From Instance to Potential: Writing as Semiotic Reversal

When the Genesis cosmology was first reduced to writing, something profound occurred—not just historically or theologically, but semiotically. In the terms of our ontology, this moment marked a reversal in the usual direction of instantiation: an instance became potential. More precisely, the meaning potential of an instance—what we call instantial potential—was lifted into the meaning potential of a system.

Oral Semiosis and Individuation

In oral traditions, meaning unfolds through situated instantiations. Each telling is an event: meaning is actualised in time, by a speaker, for a listener, shaped by the relational context. Meaning potential here is collective but fluid—carried in the living memory and interpretive practices of a community. No telling is ever final; each one draws upon and contributes to an evolving, co-instantiated meaning field. The meanings that circulate are individuated: each speaker's construal is shaped by and shapes the collective potential.

Writing as Fixation of Instance

But when a particular telling is reduced to writing, it ceases to be a fleeting instance. It becomes fixed, decontextualised, portable, and repeatable. A single construal—historically situated, politically shaped, and semiotically individuated—is materialised as the written version. It is no longer just one telling among many, but the construal that will be read, interpreted, and reinscribed for generations.

Semiotic Reversal: Instance Becomes Potential

Here is the reversal.

What was an instance of meaning—an oral construal spoken in a particular time and place—becomes a resource for future meaning-making.

That is: the meaning potential of an instance (its instantial potential) is reprojected as the meaning potential of a system—the system potential of a shared tradition.

Because the written construal no longer changes with each retelling, it becomes a reference point—an anchor for semiosis. Readers do not treat it as one voice among many, but as a source from which meaning is drawn.

In this way, the act of writing does not simply preserve meaning; it restructures the semiotic field. It changes the ontology of the text—from process to system, from actualisation to resource. What was individuated as a local construal becomes systemic as a collective potential.

Consequences for Interpretation

This shift has wide implications:

• Constraining future instantiations: Writing delimits how future meanings can be actualised. The text becomes a canon—what is written conditions what may count as authoritative interpretation.

• Inviting institutionalisation: Stabilised system potential invites institutional responses. Institutions form around the written text—priesthoods, commentaries, doctrinal frameworks—all tasked with managing its meaning potential.

• Introducing diachronic tension: The original construal is frozen in time, but semiosis continues. Meaning must be instantiated anew, often under the weight of fixity, and with the persistent challenge of speaking from within a text that does not itself move.