3 Becoming Semiotic: The Social Origins of Differentiated Construal

Preface: Toward Contingent Construal

In earlier series, we explored how the activity of individual organisms becomes coordinated within a social system — first through value-guided behaviour, then through routinised symbolic acts. We saw how a foraging bee’s perceptual categorisation can contribute to the colony’s viability, and how, through structured enactment, a behaviour like the waggle dance can come to stand for something absent.

Now we shift focus. Rather than symbolic acts that stabilise over time, we ask: when does a semiotic behaviour become dynamically contingent? When do organisms begin to shape meaning in the moment — modulating their actions not just in response to the world, but in response to one another, in ways that cannot be pre-specified?

To approach this question, we draw on Halliday’s notion of microfunctions — early communicative functions loosely glossed as regulating, requesting, interacting, and expressing. These are not tied to human grammar, nor to language as such. Instead, they offer a lens through which we can explore how contingent meaning-making might emerge in other species — where behavioural flexibility, role-switching, and social dependency create pressure for interactional alignment beyond routine.

This is not yet the story of language. It is the story of how meaning begins to move — not only as a stable form, but as a socially negotiated act.

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1 When Routine Is Not Enough

A routinised semiotic system can be remarkably effective. The waggle dance of the honeybee enables one individual’s foraging experience to shape the behaviour of others — through a patterned, interpretable performance that has stabilised across generations. It is not improvised or invented; it is enacted. Its success lies in its reliability.

But not all social environments support this kind of stability. In species where individuals form fluid associations, where roles shift, alliances form and dissolve, or threats emerge unpredictably, routinised behaviours can fall short. In such settings, organisms must respond not just to general patterns, but to specific configurations of others, here and now. And sometimes, what matters must be made to matter — to another individual, in the moment.

This is the threshold where contingent construal becomes adaptive. Rather than enacting a fixed mapping, the individual must shape a construal that suits the situation — not as a private mental act, but as a public semiotic performance: a gesture, a call, a posture, a pattern of movement that modulates how another individual perceives and responds.

The evolutionary pressures that give rise to such systems are not mysterious. They appear where:

• individuals must coordinate in ways that cannot be routinised,

• social outcomes depend on negotiated interaction,

• and organisms benefit from the ability to influence others’ behaviour flexibly.

Here, the emergence of microfunctions becomes plausible — not as fully formed linguistic roles, but as interactional tendencies grounded in value-based need. A demand for food, a move to regulate another’s behaviour, a call to interact, or a gesture of personal stance — these are not arbitrary categories. They are ways of acting with and on others, shaped by the pressures of contingent social life.

To trace this emergence, we need not imagine a leap from signal to syntax. We begin instead with what a flexible, socially situated organism must do: regulate others, seek assistance, express internal state, establish mutual orientation. These are functions of construal, enacted in real time, not yet grammatical, but already semiotic.

What emerges is not a fixed code, but a field of patterned responsiveness — constrained not by convention alone, but by the dynamics of shared embodiment, mutual relevance, and ongoing coordination. Where routine ends, contingent construal begins.

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2 Microfunctions as Pressures on Meaning

If a behaviour is to be shaped in the moment, it must be shaped for someone. Meaning does not emerge in a vacuum. It arises under pressure — from needs that cannot be met alone, from actions that must be coordinated, from relations that must be navigated in real time. These pressures are not linguistic, but social. And they can be grouped, not arbitrarily, but functionally.

Michael Halliday, observing the earliest forms of communication in young children, identified several microfunctions — basic purposes that communicative acts serve before the development of grammar. These included the instrumental (I want), regulatory (Do as I say), interactional (Me and you), and personal (Here I come). While drawn from human ontogeny, these functions do not require language to exist. They point to something more general: core functions of contingent social coordination.

We can treat these not as stages of development, but as functional attractors: tendencies that emerge wherever social systems require individuals to modulate one another’s behaviour in context-sensitive ways. In this light, the microfunctions become pressures on meaning — each a kind of problem that contingent construal helps to solve.

• The instrumental function emerges when one organism seeks to access something through another — not just through effort, but through influence.

• The regulatory function appears when one organism attempts to constrain or redirect another’s behaviour.

• The interactional function supports affiliation — establishing, maintaining, or repairing social bonds in situations of mutual presence.

• The personal function allows an organism to project internal state or orientation — making stances visible that would otherwise remain inaccessible.

These are not speculative abstractions. They are grounded in the concrete needs of social coordination, especially in species where roles are flexible, cooperation is non-obligatory, or outcomes depend on subtle alignment. And they help explain why some communicative systems move beyond routine — because routine cannot satisfy these pressures on its own.

