Why Language Matters – Realisation and the Architecture of Meaning Across Domains

1 Language as Theory’s Condition of Possibility

Scientific theories, philosophical arguments, religious cosmologies — each of these may seem to open a window onto something outside of language: a world of objects, of ideas, of truths. Yet none of them can be formulated, communicated, or even thought without language. Theories do not merely travel through language as a vehicle; they are realised in language as meaning. And because of this, the architecture of language is also the architecture of theorising.

This blog adopts a simple but far-reaching proposition:

A theory of language has the potential to reconstrue the language of theories — because theories are realised in language.

What does it mean to say that a theory is realised in language? In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), meaning is stratified: what we say (or write or think) involves relations between different levels of symbolic abstraction. At one level, there is semantics — the meanings we make. At another, lexicogrammar — the wordings we use to realise those meanings. At yet another, phonology or graphology — the sounds or written forms we use to realise the wordings.

These levels are not separate codes; they are linked through realisation — a symbolic relation in which one level is the expression of another. In this sense, the semantic content of a theory is not independent of its expression: it is made possible by the symbolic architecture through which it is realised.

This has profound implications. It means that when a scientist proposes a law of nature, or when a philosopher defines a category of thought, or when a myth-maker names the origin of things, they are drawing on the same semiotic resources: the capacity of language to make meaning across levels of abstraction. It also means that the categories of science, philosophy, and myth can be examined not only for what they claim about the world, but for how they function as construals of meaning.

Language, then, is not just the medium of theory. It is its material. And if we want to understand how theories work — how they construct their objects, project their categories, and shape our understanding of the world — we need a model of the semiotic processes at work.

SFL offers such a model. Unlike formal linguistic theories that treat language as a syntactic code, SFL treats language as a social semiotic: a meaning-making system shaped by and shaping human experience. It equips us with tools — like realisation, instantiation, and individuation — for mapping how meaning is structured, how it becomes actual, and how it varies across contexts and communities.

In the posts that follow, we will explore how these tools can illuminate the symbolic architecture behind scientific, philosophical, and cultural theories — not to judge them from the outside, but to make visible their internal logics. Our aim is not to replace disciplinary knowledge, but to deepen its foundations by asking:

What becomes possible when we take the architecture of meaning as a starting point for inquiry?

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2 Realisation and the Architecture of Meaning

To understand how theories work, we need to understand how meaning works. At the heart of meaning-making in language is the concept of realisation: the symbolic relation between different levels of abstraction. In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), realisation is not just a matter of encoding meaning in words — it is a layered architecture that enables meaning to take form.

In the SFL model, meaning is stratified into levels:

• Semantics: the level of meaning — what is meant.

• Lexicogrammar: the level of wording — how the meaning is worded.

• Phonology/graphology: the level of sounding or writing — how the wording is expressed.

Each level realises the one above it. That is:

Wording is the realisation of meaning. Sound or writing is the realisation of wording.

This is not a material chain of causality, but a symbolic architecture. It is not that a thought causes a sentence or that a sentence causes a sound. Rather, each level is a symbolic abstraction of the one below it, and each meaning instance is an enactment of this relation: a semantic structure is realised in a grammatical structure, which is realised in a phonological or graphical structure.

To say that realisation is a symbolic relation is to highlight its character as identifying: it says what this is at a higher level of abstraction. For example:

• A given grammatical structure is the expression of a particular semantic structure.

• A sequence of phonemes is the expression of a particular grammatical structure.

In this sense, realisation organises language as a hierarchy of construal. The higher stratum construes experience in more abstract, semantic terms. The lower stratum construes that semantic meaning in terms of linguistic form. And it is only through these layers that meaning can be actualised in the world — in speech, in writing, in thought.

So why does this matter for theory?

Because every theory — scientific, philosophical, cultural — must travel through this architecture. Its concepts are not free-floating ideas; they are meanings realised in wordings. And those wordings are not neutral containers; they are structured, patterned, and shaped by the systems of grammar and discourse in which they are embedded.

If a theory defines “energy” as the capacity to do work, or “being” as that which is, or “grace” as divine favour, it is drawing on semiotic resources to make those categories meaningful. The theory’s sense of what exists, what is possible, and what is real depends on the symbolic architecture through which such meanings are construed and realised.

To understand a theory, then, is not only to trace its logic or test its claims. It is to examine how its meanings are realised — what symbolic systems they depend on, what assumptions they encode, what alternative construals they exclude.

This is not a purely linguistic concern. It is epistemological. It opens the possibility of seeing theory as constructed meaning, and invites us to explore how different theoretical traditions draw on different architectures of meaning — different ways of realising experience.

In the next post, we will examine the second major semiotic relation in the SFL framework: instantiation — the relation between meaning potential and meaning instance. If realisation explains how a theory is structured, instantiation explains how it is used.

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3 Instantiation – From Potential to Instance

If realisation is the symbolic relation between levels of abstraction — semantics, grammar, and expression — then instantiation is the relation between what is possible and what is actual. It is the semiotic process through which meaning potential becomes meaning instance.

