

So:

• Instance = detection (particle event)

• Potential = wavefunction or field

• Meaning arises through construal

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Across All Domains: Potential and Instance as Perspectives

In all three cases, we find the same relational pattern:

Domain	Instance	Potential
Language	Text	System
Meteorology	Weather event	Climate
Physics	Particle	Field / Wavefunction

Each instance is construed as an instance of a wider potential.

And that potential is not “given”—it is built from instances.

This is why Halliday said: “System is shorthand for system–&–process.”

We are never dealing with instance or system—we are always construing instance from the perspective of potential, and vice versa.

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What Comes Next

In the next post, we’ll ask:

How are systems built from instances?

What kind of agency construes a storm as climate, or a track as a particle?

How do we go from what happens to what’s possible?

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2 How Systems Are Born – Theorising as Meaning-Making

From Meaningful Happenings to Theories of Possibility

What Is a System?

In the previous post, we saw that when we observe a storm, hear a sentence, or detect a particle, we are not just perceiving “what is.” We are construing an instance of a potential. And that potential is not the world itself—it is a theory of possible instances, constructed through experience.

But how are these theories made?

How does a potential arise from events?

This is where the concept of system reveals its double face.

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System–&–Process: A Relational Ontology of Theory

In systemic functional linguistics, Halliday reminds us that “system” is shorthand for system–&–process. That is: what we call “system” is always also a history of processes—of actual instances through which it came to be.

• The system is the theory (the structured range of meaning possibilities).

• The process is the unfolding (the logogenesis of instance).

• And the two are inseparable.

What this tells us is that a system is not a thing.

It is a perspective—a way of construing a structured range of possible relations from within a history of events.

So when a linguist models language, they are not discovering a timeless essence.

They are theorising a structured potential from a field of lived instances.

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Three Domains of Theorising

Let’s return to our examples. In each case, what we call “theory” or “potential” is the result of a construal—a conscious process of meaning-making that generalises from instances.

1. Language

• Instances: Texts (spoken or written)

• Theorist: The linguist

• Theory: The system network—a structured map of meaning potential

• Medium: Language itself

In this case, the meaning-maker and the medium are both linguistic.

The linguist uses language to model language: a recursive act of meaning-making.

2. Weather

• Instances: Local weather events

• Theorist: The meteorologist (or climatologist)

• Theory: The climate model—a probabilistic theory of weather patterns

• Medium: Mathematical and visual representation in scientific language

Here, the meaning-maker construes the weather as instance-of-climate.

From many storms, a structure of probabilities is abstracted—and refined with every new event.

3. Physics

• Instances: Observed or inferred particle events

• Theorist: The physicist

• Theory: The wavefunction or quantum field—a theory of potential interactions

• Medium: Language, mathematics, and symbolic modelling

Here again, theory is not direct perception.

It is the construal of meaning—of what these events mean, within a structured model of potential.

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The Speaker’s Role: Agency in System Creation

But these theories don’t arise passively.

They are made—construed by conscious agents who interpret instances and abstract patterns.

In each case, the theorist functions analogously to a speaker in language:

• The speaker instantiates meaning from potential.

• The theorist instantiates a potential from observed instances.

This is why Halliday’s notion of “system” as system–&–process is crucial:

The potential we model is always already active, instantiated, dynamic.

It is theory shaped by process, and process oriented by theory.

And both sides of the process—the one who construes (speaker, observer) and the one who interprets (listener, interpreter)—are sites of instantiation.

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Systems Evolve

We saw in the previous post that every instance perturbs the potential.

• Every new sentence subtly reshapes our model of the language system.

• Every unexpected storm contributes to a revision of the climate model.

• Every new measurement shifts the parameters of the wavefunction.

This is not error—it is evolution.

Just as the unfolding of a text (logogenesis) modifies what is likely next, the unfolding of any instance reshapes what is expected, possible, or probable in future instances.

In physics, this is known as the evolution of the wavefunction.

In language, it is the dynamism of potential under constraint.

In all cases: theory evolves through the construal of instance.

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What Comes Next

In our next post, we’ll ask:

How does construal work?

What is the nature of this agency that sees an instance as meaningful—and from there builds a system?

We’ll explore the perspectival role of the theorist, speaker, or observer as a site of system–&–process in action.

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3 The Agency of Construal – Meaning, Perspective, and the Field of Possibility

How Systems Arise Through Oriented Differentiation

What Does It Mean to Construe?

In the previous posts, we saw that what we call a “system” is a structured theory of potential, built from instances. And we saw that a system is always a system–&–process: an active history of instantiation, not a frozen catalogue of forms.

Now we turn to the central act that makes this possible: construal.

To construe is to differentiate a happening as meaningful.

It is to take a happening and treat it as an instance—an instantiation of a structured potential.

This act is not mechanical. It is perspectival.

It depends on where one stands, what one attends to, and what systems one already carries.

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The Agent as Site of Construal

In this model, the agent is not a metaphysical subject floating above the world.

It is a site of oriented differentiation—a perspective through which meaning is brought forth.