Each microfunction creates a semiotic demand: for a behaviour that is shaped with respect to another’s response. This demand introduces variability — not random, but constrained by value, embodiment, and the history of interaction. The result is a space of emergent construals — not yet language, but no longer mere behaviour.

What we begin to see is a shift from stability to adaptability, from fixed mappings to situated modulation. And in this shift, the groundwork is laid for systems that are both contingent and semiotic — systems in which what is done constrains what is meant.

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3 Contingency and Feedback

A construal only succeeds if it makes a difference. This does not mean it must be understood in the abstract. It means it must shape another’s behaviour in a way that aligns with the constraints under which it was produced. In a system where routine is not enough, contingent construal must be taken up — acted on, replied to, reinforced, or resisted.

This introduces a new kind of feedback loop. In routinised systems like the waggle dance, alignment is achieved through stable form: shared structure leads to predictable uptake. But in systems of contingent construal, alignment is not guaranteed. It is negotiated in real time — through interactional feedback, where one organism's construal modulates another's behaviour, and that behaviour in turn reshapes the field of construal.

This loop is not metacognitive. It does not require awareness, representation, or symbolic intention. It requires only that:

• construals are sensitive to the presence of others,

• responses are shaped by the form of the construal, and

• further construals are modulated by the outcome of that interaction.

In such a system, forms can begin to stabilise — not into fixed codes, but into attractors of behaviour. A gesture that succeeds in regulating another’s action becomes more likely to be repeated. A vocalisation that brings social contact may come to index affiliation. A display that fails to produce its intended alignment may be abandoned, reshaped, or withheld.

This process is not learning in the usual sense. It is interactionally entrained variation: a system in which constrained novelty is reinforced or eroded by its consequences for coordination. In this context, microfunctions become not just pressures, but fields of selection: zones of social tension in which only certain construals succeed.

The result is a semiotic ecology — not a symbolic code, but a space of mutually shaped responsiveness, in which behaviour and construal co-evolve. Meanings are not transmitted, but enacted and taken up. And through this ongoing loop of production, response, and adjustment, contingent semiotic systems begin to take form.

What emerges is a dynamic repertoire: forms that are shaped in the moment, yet constrained by prior patterns of success; meanings that are not fixed, but functionally sufficient; and social alignments that depend not on fixed roles, but on shared participation in an unfolding field of relevance.

This is the groundwork of flexible meaning. Not yet grammar, not yet language — but already a system in which construal becomes something more than behaviour: an act shaped with regard to another’s uptake.

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4 From Contingency to Differentiation

Contingent construal begins as situated response. A gesture, a vocalisation, a shift in posture — shaped by context, directed at another, modulated by immediate relevance. But over time, certain forms begin to settle. They succeed, not because they are fixed, but because they are flexible in the right ways — interpretable across contexts, adaptable in deployment, recognisable in uptake.

This is the beginning of differentiation. What starts as fluid variation begins to partition. One form tends to occur in acts of demand; another in acts of regulation; another in affiliative exchanges. These patterns are not arbitrary. They are shaped by the functional pressures that gave rise to the microfunctions themselves — pressures for influence, coordination, and alignment.

As forms differentiate, they also generalise. A gesture that once regulated access to food may come to regulate movement, turn-taking, or distance. A sound that once solicited help may be extended to other forms of request. What matters is not the original association, but the functional relation between construal and consequence.

Differentiation and generalisation are not stages. They are dynamics within a constrained system. They mark a shift from meaning-in-the-moment to repertoires of patterned construal — structured enough to support interpretation, flexible enough to adapt to new interactional demands.

Crucially, these repertoires remain semiotic, not symbolic in the linguistic sense. They do not rely on syntax or explicit reference. But they do exhibit:

• Functional differentiation: different forms associated with different kinds of semiotic work.

• Contextual flexibility: capacity to be reshaped, redirected, or recombined across situations.

• Interactive uptake: responses shaped not just by form, but by recognised function.

At this point, the system begins to support alignment across difference. Individuals need not share the same experience or role. They need only share a history of mutual constraint — a social ecology in which construal and interpretation co-evolve.

This is not the emergence of language. But it is a major step toward it. A semiotic system has formed in which meanings are not only enacted, but differentiated by use — where the form of a construal tells us not what something is, but what kind of act it is doing in the social field.

What began as a gesture becomes an act of stance. What began as a sound becomes an act of regulation. Meaning is no longer emergent with every act; it is now enacted through a system — a system shaped by the pressures of social life, constrained by embodiment, and grounded in the shared activity of response.