In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), every language is a system of choices. At any given moment, speakers draw from a vast repertoire of possibilities — a meaning potential — to produce a particular text. That text, whether spoken or written, is an instance of that potential.

So, what does this mean?

It means that language is not a fixed code. It is a system organised around potential, and every instance of language use is a selection from that potential. Over time, repeated instances contribute to the probabilities of future instances — reinforcing or shifting the contours of the system itself. In this way:

The system shapes the instance; the instance reshapes the system.

This dialectic between potential and instance lies at the heart of all meaning-making, and by extension, all theorising.

Theories, too, have meaning potentials. A theory of gravity does not exist solely in a single equation or paragraph. It exists in the full range of meanings that can be activated within its conceptual framework. A given explanation or application is an instantiation — one realisation of many possible ones.

Importantly, the concept of instantiation also applies beyond language. It offers a lens through which we can understand scientific models, philosophical arguments, and even cultural performances as instances of broader semiotic systems. For example:

• A climate model is an instantiation of the potential meanings available in climate science.

• A legal ruling is an instantiation of the interpretive potential of legal precedent and statute.

• A ritual is an instantiation of a culture’s potential meanings about life, death, or the sacred.

By thinking in terms of instantiation, we resist the illusion that theories are static bodies of knowledge. We see instead that they live through their use — in what they make possible, in how they are deployed, and in what they bring into being.

This has deep implications for how we understand inquiry. It shifts us from a model of truth as correspondence (matching a theory to reality) to a model of meaning as selection — of what we bring forth, highlight, or foreground in the act of making meaning. Theories are not simply mirrors; they are modes of participation in a semiotic system.

In our next post, we will turn to the third major SFL relation: individuation — the relation between the collective meaning potential of a community or system and the particular meaning potentials of individual users. Individuation will help us understand how theories vary, evolve, and specialise through their deployment by different communities of meaning.

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4 Individuation – Meaning, Community, and Difference

Language is not just a system of options (potential) and their expressions (instances). It is also a shared resource. And yet, no two speakers mean in exactly the same way.

This tension between the collective and the particular is what Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) calls individuation — the relation between the meaning potential of a community (the system) and the meaning potential of individual users (their repertoires, voices, registers, styles).

Individuation acknowledges that:

We don’t all have equal access to the same systems of meaning. Our histories, communities, and experiences shape how — and what — we are able to mean.

In linguistic terms, individuation helps us understand why a physicist, a poet, and a child all speak English but do so with vastly different resources. Their meaning potentials are differently developed. The physicist has access to specialised semantic domains; the poet might foreground affect and rhythm; the child is still building their systemic repertoire.

But the principle extends far beyond language.

In science, individuation explains why different disciplines have different interpretive frameworks. The language of neuroscience is not the language of anthropology — even when they investigate overlapping questions. Each field instantiates meanings from a shared cultural and linguistic pool, but through distinct, individuated systems.

Even within a field, individuation plays out in schools of thought, methodological preferences, or regional traditions. A scientist trained in Kyoto may not frame their work in the same way as one trained in Chicago — not because of a failure of reason, but because of differences in meaning potential: in disciplinary lineage, educational environment, conceptual metaphors, and more.

Individuation also provides a powerful counter to the idea of a "view from nowhere." Every act of meaning is shaped by its locatedness in a history of practice, a community of discourse, and a personal trajectory. To individuate is to participate with difference — to speak as someone, somewhere, with some kind of voice.

And this matters deeply for theory. Because theories are realised in language, their very shape is influenced by the individuated meaning potential of those who build them. The more diverse our communities of inquiry, the richer and more reflexive our theories can become.

Individuation, then, is not a barrier to objectivity — it is a precondition for depth. It reminds us that the richness of our theoretical systems lies not in erasing difference, but in cultivating and accounting for it.

In our final post of the series, we will bring these insights together to consider what it means to use a theory of language to reconstrue the language of theories, and why this might be one of the most generative moves available to human thought.

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5 Why Language Matters – The Architecture of Meaning Across Domains

Why use a theory of language to reconstrue science, philosophy, or myth? Because all of them are realised in language.

Language is not a passive medium into which ideas are poured. It is a semiotic architecture that makes ideation, abstraction, and system-building possible in the first place. Its internal organisation — its relations between potential and instance, between content and expression, between the collective and the individuated — provides a grammar for theory itself.

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) gives us tools for recognising this grammar. With its distinctions between:

• Instantiation: the relation between system and instance,

• Realisation: the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction,

• Individuation: the relation between shared meaning systems and individual repertoires,

…we are equipped to understand how ideas take form, move through communities, and become structured systems of knowledge.

This meta-series has made a modest claim: that these linguistic distinctions have explanatory power beyond language. They are not metaphors imported into other domains — they are formal relations intrinsic to the systems in which those domains are expressed.

When we say a gene is instantiated through its activation, or a scientific tradition individuates knowledge through its lineage of thinkers, or a myth is realised in narrative and ritual, we are not drawing loose analogies. We are uncovering homologous architectures of meaning — recurring structural patterns that help us understand how knowledge becomes knowable.

