In our relational ontology, reality is not composed of pre-given things but unfolds through meaning. Meaning, in turn, is not discovered—it is construed. And when construed instances are systematised, meaning gives rise to theory.
1. Two Theories of Instance
A linguist, observing actual utterances, develops a theory of meaning potential: a structured model of systemic options, such as those represented in system networks. This is a theory not of words but of meanings instantiated under context.
A physicist, observing experimental traces—marks on a screen, detector readings—develops a theory of meaning potential: the wavefunction or quantum field, understood as a structure of possible instances.
In both cases:
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Instance is construed meaning—as event—from the perspective of consciousness.
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Potential is a system—a theory of possible instances structured by past construals.
In short, potential theorises the range of realities, and reality is that which is instantiated from within it.
2. Consciousness and the Construal of Instance
Instances do not become meaningful—they are meaning, construed. When a physicist sees a track on a detector, the seeing is already a construal of patterned unfolding—non-meaning construed as meaning.
This is not interpretation added to data; it is meaning enacted as perspective.
Likewise, seeing a tree, hearing a clause, or noticing a fluctuation in a data stream—all are instances construed by consciousness. This is not theorising, but the condition for theorising.
Theorising begins when a subject constructs a system from instances: when meanings are not just enacted but formalised as structured potential.
3. Language as the System of Potential
Language is not the tool used to describe systems of potential. Language is a system of potential.
When a linguist theorises, the system they create is composed of the same kinds of meaning as those found in the instances. The network is not a map of meanings—it is meaning construed at a higher order of abstraction.
When a physicist construes particles and fields, they do so through the semantic resources of language. The meanings construed as “particle,” “position,” or “event” are not external to language—they are instances of language, construed through verbal and visual processes.
The physicist is not using language to describe the world—they are construing the world as language, whether that takes mathematical, verbal, or visual form.
4. Logogenesis and the Reconfiguration of Potential
In Systemic Functional Linguistics, each clause not only instantiates systemic choices—it also shapes the potential for what comes next. This unfolding is called logogenesis: the ongoing genesis of meaning.
The same process applies beyond language. Each instance construed in quantum experimentation changes the probabilistic structure of the system—what physicists describe as the evolution of the wavefunction.
In both cases:
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An instance is not a static selection from a static system.
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Each instance reconfigures the potential.
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Potential is always under revision through the construal of new instances.
This is not metaphysical flux. It is the logic of relational unfolding: meaning structures are recursively shaped by their own instantiation.
5. Meaning as the Medium of Reality
Through the lens of ergativity, the instance is the Medium of the instantiation of meaning, and the systemic potential is the Range of the instantiation of meaning. But instance and potential are not different kinds of stuff. They are different perspectives—different cuts—on the same semiotic process.
This leads to a deeper insight: reality is meaning. Not metaphorically, but ontologically.
Reality is not first physical and then interpreted. It is construed as physical through semiotic processes enacted by consciousness.
Consciousness is not required for the universe to exist. But it is required for it to be construed as a universe—for there to be meaning, and hence, reality.
We do not observe the world. We construe it.
And from those construals, we theorise what it is possible to be.
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