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Epilogue: A System Poised for Symbolic Form

We began with a question: when does routine fall short? From there, we traced a path through the emergence of contingent construal — behaviour shaped not only by internal value, but by the need to coordinate flexibly with others. Along this path, we encountered functional pressures: to influence, to align, to connect, to assert. These became sites of meaning — not as representations, but as acts that made a difference in real time.

Through interactional feedback, these acts stabilised. Not into fixed codes, but into structured tendencies — repertoires of form shaped by what they tended to do. Over time, these tendencies differentiated: one form for regulation, another for demand, another for stance. They began to generalise: from specific acts to functional classes, from immediate context to broader interactional fields.

This is not yet language. But it is no longer merely behaviour. It is a semiotic system: contingent, embodied, responsive, and functionally differentiated. Meaning here is not fixed, but it is systemic — shaped by histories of interaction, by the pressures of social life, and by the affordances of a shared ecology.

From here, many paths are possible. A system like this might remain fluid, ephemeral, deeply embedded in immediate context. Or it might, under further pressure, begin to stabilise new kinds of structure: patterned combinations, more abstract construals, forms whose meaning depends on their relation to others.

But those are questions for another time.

For now, we have traced how, from the basic pressures of value-guided coordination, a system can emerge in which construal becomes flexible, form becomes differentiated, and meaning becomes collective — not because of words, but because of what it takes to live, act, and align with others when routine is not enough.

Before the Sign

1 Light as System

We often speak of light as something we see, or something that makes things visible. But what if light is not merely a phenomenon, nor even a medium, but a system—a structured potential for construal itself?

Not the light we see, but the light we see through. Not the glow of a flame or the shimmer of a screen, but the deeper condition by which any perceptual field becomes possible. In this sense, light is not what is revealed—it is the very possibility of revealing.

From Event to System

In a relational ontology, we distinguish between:

• Instance: the event of meaning (what is said, done, seen),

• System: the structured potential from which such events are selected.

Applied to light:

• The illumination of a room, the flicker of a candle, the spectrum of a sunset—these are instantiations.

• But behind them lies a system: a potential structured in such a way that events of light can happen, be perceived, and construed as meaningful.

This system is not physical in the narrow sense—it is not the electromagnetic spectrum itself. Rather, it is relational potential: the set of distinctions, affordances, and constraints through which light can enter into construal at all.

Light as Ontological Architecture

To say light is a system is to say it plays the role of ontological scaffolding:

• It enables differentiation: of figure from ground, of this from that, of now from then.

• It enables orientation: locating a subject in a field of possible percepts.

• It enables salience: not everything is equally visible; the system constrains what may be attended to.

Just as the linguistic system constrains what can be said, the system of light constrains what can be seen, foregrounded, made available to language in the first place.

Light, in this sense, is construal-before-construal. It is the limit-condition of perceptual structuring. It is what allows the perceptual field to be differentiated, ordered, and ultimately symbolised.

No Neutral Light

Once we see light as a system, we can no longer treat it as neutral. Just as language brings ideological weight in its categories and frames, so too does light:

• What is lit is granted presence.

• What is shadowed is withheld.

• Who controls the light—literally or metaphorically—exerts control over the field of possible meanings.

This has powerful implications for politics, media, representation, and aesthetics. Control of light is control of legibility. We might even say: to be illuminated is to be inscribed in a field of potential construal.

To manipulate light—where it falls, how it moves, what it reveals—is to manipulate the architecture of what may be seen, known, or acted upon.

From Physics to Meaning

Even physics, in its most abstract modes, begins to echo this:

• Light defines the structure of spacetime.

• Light defines the limits of simultaneity.

• Light defines the frame of measurement.

It does not merely transmit information; it structures the conditions under which information is even imaginable.

And this aligns with a relational model of meaning: not built from objects, but from cuts in a continuous field of potential—a field in which light is not just one phenomenon among others, but the systemic enabler of all appearance.

The Light We Never See

We do not see the system of light. We only see through its instances. Yet without it, nothing appears. Nothing can be construed.

It is the light that is never seen, but from which all seeing flows. The invisible system beneath all illumination. The potential from which perception is cut.

To speak of light as system, then, is to speak not of brightness or vision, but of structured relationality—of the deep condition under which construal becomes possible.

And perhaps this is what we sense in the most profound moments of clarity—not a flash of insight, but a glimpse of the field from which insight emerges. Not what the light shows us, but that the light is.

It is not what appears before the world. It is what makes the world appear.

2 What Difference Makes

Meaning begins in difference. Not in objects or ideas, but in the act of drawing a distinction. To construe is to cut—to slice potential into contrast, relation, orientation. But for difference to matter, it must be perceptible. And that requires light.