This is not to reduce science, philosophy, or religion to language, but to acknowledge that their articulation, transmission, and evolution are linguistically mediated. Any field that relies on theorisation, explanation, or modelling relies — whether tacitly or explicitly — on a semiotic infrastructure.

And so, we offer this orientation:

This blog uses a theory of language to reconstrue the language of theories.

Because theories are realised in language, a theory of language has the potential to renovate the entire history of human thought.

Such renovation is not an act of demolition, but of reflexive architecture. It helps us see the scaffolding beneath the walls — to understand how knowledge is constructed, sustained, and made to mean.

And that is why language matters.

Relational Biology: Applying SFL’s Semiotic Architecture to Life

1 Not Meaning Systems, but Meaningful Distinctions

Biology is not a meaning system. Cells do not speak. Genes do not form clauses. Proteins do not interpret messages. Yet it may still be possible — and indeed clarifying — to use semiotic distinctions to understand biological processes.

In this series, we propose that certain core concepts from systemic functional linguistics (SFL), especially the distinctions of instantiation, realisation, and individuation, offer powerful tools for describing how biological systems are organised. These concepts arise in the study of meaning-making in language, but they are not confined to language. They are structural distinctions that help us understand how potential becomes actual, how different levels of organisation interact, and how differentiation emerges within systems. And these are precisely the kinds of questions that biology must ask.

Importantly, we are not claiming that biology is a semiotic system. Rather, we are asking: what if we treat certain biological relations as if they instantiate the same kinds of structural distinctions found in meaning-making? Might this approach allow us to see familiar processes — such as gene expression, cell differentiation, or organismal development — in a new and more integrated way?

Distinctions, Not Analogies

This is not an exercise in metaphor. We are not likening the genome to a text or reading language into molecules. Instead, we are proposing that the SFL architecture of meaning provides analytical distinctions that help us map relations within any complex system, including biological ones.

To be clear:

• We are not saying that genes mean proteins.

• We are saying that the relation between a gene and the protein it specifies has a similar structural form to the semiotic relation between content and expression.

By distinguishing between potential, instance, and realisation — and between system-wide potential and individual differentiation — we gain tools to describe biological organisation without reducing it to code or chemistry.

Why Use SFL?

Systemic functional linguistics is unique in offering a mature, explicit theory of how meaning is structured across multiple levels. Crucially, it distinguishes:

• Instantiation: the relation between a system of potential and its individual instances;

• Realisation: the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction (e.g., content and expression);

• Individuation: the relation between collective systems and the differentiated potential of individuals.

These are not merely linguistic constructs. They are ways of mapping relations in complex systems. And because biological systems are rich in layered organisation, these distinctions may help illuminate the logic of developmental and evolutionary processes — in a way that avoids both mechanistic determinism and vague holism.

A Shift in Perspective

This approach invites us to move away from thinking of biological parts as discrete units with fixed meanings (e.g., the gene as a blueprint or programme) and toward viewing them as participants in patterned systems, whose behaviour depends on how they are instantiated, realised, and individuated in context.

It’s a shift from static substance to dynamic relation. From code to configuration. From inheritance as replication to inheritance as potential.

What’s to Come

In the posts that follow, we will explore:

• how the concept of instantiation helps us rethink gene activation and cellular development;

• how realisation clarifies the layered structure of biological processes;

• how individuation sheds light on differentiation within organisms and populations;

• and how these distinctions, when integrated, allow us to describe living systems with new precision.

This is not a metaphorical import from linguistics into biology. It is an attempt to test whether semiotic distinctions, developed to model complex meaning systems, can do useful analytical work in another domain of systemic complexity: life itself.

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2 Instantiation — From Genetic Potential to Cellular Actuality

One of the foundational distinctions in systemic functional linguistics is that between meaning potential and meaning instance — linked by the process of instantiation. The system of language offers a structured potential for meaning, but each text (or utterance) is an instance: a particular actualisation of that potential in context. This same structural logic can help us understand how biological potential becomes biological actuality.

In this post, we explore how instantiation can illuminate biological processes — particularly the activation of genes and the development of cells — by distinguishing between what can happen and what does happen, and how the one becomes the other.

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Gene Activation as Instantiation

At the molecular level, the genome does not operate like a program that runs from start to finish. It provides a potential — a structured, constrained field of possibilities — but only some genes are activated in any given context. This process of activation is deeply contingent: it depends on environmental cues, cellular conditions, regulatory signals, and epigenetic marks.

From a relational perspective, we can say:

• The genome constitutes the meaning potential of the organism.

• A gene activation event is an instance of that potential.

• The process of instantiation selects particular elements from the potential and actualises them in response to contextual conditions.

This allows us to shift from a static view of the genome as a code to a dynamic view of genetic potential as something instantiated in context — not unlike how a speaker selects meanings from the system of language to produce a specific utterance in a specific situation.

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Development as a Cascade of Instantiations

Instantiation does not occur once. It unfolds over time, with each instance influencing future selections. In multicellular organisms, early instantiations (e.g. in embryogenesis) set the stage for subsequent ones. Gene expression patterns become increasingly specialised, as certain potentials are actualised while others are held in reserve or excluded.

