Iteration
General Definition
In mathematical or computational contexts, iteration designates the successive repetition of a procedure until a result is achieved. In linguistics and rhetoric, it is associated with emphatic repetition. In the Ontology of Emergent Complexity, iteration is the way complex matter repeats with variation, testing forms of reorganization under instability. To iterate is not to repeat identically: it is to review a previous gesture in a new material context, producing differences that sustain symbolic time and operative memory.
Ontological Variations in the Ontology of Emergent Complexity
Iteration As Non-Identical Repetition
Each symbolic repetition reorganizes the previous gesture under new conditions. There is no pure return: iteration simultaneously conserves and displaces.
Iteration As Structure of the Symbolic
The symbolic is not born from an isolated inscription, but from the possibility of reinscribing. Iterating is what allows the gesture to become regime.
Iteration As Operative Memory
Memory, for the OCE, is not data storage, but the capacity to iterate a form without fixing it — maintaining the trace as a potential for variation.
Iteration As Method of Emergence
Matter neither chooses nor plans: it attempts. Form emerges from the multiplication of operative attempts, with local successes and productive deviations.
Iteration As Time of Friction
Symbolic time does not elapse: it repeats itself with friction. Each iteration marks a friction, a deviation, a micro-fold in the path of reorganization.