Before there can be meaning, there must be salience. Something must stand out from something else. Something must come forward. This is not merely a perceptual process—it is an ontological precondition for semiosis. And it is made possible by a structured field: a field of visibility, regulated by the system of light.

Salience is Not Given

We often treat attention as a matter of choice—what we focus on, what we notice. But attention is already structured. The world doesn’t present itself all at once. It is sorted, foregrounded, backgrounded. Salience is not a property of things; it is a relation in a system.

The flicker of a flame. The glint of a surface. The blur in peripheral vision. All of these are events of light, but more than that, they are semiotic opportunities. They give the perceiver a cut to follow, a possible construal.

Light makes these cuts available. Not by illuminating everything, but by illuminating differently. It enables contrast. And contrast enables distinction.

Difference is the Root of Construal

No construal without contrast. No contrast without difference. No difference without light.

We often think of meaning as an association between a sign and a referent. But before signs can work, a field of differentiated potential must already be in place. Meaning begins not in reference, but in difference that makes a difference.

This was Gregory Bateson's insight. But in a relational ontology, we deepen it: a difference only makes a difference if it is construable—if it can be cut from the field of potential, held in relation, and enacted.

This is what light does. It does not simply reveal—it structures the field of possible contrast. It is not neutral. It selects. It renders some differences salient, and others invisible. And those selections ripple up into semiotic systems.

Contrast, Category, Code

Semiotic systems metabolise perceptual contrasts into symbolic categories. We take the luminous spectrum and divide it into colours. We take tonal shifts and hear music. We take spatial edges and make images. All of this begins in contrast made visible.

These contrasts are then coded: red for danger, blue for calm, yellow for urgency. But before code, there is cut. And before the cut can happen, the field must be lit.

So the first act of semiosis is not naming. It is cleaving.

The child does not first label the world—they first orient to difference. The warm from the cold. The mother’s face from the shadow behind her. The tone of voice that comforts or alarms. Meaning flows from the play of difference within the field of illumination.

The Light That Connects

Where would meaning be,

if not for light—

threading difference into relation,

casting contrast across the field,

allowing one to point, and another to see?

Light is not what we look at.

It is what lets us look with.

It is the silent accord between

gesture and gaze,

mark and meaning,

self and other.

No construal without contrast.

No contrast without difference.

No difference without light.

We do not speak in the dark.

We speak because of the light.

Toward the Next Cut

If light makes salience possible, and salience makes difference construable, then we are never construing in a vacuum. We are always already within a system—a field of patterned potential that constrains what can be distinguished, and therefore meant.

In the next post, we’ll take one more step back—beyond difference, beyond salience—to ask: what else must be in place before construal can occur? What are the ontological affordances that make meaning possible?

We’ll explore breath, gravity, time, and light as systemic conditions—not phenomena in themselves, but relational grounds for the emergence of meaning.

Before we speak, the world is already lit. But also: it already holds us.

3 The Scene Before the Saying

Meaning does not emerge from silence alone. It emerges from a scene—a patterned field of potential in which something can be construed. But what must already be there, before the construal begins? What grounds must be in place, silently holding the space in which a sign can arise?

In this post, we step further back—before difference, before salience—to trace the ontological affordances that make construal possible at all.

Meaning Needs a Scene

To mean anything, we must already be:

• Held in gravity, so that there is an up and a down.

• Lit by light, so that there is figure and ground.

• Situated in time, so that there is before and after.

• Breathing, so that there is rhythm, pause, and pulse.

These are not metaphors. They are enabling conditions—physical, perceptual, and relational fields that constrain the shape of all semiosis.

We often think of language as the beginning of meaning. But meaning already pulses in the infant’s breath, the turn of a head, the weight of the body leaning toward or away. These are not signs of meaning; they are the relational infrastructure from which signs emerge.

Breath

Before speech, breath. It is not just the motor for sound; it is the rhythm of participation. The in and out, the give and take, the moment of readiness before the utterance.

Breath structures time. It is the tacit synchrony between bodies. When breath is held, something matters. When breath is shared, something is held together.

Gravity

We do not float in meaning. We are grounded. Gravity is not just a force—it is a constraint on relation. It gives us verticality: the up/down axis that language maps into high/low, close/distant, strong/weak.

Gesture is only intelligible because arms fall downward, eyes meet at level, bodies balance and lean. Meaning lives in posture, and posture lives in gravity.

Time

Construal is temporal. We do not just mark tense in language; we live in rhythms of duration. Every act of meaning unfolds. To understand is to follow, to anticipate, to pause, to resume.

Time is not a container—it is a relational unfolding. Meaning is never static; it rides the wave of becoming. And even silence is shaped by timing: when it comes, how long it lasts, what it holds.