This gives us a way to understand:

• Development not as the execution of a predetermined plan, but as a progressive, branching cascade of instantiations;

• Contextual modulation as central to development, since each instantiation reconfigures the context for the next;

• Plasticity and constraint as two poles of potential — with instantiation navigating between them.

Seen this way, development is not a pipeline but a dialogue between genetic potential and environmental context, where meaning emerges through use.

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Instantiation Across Levels

Although we’ve focused on gene activation, the logic of instantiation applies at many levels in biology:

• In cellular signalling, where potential responses are instantiated in actual behaviour;

• In immune systems, where a structured potential for recognition is instantiated in particular antigen responses;

• In neural plasticity, where learning instantiates specific patterns of connectivity within a system of latent affordances.

In each case, we can distinguish the system of potential from the instance, and the process that links them: instantiation as contextually contingent actualisation.

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Not Just Activation — But Selection in Context

This perspective also clarifies that instantiation is not mere activation or triggering. It is selection in context, shaped by the system’s internal architecture and by its ongoing relations with its environment. It always implies:

• an internal structuring of potential;

• a contingent actualisation;

• a shaping role for context.

It is this structural clarity that the concept of instantiation provides. It invites us to describe biological processes not only in terms of mechanism, but in terms of potential, constraint, and the pathways from one to the other.

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In the next post, we turn to realisation, the second of our semiotic distinctions, to explore how different levels of biological organisation are linked — not by cause-and-effect, but by relations of symbolic abstraction.

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3 Realisation — Linking Levels of Biological Meaning

In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), realisation is the relation that links levels of symbolic abstraction. Semantics is realised by lexicogrammar, which is in turn realised by phonology or graphology. Realisation is not a causal process but an identifying one: a relation of symbolic mapping between strata of meaning.

This post explores how the concept of realisation can illuminate biological systems — especially the relationship between genetic sequences and their functional products, and between different levels of organisation in living systems.

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Realisation Is Not Mechanism

In everyday language, we might say that a gene "produces" a protein, or that DNA "codes for" traits. But these are mechanistic metaphors that often obscure the symbolic nature of biological systems. What if we instead treated these relations as analogous to realisation?

In this frame:

• A gene is not simply a physical molecule but a structured unit of symbolic potential;

• A protein is not simply a material effect, but the realisation of a genetic sequence at a lower level of abstraction;

• The process of transcription and translation is not itself the realisation — it is the material mediation of the realisation relation.

This distinction is subtle but powerful. It allows us to describe biology not just as a set of causes and effects, but as a layered system of symbolic relations: a meaning architecture that can be clarified by tools developed for understanding language.

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Codons and Amino Acids: A Symbolic Mapping

The most direct example of realisation in biology is the relation between codons (triplets of nucleotide bases) and amino acids. This mapping is not intrinsic — it is historically contingent and mediated by a translation system. It is a convention established by evolutionary processes, maintained by tRNA and ribosomal machinery.

In SFL terms, we might say:

• A codon is a unit of content;

• An amino acid is its realised form at the level of expression;

• The genetic code is a structured system of realisation relations — mapping symbolic potential onto material outcomes.

This analogy helps us see that what matters is not just the substance of the elements, but their patterned relations across levels. It is the structure of realisation that makes biological semiosis possible.

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Realisation and Functional Integration

Realisation also helps us think about integration across scales:

• Genes are realised as proteins;

• Regulatory networks are realised as cellular behaviours;

• Cellular activities are realised in tissue morphologies;

• Organ functions are realised in organismal capacities.

Each level construes the level above and is construed by the level below — not in a one-to-one fashion, but through complex many-to-many mappings. These mappings are not just material but symbolic: structured, patterned, and functional.

Realisation allows us to see how form and function co-emerge — not as mechanical outputs of a code, but as levels of biological meaning in relation.

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Realisation Without Teleology

One might worry that talking about realisation introduces a teleological bias — as if genes intend to become proteins. But this is not the case. In SFL, realisation is not about purpose but about structured dependency. One stratum construes another, and the relation between them is both enabling and constraining.

Similarly in biology:

• A gene does not intend to be expressed;

• A codon does not mean an amino acid in the semantic sense;

• But these symbolic correspondences are nonetheless real and consequential.

Recognising this allows us to talk about biological structure and function without reducing either to mere chemistry or to anthropomorphic metaphor.

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In the next post, we turn to the third pillar of our framework: individuation — the process by which systems of potential are distributed, differentiated, and developed across populations of cells, organisms, and lineages.

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4 Individuation — Differentiating Biological Meaning Potential

In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), individuation refers to how a shared meaning potential becomes differently available to individuals or subgroups within a community. It addresses how each speaker draws upon and contributes to the collective semiotic system, developing a distinct “voice” or meaning potential of their own.

In this post, we explore how individuation provides insight into biological differentiation — from cell specialisation to developmental pathways and ecological divergence — wherever a shared biological potential becomes particularised in actual living systems.

