Instantiating Reality: From Phenomena to Metaphenomena

Instantiating Reality: From Phenomena to Metaphenomena

In our ongoing exploration of the SFL-informed ontology of meaning, we’ve approached reality not as something external to language, but as something construed semiotically—as meaning. Semiotic systems do not reduce experience to meaning; rather, they construe experience as meaning, giving rise to structured systems of meaning potential.

This reframing brings with it a key distinction between two orders of meaning: first-order and second-order reality. In this post, we examine how each of these is instantiated through different types of mental and verbal processes, and how projection functions not as a form of instantiation, but as a relation between these two orders. Together, these distinctions offer a powerful model of how symbolic consciousness builds up layers of meaning.

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First-Order Reality: Phenomena

First-order reality refers to meanings that construe experience itself. These are the meanings of perception and emotion—the phenomenological apprehension of the world and of our own embodied states.

When I see, hear, touch, or feel something, I am engaging in a mental process of perception or emotion. These processes are internal, yet they construe the world as present, real, and immediate. They give rise to meanings such as:

• It’s bright in here.

• That dog looks nervous.

• I feel tense.

These meanings are not pre-linguistic sensations. They are symbolic construals of experience—instances of meaning—and so instantiate first-order reality: phenomena.

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Second-Order Reality: Metaphenomena

Second-order reality involves meanings about meanings. These are projected by cognitive and desiderative mental processes, as well as by verbal processes, which externalise projected meanings as locutions.

Rather than construing experience directly, these processes construe meanings of experience: what we believe, want, imagine, or say. They allow us to entertain alternative realities, take stances, and communicate symbolically. They give rise to meanings such as:

• I think it might rain.

• I want you to stay.

• She said it’s cancelled.

These instances are not simply new phenomena—they are metaphenomena: meanings of meaning. They instantiate second-order reality, opening the possibility of recursive, self-reflexive meaning.

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Projection: The Relation Between Orders

The relation between first- and second-order meaning is not instantiation, but projection. Projection is a semiotic relation in which one meaning (typically a clause or process) takes another as its content. It is what enables:

• She said [he’s coming].

• I think [it’s too late].

• They hoped [she’d recover].

Here, the second clause is projected—not as a new experience, but as a meaning construed by the first. Projection thus links first-order phenomena and second-order metaphenomena into a layered symbolic structure.

This layered architecture is foundational to symbolic consciousness. Through projection, we can:

• Reflect on our own construals

• Model hypothetical or non-actualised meanings

• Interpret and respond to the meanings of others

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Instantiation and Orders of Reality

It’s essential to distinguish clearly:

• Instantiation is the semiotic relation between potential and instance.

• Projection is the semiotic relation between orders of meaning.

So we can now say:

• Perceptual and emotional processes instantiate first-order reality (phenomena).

• Cognitive, desiderative, and verbal processes instantiate second-order reality (metaphenomena).

• Projection enables second-order meanings to take first-order meanings as their content.

In every case, meaning is actualised from potential. But the kind of reality instantiated—whether meaning of experience or meaning of meaning—depends on the nature of the symbolic process involved.

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Closing Thoughts: Layered Meaning in Consciousness

This distinction between orders of meaning helps us see how symbolic consciousness is more than just the construal of experience. It is a recursive, layered system in which we construe not only the world, but our own meanings about the world—and others’ meanings too.

In the next post, we’ll extend this model into the interpersonal domain. If reality is meaning, and if meaning is always instantiated in context, how do we align our realities with others through interaction? What does it mean to share—or contest—our metaphenomena?

Reality is meaning. And meaning is always in the making.