This happens across domains:

• A linguist construes a text as an instance of the language system.

• A climatologist construes weather as an instance of climate.

• A physicist construes a trace as an instance of a quantum potential.

In each case, the agent is not outside the system.

They are in it—a locus where reality construes itself as meaningful through relational orientation.

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Meaning Is Perspective Made Real

We are not saying that the world is invented by the agent.

We are saying that meaning is not separable from perspective.

An instance is not a neutral event.

It is a construal of what happens—as significant within a theoretical system.

That’s why:

• The same storm may be felt as a weather event by one person, but as a data point in a changing climate by another.

• The same utterance may be heard as noise, or as part of a coherent discourse, depending on the listener’s linguistic resources.

• The same quantum event may be interpreted under different models of potential, depending on the theory in play.

Meaning arises when a happening is related to a potential—and that relation is always construed.

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The Field of Possibility

This is why potential is not infinite openness.

It is structured—a theory of what can happen, based on prior construals.

• Language systems constrain what kinds of utterances make sense.

• Climate systems constrain what kinds of weather are likely.

• Quantum fields constrain what kinds of particles may appear.

So construal is not just choosing what something means.

It is participating in a relational field—selecting a path through a theory of possibility.

And each selection feeds back into the field, altering its structure.

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Meaning Requires History

We now see that meaning depends on:

• A history of instances (process)

• A theory of what could have happened (system)

• A site of perspective (agent)

Without this triad, there is no construal—and thus, no meaning.

This is why even “simple” events are not simple.

• Seeing a tree is not just receiving photons—it is construing a structured visual field.

• Hearing a sentence is not just decoding sounds—it is construing linguistic potential.

• Recording a trace on a detector is not just registering data—it is construing it as meaningful, within a model of structured probability.

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Summary: Construal as the Root of System

Every system arises through construal.

It is not passively observed, but actively theorised.

And every construal is a cut in the field of potential—a selection made meaningful through perspective.

From this angle, the universe is not a given.

It is a becoming—a history of constrained differentiation, made meaningful by agents within it.

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What Comes Next

In the next post, we will bring these strands together.

If systems arise through construal, and construal is perspectival, then we must ask:

How do different systems align or diverge?

How do meanings conflict or cohere across perspectives?

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4 System, Alignment, and the Negotiation of Meaning

How Differing Construals Create Shared or Divergent Realities

Systems Multiply—So Do Perspectives

We have seen that meaning arises through construal:

A happening is construed as an instance of a system—

And that system is itself a theory, built from previous instances.

But construals differ.

Different agents may construe the same happening in different ways.

Each brings a different theory, a different history of meaning, and a different stance toward the field of potential.

This is why we speak not of the system, but of systems—multiple, situated, and sometimes conflicting.

Meaning, then, is never fixed.

It is always negotiated—across histories, perspectives, and systems of potential.

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Alignment and Divergence

When two construals are based on compatible systems, we call them aligned.

• A linguist and a student may both hear a clause as a mood–residue structure.

• Two physicists may both interpret an experimental trace within the same quantum model.

But when the underlying systems diverge, alignment may break down:

• A listener may hear a statement as literal, while the speaker intended irony.

• A climate sceptic may construe a weather anomaly as chance, while a scientist construes it as part of a systemic shift.

Conflict, misunderstanding, and discovery all arise from divergent construals of the same instance.

This is not a breakdown of communication.

It is the condition of all communication in a perspectival universe.

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The Process of Negotiation

When meanings diverge, they are not resolved by discovering “what it really meant.”

Instead, agents must negotiate:

• What system of potential is in play?

• What constraints are being assumed?

• What kinds of futures are implied by each construal?

This is as true in science as in conversation.

The evolution of a theory—whether of language, weather, or matter—is a negotiation over how to construe instances.

And each negotiated construal shifts the system:

It alters the probabilities, the expectations, the meanings that will guide future instances.

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Meaning as Social Constraint

Because systems are built from construals, and construals are perspectival,

meaning is never private.

It is socially constrained—emerging through histories of interaction, contestation, and shared attention.

This is why:

• A community stabilises a dialect or a scientific paradigm.

• A tradition preserves a method of seeing.

• A culture transmits constraints across generations.

These are not fixed systems handed down.

They are ongoing processes of alignment—the continual work of maintaining shared potential.

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From Conflict to Coherence

This model helps us understand why disagreement is not a failure of reason.

Disagreement is the surfacing of incompatible constraints—a sign that different systems are in play.

The goal is not to eliminate difference, but to understand:

• How are systems structured?

• What histories do they carry?

• What constraints do they prioritise?

Only then can new forms of alignment be forged.

And when they are, new systems of potential become possible.

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Summary: Construals Diverge, Systems Negotiate

The world is not made from a single system.

It is made from interacting construals—each oriented to meaning, each situated in history.

Meaning is what happens when these construals align.

Conflict is what happens when they don’t.

Negotiation is the grammar of becoming shared.