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From Genetic Potential to Developmental Differentiation

Every cell in a multicellular organism typically contains the same genome. Yet liver cells, neurons, and muscle cells look and behave differently. Why?

Because what is shared as potential (the genome) becomes individuated through differential activation and interpretation — shaped by context, interaction, and developmental history.

• Stem cells represent undifferentiated potential — pluripotency.

• Differentiated cells are individuated instances of that potential — distinct profiles of gene expression, morphology, and function.

• This individuation is mediated by systems of epigenetic regulation, signalling gradients, and tissue contexts that act like semiotic environments — modulating what gets activated, when, and how.

We might say: a liver cell is not just a cell with a certain identity, but a cell with a particular instantiation of the shared meaning potential — its own way of being a cell, shaped by the system it participates in.

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Biological Systems as Individuated Meaning Systems

This individuation does not end with cells. Whole organisms, populations, and ecosystems also participate in the differentiation of shared biological potentials.

• Clonal organisms (e.g. genetically identical plants or insects) may exhibit diverse phenotypes based on micro-environmental cues.

• Phenotypic plasticity shows how the same genotype can give rise to different outcomes — depending on what aspects of potential are made actual.

• Niche specialisation in ecosystems reflects long-term processes of individuation — as lineages come to occupy different roles and enact different functions within a shared evolutionary potential.

Just as in language, where each speaker’s repertoire is a patterned subset of the language system, each organism enacts a distinctive subset of the biological system — a particular way of being alive within a field of possibilities.

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Not Just Variation — Participation

Individuation is not merely variation. It is a relational process: a system–instance dynamic in which:

• The system provides structured potential;

• The instance actualises a distinctive realisation of that potential;

• And both are shaped by participation in a larger ecology of meaning.

This means:

• A cell does not simply “become” a neuron; it participates in a network that makes being-a-neuron meaningful;

• An organism does not simply express traits; it joins an ecosystemic conversation in which those traits matter;

• A species does not merely diverge; it individuates a lineage-level potential into a new role or identity.

Individuation helps us understand not only what is inherited or expressed, but how difference itself is made meaningful in living systems.

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The Semiotic Architecture of Life

Across the first four posts, we’ve proposed that three key SFL concepts — instantiation, realisation, and individuation — offer a clarifying semiotic lens on biology:

• Instantiation helps us see how potential becomes actual — from gene activation to trait development;

• Realisation reveals the layered symbolic mappings that structure biological systems — from codons to amino acids, regulatory networks to organismal functions;

• Individuation highlights the differentiation of shared potential into particular pathways, forms, and identities.

Together, these concepts offer more than metaphor. They provide a principled way of describing life as a system of meaning — one that unfolds not just through chemical interactions, but through structured relations of potential, actualisation, and differentiation.

In our final post, we’ll reflect on what this perspective contributes to biological understanding — and how it might open up new ways of thinking across the boundaries of language, life, and meaning.

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5 Biology as a Semiotic System — Rethinking Life Through Meaning

What happens when we look at life not just as a set of chemical and physical processes, but as a meaning system — one that can be better understood using the semiotic architecture of systemic functional linguistics?

Over the last four posts, we’ve explored how three foundational SFL concepts — instantiation, realisation, and individuation — offer deep insight into biological organisation:

• Instantiation as the actualisation of biological potential, from gene activation to trait development.

• Realisation as the symbolic mapping that connects genetic codes with the material forms they specify — codons realised as amino acids, regulatory patterns realised as cell types.

• Individuation as the differentiation of shared potential into distinct developmental paths, functional roles, or ecological identities.

In this concluding post, we step back to consider the broader implications of this perspective — and what it contributes to the study of life.

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A Shift in Ontology: From Matter to Meaning

At first glance, applying semiotic theory to biology might seem like a stretch. Isn’t meaning something humans do with language, not something cells or genes are involved in?

But meaning, in the SFL tradition, is not confined to words. It is about structured potential — and how that potential is selectively activated, expressed, and differentiated in context.

From this perspective:

• A genome is not just a code, but a system of potential biological meanings.

• A developmental trajectory is not just an outcome, but a patterned actualisation of that potential.

• A differentiated cell type or ecological niche is not just a form, but an individuation of shared possibility.

Biology, in this sense, is not a closed mechanism but an open system of meaning — one that unfolds dynamically through layered semiotic relations.

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Clarifying Complexity: What This Model Offers

Why use semiotic concepts to talk about life? Because they offer clarifying distinctions that are often blurred in current biological discourse.

For example:

• The distinction between activation (instantiation) and expression (realisation) helps disentangle the logic of gene regulation from the material processes it directs.

• Recognising individuation allows us to describe not just diversity, but the structuring of diversity — how variation becomes meaningful within the system as a whole.

• Framing biological processes in terms of meaning enables us to speak more clearly about function, interpretation, and responsiveness — without reducing everything to chemistry or computation.

This is not about replacing existing biological models. It’s about supplementing them with a relational semiotic perspective — one that foregrounds how life means as well as how it works.