Light

Already explored in the earlier posts, light is what lets contrast occur. It allows figure and ground, salience and shade. But in this broader inventory, we now see that light is not alone.

It joins breath, gravity, and time as part of the scene before the saying—a system of affordances within which construal becomes possible.

The Silent System

These are not symbols. They are not words. They are not even signs. But they are systemic: they provide the structured potential from which meaning can be selected, enacted, and recognised.

We might call them presemiotic systems—not because they lack meaning, but because they underlie the space where meaning can take form.

They are never foregrounded in the act of saying. But they are always there—holding the scene.

Toward the Shared Field

If meaning arises within these conditions, then we must understand communication not just as symbolic exchange, but as co-presence within a scene.

Two people speaking are not just exchanging words. They are:

• sharing breath rhythms,

• coordinating within gravity,

• synchronising across time,

• aligning within light.

And all of that before a single word is spoken.

In the next post, we turn toward this shared field explicitly. We ask: what does light make possible between us? How does it enable not just visibility, but mutual construal?

We move from individual affordance to shared alignment—from the scene before the saying to the medium of mutuality.

4 Medium of Mutuality

Construal does not happen alone. It is always, already, relational—an act not only of perceiving, but of co-presence, of shared orientation, of mutual alignment. And what makes such mutuality possible, at the most basic level, is light.

In this final part of the series, we shift from the scene to the shared field—the space between persons where construal becomes social. Here, light is no longer only a condition for perception. It is a medium of mutuality.

The Shared Field

Before there can be a conversation, there must be a scene of alignment:

• You and I are both here.

• We are both looking.

• We are both oriented within a common field.

That shared field is not a neutral background. It is a dynamic space structured by light, position, gaze, and gesture—all of which are modulated within the perceptual system of illumination.

Light is what enables pointing. Light is what allows eye contact. Light is what lets a gesture be visible to another.

Without light, deixis is impossible. There is no this or that. There is no shared attention. There is no mutual construal.

Light and Intersubjectivity

To look at someone is to enter into a potential field of relation. Light carries that look. It connects bodies across space.

The parent and infant, locked in gaze. The protester raising a sign. The lecturer pointing to a diagram. In every case, light enables a shared semiotic frame.

Even silence can be mutual—when two people look toward the same flicker, or share a moment of stillness in the same fading light. Here, meaning arises not from speaking, but from co-attunement in the field.

Surveillance, Performance, Power

But shared light is not always mutual. It can be asymmetrical. To be seen but not to see in return is to be exposed. This is the politics of the spotlight, the surveillance camera, the theatrical gaze.

Light does not only afford connection. It also affords control:

• Who is lit?

• Who remains in shadow?

• Who controls the direction, the intensity, the frame?

In these dynamics, light becomes a social semiotic resource—modulated to constrain who may appear, who may speak, who may be construed as agent.

The Semiotics of Illumination

Light, then, is never neutral. It is a structured field of construal—both enabling and constraining the conditions under which mutual meaning can arise.

We design lighting for mood, for attention, for power. We photograph, spotlight, silhouette, dim. All of these are semiotic practices built on the shared affordance of light.

And within this field, we find the most delicate work of meaning: the fleeting glance, the shifting shadow, the momentary alignment that lets one person say, and another understand.

Meaning as Co-Illumination

Meaning, in this view, is not just what I construe, but what we construe—together, in light. The medium is not passive; it is mutually activated.

Light lets our perspectives touch. It lets pointing land. It lets faces meet. It is not only the ground of perception, but the enabler of co-presence.

And so, even before we speak, we are already in relation. Already in light. Already in a field of potential meaning.

After the Sign

With this, our four-part arc comes full circle:

1. Light as system – the unseen structure enabling appearance.

2. Light as difference – the basis for contrast and construal.

3. Light within the scene – the presemiotic conditions of meaning.

4. Light as medium of mutuality – the shared field of social semiosis.

Together, they point to an insight that underlies all meaning-making:

We do not speak from nowhere. We speak from within a world already lit. And in that light, we meet. 

Epilogue: The Light We Share

Before the sign, there was light. Not the light of photons or particles, but the light of relation—that which allows a difference to appear, a gesture to land, a word to take hold.

This series has followed light through four strata:

• as system: a structured potential for construal,

• as difference: the root of salience and selection,

• as scene: the ontological conditions of embodied meaning,

• as mutuality: the shared field in which signs are understood.

Each layer is not a step, but a cut—a distinction made in a continuous field of relational affordance. Light runs through them all.

Meaning as Illumination

Meaning, we now see, is not a code applied to experience. It is a movement of distinction within the lit field. We do not so much construct meaning as instantiate potential—selecting from a system already structured by gravity, time, breath, and light.

