Relational Ontology, Instantiation, and Individuation: Groundwork for a Systemic Model of Memes

Relational Ontology, Instantiation, and Individuation: Groundwork for a Systemic Model of Memes

To understand how memes function within a general theory of meaning, we must carefully reconstruct the conceptual architecture that supports their integration. In particular, we must ground our model in a relational ontology and distinguish between the processes of instantiation and individuation. These concepts allow us to treat memes not merely as cultural curiosities or replicators, but as meaningful formations within evolving semiotic systems. This post provides the theoretical groundwork to support a more precise systemic-functional account of memetics.

Relational Ontology: Meaning as Emergent Structure

A relational ontology begins by refusing to treat entities as self-contained substances. Instead, what exists is constituted by relations. In systemic-functional linguistics (SFL), meaning is relationally defined: a clause is meaningful not by what it is in itself, but by the role it plays within a system of options.

In this framework:

• Meaning is not a thing but a structured potential, shaped by its position in a system of interrelated possibilities.

• Meaning instances are actualised configurations of these potentials in context.

• Semiotic strata (semantics, lexicogrammar, phonology) are related by realisation, not composition.

Crucially, meaning is not made of words or sounds. It is construed through symbolic abstraction and actualised through semiotic choice. This ontology opens the door to modelling memes as emergent formations in meaning space.

Instantiation: From Potential to Instance

Instantiation refers to the movement from a system of potential meanings to actualised instances of meaning. In SFL:

• The system represents the meaning potential of a semiotic system.

• The instance is a actualised configuration (e.g., a clause, a meme).

• The cline of instantiation runs between these poles, allowing us to locate partial or recurrent structures between full generality and specific occurrence.

When we encounter a meme in the wild (say, an image macro with a familiar format), we are seeing a meaning instance that draws on a semiotic system. But it also belongs to a meme-type—a recognisable pattern of instantiation that is neither a fully general system nor a one-off instance. It sits somewhere along the cline.

Individuation: Who Has Access to What Potential?

Individuation refers to the relation between collective meaning potential (what a culture or community can mean) and individual meaning potential (what a person can mean). Meaning is not equally distributed:

• Some individuals have access to highly elaborated meaning systems (e.g., specialists).

• Others operate within more restricted or differently configured potentials.

Memes, in this context, become a space of semiotic individuation. The collective recognises a meme-type as valid, but each instantiation reflects the individuated meaning potential of the meme-maker. This dynamic allows memes to evolve, shift, or fracture over time.

Why This Matters for Memetics

Previous models of memetics, particularly the one advanced by Dawkins, treated memes as cultural replicators—quasi-biological units transmitted through imitation. But this view is incompatible with a relational, semiotic model of meaning. Instead, we argue:

• Memes are meaning instances: actualised selections from potential.

• Meme-types are semiotic attractors: constrained proto-systems formed through recurrent instantiation.

• Meme evolution is driven by instantiation pressure (how memes are actualised) and individuation pressure (who can mean what within the meme-type).

This shifts the emphasis from replication to variation within constraint—a fundamentally semiotic process.

Next Steps

The next phase of the project will integrate this framework into an account of the meaning economy, where meme-types serve as provisional symbolic formations shaped by memory, context, and constraint.

In short, we are moving from a metaphorical to a systemic-functional model of memes, grounded in relational ontology and sensitive to the clines of both instantiation and individuation.