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An Invitation to Transdisciplinary Thinking

Applying SFL’s semiotic architecture to biology opens up more than a novel interpretation. It invites transdisciplinary thinking across the sciences and humanities.

• In developmental systems theory, we already see recognition that traits are not “in” the genes, but arise from dynamic interactions across levels of organisation.

• In evolutionary biology, concepts like niche construction and ecological inheritance show that meaning-making is part of how organisms shape and are shaped by their environments.

• In philosophy of biology, there is growing interest in how agency, interpretation, and signification figure into life processes.

A semiotic view can bridge these insights, offering a formal vocabulary for understanding life as a system of relations — not just of cause and effect, but of potential and instance, symbol and realisation, difference and identity.

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Life, Differently Understood

To say that biology is a meaning system is not to anthropomorphise it. It is to recognise that meaning — in the sense of structured, actualisable potential — is not exclusive to language, but intrinsic to life.

Cells interpret signals. Genes map to outcomes. Organisms differentiate shared codes into diverse forms. All this is not merely information processing; it is semiotic activity — patterned, relational, and meaningful.

By bringing the distinctions of instantiation, realisation, and individuation into biological thought, we do not impose a linguistic model onto life. We allow life’s own complexity to become more intelligible — by attending to the kinds of relations that make systems, and systems that make meaning.

This is not the end of a story, but the beginning of a question:

What else becomes visible when we think of life semiotically?

Relational Science and the Future of Inquiry

1 Classical Science vs. Relational Science — Paradigms in Contrast

Science as we know it today is rooted in a tradition that dates back centuries — a tradition grounded in classical assumptions about the nature of reality, observation, and causality. This classical scientific paradigm is characterised by several core ideas: that reality exists independently of observation; that phenomena can be isolated and studied as discrete entities; and that knowledge is built through objective measurement and reproducible experiments.

These assumptions have yielded tremendous insights and technologies. Yet, as we push the boundaries of knowledge—into the quantum realm, complex ecosystems, and social systems—it becomes increasingly clear that the classical model is insufficient to capture the full texture of reality. This insufficiency has prompted calls for a new way of thinking: a relational scientific paradigm.

What is Relational Science?

At its heart, relational science acknowledges that reality is not composed of isolated, self-contained things but of dynamic relations and interactions. Objects and subjects co-constitute each other; the observer participates in shaping what is observed; and processes unfold through networks of interdependence. This relational ontology reframes what counts as an explanation: from linear cause-effect chains between discrete entities to webs of mutual influence, emergence, and co-becoming.

Key Contrasts:

Classical Science	Relational Science
Reality is independent, observer is separate	Reality is co-constructed with the observer
Entities have fixed, intrinsic properties	Properties emerge through relations
Causality is linear and local	Causality is distributed, context-dependent
Knowledge is objective and context-free	Knowledge is participatory and situated
Reductionism: isolate parts to understand whole	Holism: understand wholes through relations

Implications for Scientific Methodology

The shift toward relational science challenges the classical ideal of detached measurement. It requires us to reconsider experimental design, data interpretation, and even what counts as evidence. Relational methods emphasise contextualisation, reflexivity, and multi-modal approaches — combining quantitative data with qualitative insights, and integrating perspectives across disciplines.

Why Does It Matter?

Embracing a relational paradigm is not merely an abstract philosophical move. It has practical consequences for how we approach pressing global challenges — from climate change and biodiversity loss to social justice and public health. These complex problems involve entangled systems where linear, reductionist approaches fall short. Relational science offers tools better suited to capturing complexity, fostering cooperation, and co-creating sustainable futures.

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In the next post, we will delve deeper into Observer Participation — exploring how measurement, reality, and co-creation intertwine in relational inquiry.

2 Observer Participation — Measurement, Reality, and Co-Creation

A defining feature of relational science is the recognition that the observer is not a passive spectator but an active participant in the phenomena being studied. This insight disrupts the classical scientific ideal of objective, detached observation and invites a deeper inquiry into the entanglement between measurement, reality, and knowledge.

Observer and Reality: A Mutual Constitution

In classical science, measurement is often assumed to reveal pre-existing properties of independently existing entities. Yet, advances in quantum physics and systems theory challenge this notion. The act of observation itself influences what is observed, collapsing potentials into specific outcomes, and in doing so, co-creating reality with the measured system.

This does not imply that reality is purely subjective or constructed arbitrarily. Rather, it means that reality emerges through ongoing relations between observer and observed, context and system, measurement and meaning.

The Measurement Problem and Its Lessons

Quantum mechanics famously exposes the limits of classical observation. Phenomena such as wavefunction collapse and entanglement highlight that the observer’s choice of measurement affects the behaviour of quantum systems in fundamental ways.

Beyond physics, similar patterns arise in ecology, social sciences, and cultural studies: observations shape and reshape the systems under study, whether through researcher influence, participatory methods, or the feedback loops intrinsic to living systems.

Co-Creation in Scientific Practice

Relational science advocates methodologies that embrace observer participation. Reflexivity — where researchers critically reflect on their own role and influence — becomes essential. Collaborative inquiry, where stakeholders co-design studies and interpret findings together, exemplifies this participatory approach.