And when we construe together, we are not simply sharing symbols. We are co-activating the field that lets those symbols mean. We are tuning to the same shimmer, orienting to the same pulse.

We do not bring meaning into the world. We enter a world where meaning is already possible. And that possibility begins in the light we share.

Toward Further Cuts

The work of meaning is not complete. We could follow these threads into gesture, into writing, into image. We could trace light’s role in ideology, visibility, erasure, spectacle. We could ask what it means to be in shadow, or to refuse the frame entirely.

But for now, we pause here. Not to end, but to let the field settle—to hold the light long enough to see where it might shimmer next.

The world is already lit. Let us go on 'construaling'.

Meaning in Motion: Dynamics of Relational Systems

1 Construal and the Dance of Perspective

The Dialogic Real: Perspectives in Motion

What is reality, when no single perspective can claim authority?

What is meaning, when no construal can be final?

In this new arc, we explore not simply how meaning arises, but how it moves — how the world we inhabit is continually shaped and reshaped through shifting alignments of perspective, agency, and constraint. We begin with a simple but profound claim:

To mean is to construe. To construe is to cut a path through potential.

Meaning in Motion

In relational ontology, there is no “view from nowhere.”

Every act of meaning-making is a perspective —

a situated differentiation within a system of possibilities.

But perspectives are not static.

They interact, overlap, contradict, and evolve.

And in their motion, a world takes shape.

We call this motion dialogic:

The unfolding of reality through the interplay of construals.

To say that the universe is relational is not to say it is uniform.

It is to say that what exists emerges in difference —

not difference from substance, but difference from within potential.

Construal as Event

Every instance is a construal —

not merely a snapshot, but a cut that enacts a distinction.

This is not interpretation added to reality.

This is reality, under a particular construal.

A photon “measured” is not a particle discovered —

it is a potential enacted under constraint.

A word spoken is not a container of thought —

it is a path through the system of meaning,

selected and enacted within a flow of semiosis.

A person understood is not a fixed identity —

but a dynamic configuration of history, values, and relations

as construed from a particular standpoint.

Every construal is an act of world-making.

And every world is the tensioned result of multiple construals in motion.

Systems in Motion

Systems — whether linguistic, cultural, physical, or cognitive —

are not fixed hierarchies but fields of potential.

They do not contain meaning.

They offer possible paths for its emergence.

But these paths are not taken blindly.

Every construal selects, and in doing so, reshapes the field.

This is the feedback loop of instantiation:

To construe is to enact a meaning.

To enact a meaning is to alter the system of possibilities.

A poem changes what poems can be.

A protest reshapes what dissent can mean.

A scientific discovery reorganises the field of intelligibility.

Systems move because construals perturb them.

And construals shift because systems evolve.

This mutual movement is what we mean by meaning in motion.

The Question Ahead

If reality is construed, and construals are in motion,

then how do we theorise the dynamics of perspective?

How do we account for:

• the shaping power of agency,

• the weight of structure,

• the ripple of an instance across the field?

And how do we remain grounded —

not lost in relativism, nor captured by absolutism —

but alive to the layered dance of unfolding meaning?

This is the journey ahead.

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2 Agency in Motion: How Constraints Shape Possibility

If meaning is the construal of potential,

then agency is the power to cut —

to orient, to select, to enact a path.

But this is not the heroic agency of the isolated will.

It is not freedom from constraint.

It is freedom within constraint —

the dance of situated potential, oriented and actualised.

In this post, we explore how agency arises not as force,

but as motion within structure —

as the ability to reshape possibility from within relation.

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Agency Is Relational

To act is not to impose oneself upon the world.

It is to move through a field of affordances,

where every possibility is already patterned by prior constraint.

Agency is not outside the system.

It is the motion of the system, seen from within.

This is why a fish has agency in water,

a musician in music,

a child in play.

Each acts from within a system of patterned relation —

and in doing so, shifts the pattern.

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Constraint Is Enabling

In the relational model, constraint is not the enemy of agency.

It is its ground.

A guitar string vibrates because it is held taut.

A dancer’s freedom emerges from the rhythm and space they move within.

A speaker’s utterance makes sense only by drawing on shared systems of meaning.

Constraint is not the limit of action.

It is what makes action intelligible.

We do not act despite the system.

We act through it —

and in acting, we change it.

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Dynamic Systems, Reflexive Agents

Because systems are not fixed,

agency is not a one-time act but a dynamic participation.

We are shaped by the systems we inhabit —

but we also reshape them.

This is most visible in reflexive systems:

• A language changes as speakers innovate.

• A social norm shifts as people contest and reorient it.