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What Comes Next

In the final post of this series, we ask:

If reality is built from instances, and systems are theories of those instances,

what happens when systems themselves become objects of construal?

What happens when we theorise the act of theorising?

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5 The Reflexive Universe – Theorising Theorising

How Consciousness Enters the System as Construal of Construal

A System That Includes Itself

So far, we’ve seen that:

• Instances are construed as instances of systems.

• Systems are built from past instances.

• Meaning arises through perspectival construal.

• Construals may align or diverge—and must often be negotiated.

But what happens when this whole process becomes the object of construal?

What happens when a system begins to construe itself?

This is not abstraction for its own sake.

It is the hallmark of a reflexive universe.

And it marks the entry point for consciousness—

Not as something added to the world,

But as the world becoming aware of its own processes of meaning.

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Consciousness as Reflexive Differentiation

To be conscious is to construe the act of construing.

Not only to mean, but to know that one is meaning.

To theorise not only the world, but one's own stance toward it.

This reflexivity is not a new layer of substance.

It is a deepening of the same process—

A system that not only selects instances from potential,

but selects itself as one of those instances.

A conscious being, then, is not a special kind of thing.

It is a system that construes its own construals—

And in doing so, modulates the constraints through which it unfolds.

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Theorising as Reflexive Participation

To theorise is not merely to model.

It is to stand within the field of potential

and construct a system of constraints

that allows new instances to be seen as meaningful.

When a theorist reflects on theory-making itself,

they are engaging in reflexive system-building:

modelling the act of modelling,

construing the process of construal.

This is why all high-order theorising—whether in science, philosophy, or art—

eventually turns inward.

• What is the stance of the knower?

• What constraints are shaping the theory?

• What potential is being opened—or foreclosed?

This reflexivity is not navel-gazing.

It is the ground of ethical participation.

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Knowing That We Know

In this model, knowledge is not the accumulation of truths.

It is the differentiation of construals

within a field of meaningful potential.

When we know that we know,

we become responsible not only for what is known,

but for how it came to be known.

This is the beginning of epistemic ethics.

To ask:

• Who gets to construe?

• Which constraints are being enacted?

• What histories are being sedimented into the system?

is to theorise not just the world,

but our role in bringing it forth.

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The Universe as Reflexive Semiotic

What we are describing is not a universe of mechanisms.

It is a reflexive semiotic system:

a cosmos in which meaning arises through perspective,

and some perspectives loop back upon themselves.

Such systems are rare—but not unknown.

Language is one.

Consciousness is another.

A relational ontology is their generalisation.

In this view:

• The universe theorises itself through its instances.

• Consciousness is where those theories become differentiated.

• Theorising is how potential becomes meaningful constraint.

And we are participants in that unfolding.

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A Closing Perspective

We began with a simple principle:

Potential and instance are perspectives—each construed by consciousness.

We now end with a deeper realisation:

Consciousness is not a witness to the universe.

It is the theorising arm of the universe itself—

the process by which relations are not only instantiated,

but made meaningful, reflexive, and open to transformation.

Theory, then, is not an external map.

It is the unfolding of alignment between instance and potential.

And theorising theorising

is the universe aligning with itself—through us.

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Coda: Construal Without Closure

In this series, we have explored a universe that does not consist of objects, but of meanings.

We began with the insight that potential and instance are not things, but perspectives—construed by consciousness. From this simple, radical shift, a different universe emerged:

• Not built from entities, but unfolding from relations.

• Not discovered, but brought forth.

• Not governed by law, but organised by constraint—open, patterned, recursive.

We traced how a climate is theorised from weather, a language from texts, a quantum field from measurements—

Each case revealing the same movement:

From situated instance to construed system.

From event to theory.

From participation to perspective.

And when these construals become reflexive,

we do not transcend the universe.

We participate differently within it.

We become theorising beings.

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The Universe as Process, Theorised From Within

What this view demands of us is not belief, but alignment.

• Alignment with the idea that knowledge is never final.

• Alignment with the truth that meaning is always situated.

• Alignment with the humility of being not outside reality, but one of its instances.

It is tempting to ask for closure—to ask “What, then, is real?”

But in this model, closure is the only impossibility.

There is no final theory.

Only deeper construals.

More situated alignments.

And the ongoing participation in a universe that becomes through difference.

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What Lies Ahead

From here, new questions arise:

• How might ethics look in a world of relational construals?

• How might education change, if learning is seen as alignment with unfolding meaning?

• How might science evolve, if it reclaims its role as a participatory grammar of reality?

These are not philosophical luxuries.

They are the conditions of our continued participation in the world.

If meaning is not fixed,

then we must become careful curators of possibility.

If the universe is reflexive,

then what we think, say, and build

feeds back into what becomes.

And if all knowledge is perspective,

then our perspective matters.

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Theorising Is Never Done

So let us end, not with a conclusion,

but with an opening:

Every instance is a beginning.

Every construal, a path through potential.

Every theory, a temporary alignment in a dynamic system.

And to live meaningfully

is to keep the construal open—

to participate with care

in the grammar of becoming.