Such methods do not undermine scientific rigour; instead, they enrich understanding by making explicit the relational dynamics at play and acknowledging the limits of detached objectivity.

Implications for Knowledge and Inquiry

Observer participation implies that knowledge is situated and provisional. Scientific claims are understood as negotiated, contextual, and contingent — rather than final or universally fixed truths. This relational stance opens space for plural perspectives, interdisciplinarity, and adaptive inquiry responsive to changing conditions.

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In our next post, we will explore Methodologies for Relational Inquiry — examining how scientific practices evolve to embody this participatory, situated approach.

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3 Methodologies for Relational Inquiry — From Experiment to Ethnography

If relational science redefines the observer as a participant in the unfolding of phenomena, then the methods of inquiry themselves must also transform. Traditional scientific methodologies—designed for separation and objectivity—must give way or adapt to approaches that acknowledge and incorporate relational dynamics.

Beyond the Detached Experiment

Classical experimental designs aim to isolate variables, control contexts, and produce replicable, universal findings. While this has driven profound advances, it often abstracts phenomena from their contexts and downplays the mutual shaping of observer and system.

Relational inquiry challenges this by emphasising the situatedness of all observations. Experiments are no longer mere snapshots of independent reality but interventions within dynamic systems. This requires flexible designs that account for feedback, context, and the evolving nature of the phenomena.

Ethnography and Participatory Methods

Ethnographic approaches — long established in anthropology and sociology — offer valuable models for relational inquiry. By immersing themselves in contexts, researchers attend to the interplay of actors, environments, meanings, and practices over time.

Participatory action research and community-based studies extend this by involving those studied as co-researchers, valuing local knowledge and fostering collaborative meaning-making. These methods reveal the entangled nature of knowledge production and highlight the ethical responsibility of inquiry.

Systems Thinking and Network Analysis

Relational methodologies often employ systems thinking, which conceptualises phenomena as networks of interdependent components. Network analysis, complexity science, and modelling techniques allow researchers to map, simulate, and interpret interactions that transcend linear causality.

These tools are particularly potent in ecological, biological, social, and technological domains where relationships themselves carry causal force.

Towards Methodological Pluralism

A relational science does not prescribe a single methodology but encourages pluralism—a toolkit adaptable to the question, context, and participants. Mixed methods approaches, iterative cycles of inquiry, and openness to emergent insights characterise this ethos.

Importantly, relational inquiry foregrounds reflexivity: continual examination of how the researcher’s presence, assumptions, and actions shape the process and outcomes.

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In our next post, we will delve into Relational Thinking in Physics, exploring how quantum entanglement and related phenomena exemplify and inspire relational approaches in science.

4 Relational Thinking in Physics — Quantum Entanglement and Beyond

Physics has long been the poster child of classical science’s quest for objective, universal laws. Yet, the advent of quantum mechanics has profoundly challenged this classical picture, revealing a world that resists simple, detached description and invites relational thinking.

Quantum Entanglement: A Paradigm Shift

At the heart of this challenge lies quantum entanglement—a phenomenon where particles become inseparably linked, such that the state of one instantly correlates with the state of another, regardless of distance. This phenomenon defies classical assumptions of independent, local entities and suggests that relations themselves are fundamental.

Entanglement implies that what exists “out there” is not a collection of isolated objects, but a network of interdependencies, where measurement and observation participate actively in defining reality. In other words, the observer and the observed are entwined.

Relational Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics

Relational interpretations, such as Carlo Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics, propose that the properties of quantum systems exist only relative to other systems — no absolute, observer-independent state exists. This reframes reality as a web of interactions, where knowledge and existence are co-constructed.

Similarly, interpretations like Quantum Bayesianism (QBism) view the wavefunction as a tool for an agent’s expectations, not an objective property. This underscores the participatory nature of scientific inquiry.

Beyond Quantum Physics

Relational thinking extends beyond quantum physics into the realms of spacetime, information theory, and cosmology. Some approaches suggest that spacetime itself emerges from entanglement patterns, positioning relations as ontologically primary rather than derived.

Implications for Science and Philosophy

These insights challenge entrenched dichotomies — subject/object, observer/observed, and independent/dependent — prompting a reconsideration of what science aims to describe. They invite a shift toward a science that is less about uncovering fixed entities and more about understanding networks of relations and processes.

In the next post, we will explore how relational perspectives illuminate biological and ecological systems, highlighting co-evolution and complex networks.

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5 Relational Biology and Ecology — Systems, Networks, and Co-Evolution

While physics has prompted us to rethink the foundational nature of reality, biology and ecology offer equally profound insights into relationality—revealing life itself as a dynamic network of interactions that shape and are shaped by their contexts.

From Organisms to Systems

Traditional biology often treated organisms as discrete units, bounded entities that evolve through gene-centred processes. Yet, relational biology invites us to view organisms as systems—complex, open, and interdependent networks of cells, genes, and environmental interactions.

This systems perspective acknowledges that the boundaries of organisms are porous and that life unfolds in continuous relation with its surroundings.