• A scientific theory evolves as evidence accrues and meanings shift.

Agency is not opposed to structure.

It is structure in motion.

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The Cut as Act

To construe is to cut.

To cut is to differentiate.

To differentiate is to act within a field of patterned possibility.

In quantum physics, a cut enacts a configuration of meaning.

In language, a cut selects a path through systemic potential.

In politics, a cut foregrounds one set of values over another.

Every act is a construal.

And every construal reshapes the space of possible acts.

This is why agency is not merely reactive.

It is generative.

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Participation as Praxis

In this view, to participate is not to submit to the given.

It is to join the ongoing shaping of the real.

Participation is not a passive stance.

It is praxis:

• oriented,

• situated,

• consequential.

It is how we dwell in unfolding systems:

not as users of fixed tools,

but as co-creators of meaning.

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Looking Ahead

If agency is not the triumph of the individual over constraint,

but the resonance of perspective within relation,

then the next question is this:

How do agents align?

How do meanings move not just individually, but together?

In the next post, we turn to the dynamics of alignment —

the collective choreography of meaning in motion.

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3 The Choreography of Alignment: How Meaning Moves Together

If agency is how we cut through potential,

alignment is how our cuts begin to resonate.

When meaning moves, it rarely moves alone.

It moves through shared fields of possibility —

through systems in which agents co-orient, co-construe, co-create.

This is not consensus.

It is choreography: a dynamic synchrony of difference.

Alignment is the dance of meaning in motion —

where shared direction emerges from patterned participation.

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Alignment Is Not Agreement

Alignment is often mistaken for agreement.

But it is more fundamental than that.

It is not about believing the same thing,

but about entering the same field of construal.

To align is to attune:

• to orient from a shared perspective,

• to participate in a common grammar,

• to differ within relation.

Alignment makes interaction possible,

not identical.

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How Systems Align

Systems align when their potentials interlock.

This happens across many scales:

• A language community aligns through grammatical potential.

• A scientific field aligns through disciplinary models and methods.

• A society aligns through histories, institutions, and patterns of participation.

Alignment is always partial, always provisional —

but it is enough to sustain coherence.

Without alignment, there is no shared meaning.

Without difference, there is no new meaning.

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The Role of Constraint

Constraint enables alignment by structuring choice.

Just as a musical scale guides melodic movement,

so systems of meaning guide relational construal.

To align is to act within a shared structure —

to navigate difference in a way that is mutually intelligible.

This is why systemic constraint is not uniformity.

It is a patterned openness — a shared space for diverse motion.

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Alignment and Feedback

In dynamic systems, alignment is not imposed from above.

It is emergent from below.

Every construal affects the system —

and that effect shapes future construals.

This recursive loop is what allows alignment to evolve:

• A phrase becomes a meme.

• A protest becomes a movement.

• A theory becomes a paradigm.

Meaning is not fixed by consensus.

It is stabilised through feedback.

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Misalignment and Meaning-Making

Misalignment is not failure.

It is a moment of potential.

Every clash of perspective reveals a tension in the system —

a point where meanings diverge, and new paths may open.

Conflict, irony, ambiguity — these are not disruptions of meaning.

They are its conditions of renewal.

Alignment is always negotiated.

And every negotiation is an act of world-building.

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Looking Ahead

If alignment is the dynamic choreography of agents within systems,

then we are ready to ask:

What makes this movement meaningful?

How does a system know what it is doing?

In the next post, we explore how systems reflect, adapt, and sustain themselves through feedback —

and how meaning becomes reflexive.

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4 Feedback and Self-Patterning: How Systems Sense and Sustain Themselves

When meaning moves, it leaves a trace.

When the system senses that trace, it begins to self-pattern.

Feedback is how systems become aware of their own unfolding —

how they stabilise some meanings, revise others, and open new paths.

It is not a loop of correction.

It is a rhythm of resonance:

an ongoing dance between construal and constraint.

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Feedback Is Not Error Correction

In engineering, feedback often means self-correction —

a system adjusting to maintain equilibrium.

But in meaning-making systems, feedback is more generative than corrective.

It is how systems feel their way forward,

sensing difference, testing coherence, refining alignment.

Feedback is not a thermostat.

It is a reflex. A pulse. A construal of unfolding.

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The System Senses Itself

A relational system does not look at itself from the outside.

It senses itself from within.

• A cell regulates through chemical feedback.

• A speaker adjusts mid-sentence in response to a listener’s gaze.

• A culture re-narrates its history in the face of new events.

These are not outside observers.

They are agents within systems

modulating their own participation.

The system is the field.

The feedback is the fold.

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Feedback Creates Stability and Change

Feedback doesn't only preserve coherence.

