In relational ontology, an instance is not simply a point drawn from a pre-given set. It is a cut through the potential, a perspectival inflection that reshapes what the system is.
Not a Realisation, but a Reflexive Move
In traditional models, the system is often treated as a kind of abstract totality, and the instance as a derivative outcome — a "realisation" of system structure. But from a reflexive standpoint, this hierarchy collapses.
The instance does not follow from the system; rather, it re-structures the system retroactively. It is a construal that constitutes meaning, and in doing so, modifies the very potential it emerges from.
This is why we prefer to say that an instance actualises the system — not realises it. It is a perspectival shift that makes something possible by bringing it forth in a particular way.
Inflection as Differential Movement
Think of the instance not as a point, but as a bending — an inflection of the system’s trajectory. It is not an endpoint, but a turning, a local curvature of the semantic field.
Each instance positions itself within a system of meaning, but also alters the topology of that system. It reshapes what now counts as relevant, what meanings are proximate or distant, what construals become salient or obsolete.
In this sense, meaning is always at the edge of system: the edge that moves with each inflection.
The Temporality of the Edge
This movement of the edge is not chronological but semantic. It marks the direction in which the system is being pulled — not toward the future in time, but toward new resonances, framings, and potentials for coordination.
And so the instance, though fleeting, has a lasting force. It bends the spiral. It tilts the landscape. It nudges the grammar of the possible.
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