Networks and Interactions

Ecology extends this perspective further, focusing on the webs of interaction between organisms and their environments. Food webs, mutualistic relationships, and ecosystem dynamics exemplify how no species or individual evolves in isolation.

The concept of co-evolution captures this beautifully: species adapt not simply to static environments but to other evolving organisms, producing reciprocal influences over time.

Niche Construction and Ecological Inheritance

We have explored how organisms modify their environments and pass these changes to subsequent generations, a process known as niche construction. This challenges gene-centric views by positioning environment modification as a form of inheritance and evolutionary influence.

Relational Development and Phenotypic Plasticity

Developmental biology contributes another layer: phenotypic plasticity—organisms’ capacity to develop different traits in response to environmental cues—highlights how relational interactions during development shape evolutionary outcomes.

This underscores the fluidity and contextuality of life, where genotype, environment, and history are intertwined.

Towards a Relational Biology

Embracing relationality shifts biology from a focus on static ‘things’ to a science of processes and relations. It highlights networks, feedback loops, and histories as foundational to understanding life’s diversity and adaptability.

In the next post, we will examine how the social sciences and humanities are embracing relational approaches, transforming our understanding of culture, meaning, and society.

6 Social Sciences and Humanities — The Relational Turn in Culture and Meaning

The social sciences and humanities have long grappled with the complexity of human experience, culture, and meaning. Recently, a relational turn has reshaped these fields, offering fresh perspectives that resonate with relational ontologies in science.

From Individuals to Networks of Relations

Where classical approaches often centred on individuals as isolated agents or fixed social structures, relational thinking foregrounds the networks, interactions, and processes that constitute social life.

Human identity, culture, and knowledge are understood not as static possessions but as emergent from ongoing interactions—between people, their histories, institutions, and environments.

Language, Meaning, and Semiotics

Relational approaches emphasise language and semiotics as dynamic systems of meaning-making. Meaning is not inherent in isolated words or symbols but arises in relations—between speakers and listeners, texts and contexts, and cultural traditions and innovations.

This dynamic challenges essentialist notions of identity or culture, highlighting hybridity, fluidity, and co-construction.

Power, Agency, and Ethics

A relational lens also reshapes understandings of power and agency. Power is seen not merely as possession but as distributed across networks, enacted in relations.

Agency emerges relationally—through participation, negotiation, and contestation within social fields—inviting ethical reflections on responsibility, participation, and co-creation.

Transdisciplinarity and Methodological Innovation

Social sciences and humanities increasingly adopt transdisciplinary and participatory methods, such as ethnography, dialogic inquiry, and collaborative research.

These methodologies align with relational epistemologies by valuing situated knowledge, multiple perspectives, and the co-production of meaning.

Implications for Culture and Society

Understanding culture and society relationally encourages us to see social change as emergent from complex interactions rather than solely from top-down structures or individual choices.

It opens pathways for more inclusive, responsive, and adaptive approaches to addressing contemporary social challenges.

7 The Future of Science — Toward Integrative, Participatory Inquiry

As we conclude this series, it is clear that adopting a relational ontology invites us to rethink not only what science studies, but how science is done. The future of inquiry points toward more integrative, participatory, and co-creative approaches that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Beyond Reductionism and Fragmentation

Classical science often seeks to break complex phenomena into isolated parts, aiming for precision through reduction. Relational science, by contrast, embraces complexity as fundamental, focusing on patterns of interaction and emergence.

This shift challenges the fragmentation of knowledge and calls for holistic frameworks that honour interconnectedness.

Participatory Epistemologies

Relational inquiry recognises the active participation of observers and practitioners in the production of knowledge. Measurement, observation, and interpretation are not passive acts but co-creative processes that shape what is known.

This participatory stance fosters reflexivity—awareness of how methods, perspectives, and values influence scientific outcomes.

Transdisciplinary Collaboration

Future science increasingly requires collaboration across disciplines, cultures, and sectors. Complex global challenges—such as climate change, health crises, and social inequality—demand integrative approaches that combine insights from physics, biology, social sciences, humanities, and indigenous knowledge.

Relational science provides a conceptual and ethical foundation for such transdisciplinary engagement.

Methodological Innovation

Embracing relationality encourages innovation in methods—blending quantitative and qualitative tools, integrating systems thinking, network analysis, ethnography, and participatory action research.

This methodological pluralism respects multiple ways of knowing and invites diverse stakeholders into inquiry.

Ethics of Inquiry and Co-Creation

A relational future science is deeply ethical. It recognises that scientific knowledge co-produces realities and affects communities and environments. This awareness compels scientists to engage responsibly and collaboratively, fostering science as a shared, dynamic practice embedded in social and ecological contexts.

A Vision for Tomorrow

Ultimately, relational science envisions inquiry as a participatory journey rather than a quest for fixed truths. It calls on us to become co-creators in an ongoing dance with the living world—cultivating curiosity, humility, and openness.

This future is not distant. It is already emerging in pockets of innovation, dialogue, and mutual learning worldwide. The question is: how will we nurture and expand it?