It can also drive transformation.

• In speech, a hesitation can signal recalibration.

• In science, a failed prediction can reorient theory.

• In politics, dissent can redraw the map of meaning.

Feedback loops do not just stabilise patterns.

They modulate constraints —

tuning the system to new tensions, new potentials, new alignments.

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Self-Patterning: The Emergence of Identity

When feedback accumulates across time,

a system begins to form a sense of self.

• A speaker develops a voice.

• A tradition develops a canon.

• A community develops norms of recognition.

This is not identity as fixed content.

It is identity as pattern-in-motion —

a memory of differentiation,

a style of navigating unfolding.

To become is to trace your own feedback.

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The Ethics of Feedback

Because feedback loops modulate what is possible,

they carry ethical weight.

• What meanings are reinforced?

• Which differences are amplified or suppressed?

• Who is included in the sensing of the system?

A system that cannot hear its own tensions

is a system that loses its openness.

Reflexivity is not just technical.

It is ethical — the condition of learning.

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Looking Ahead

We’ve seen how systems sense their own motion

through feedback and reflexive patterning.

But can this be theorised?

Can a system not only sense itself, but understand its own grammar?

In our final post, we explore the possibility of self-theorising systems —

and what it means to live in a reflexive universe.

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5 Theorising Motion: Living in a Reflexive Universe

We have followed the movement of meaning:

how systems differentiate, align, and pattern themselves in motion.

But now we ask:

Can a system not only participate in its unfolding —

but theorise it?

Can it construe its own motion

as meaning?

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Theory as Reflexive Construal

To theorise is not to stand apart from the world.

It is to orient within it —

to construe patterns in motion,

and stabilise them as system.

This means theory is itself a meaning-making act.

It is not a representation of the real,

but a reflexive construal of unfolding constraints.

A theory is not a map.

It is a movement of alignment.

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The System as Its Own Theorist

When a system begins to pattern its own patterns —

when it construes its own processes of meaning-making —

it becomes reflexive.

• A child learning language construes the system they are already using.

• A culture codifying norms is theorising its own unfolding.

• A scientist formulating principles is modelling the patterns of experience.

In each case, the system becomes both subject and object:

the one who construes, and what is construed.

This is not a paradox.

It is reflexivity:

the condition of meaning in motion.

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Theorising Is Always Situated

No system theorises from nowhere.

Every construal arises from a particular perspective —

a position within unfolding patterns.

So the question is never:

Is this theory true?

But:

What does this theory stabilise?

What does it make possible?

What does it exclude?

This is why reflexive systems must hold space for multiplicity —

for alternative construals, contesting alignments, and open potential.

A theory that cannot revise itself

is no longer a theory. It is a dogma.

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Living Reflexively

In a reflexive universe,

we are not just knowers.

We are agents of construal.

Our identities, our histories, our categories of understanding —

these are not fixed foundations,

but unfolding alignments

that we participate in shaping.

To live reflexively is not to doubt everything,

but to remain open to the movement of meaning —

to feel the shifts in constraint,

and respond with oriented imagination.

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The Universe as Meaning in Motion

We began with the motion of systems.

We end with the system of motion.

The universe is not made of objects.

It is made of orientations.

Each instance is a cut in the field of potential.

Each act of construal reshapes the space of possibility.

We do not simply live in a universe.

We theorise it —

and in doing so, we participate in its becoming.

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Coda: Meaning, Motion, and the Practice of Attention

In the end, theory is a practice of attention.

To attend to motion is to notice unfolding constraints.

To theorise motion is to align with them meaningfully.

This is the gift of reflexivity:

Not certainty, but attunement.

Not control, but participation.

Not knowledge as possession,

but knowing as becoming.

The more deeply we participate,

the more possible the world becomes.

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Reflective Coda: Living Systems, Moving Meanings

Across this series, we have traced how meaning moves:

• how potential becomes patterned,

• how constraints differentiate and guide,

• how agents align within dynamic fields,

• and how reflexive construal becomes a grammar of becoming.

We have seen that systems are not static things,

but living tensions held open in relation.

Meaning is not made once and for all,

but always emerging—

in motion, in negotiation, in the unfolding now.

We are not outside these systems,

nor merely within them.

We are of them—

reflexive participants in a universe

that theorises itself through us.

This is not a metaphor.

It is the structure of meaning in motion.

To know is to orient.

To theorise is to align.

To live meaningfully is to hold the field open

—again, and again, and again.

So we return not to a conclusion,

but to a rhythm:

the recursive dance of instance and system,

of unfolding and reflection,

of alignment and renewal.

The world is not something we come to understand.

It is something we help to construe.

And in that construal,

we ourselves are made.