This is one possible line of unfolding — from simple distinction to a form capable of distinguishing traces of its changes as its own.
Each step here arises as an additional distinction within an established organization or as a distinction forming a new structure over its elemental regime. The previous movement persists, but the new structure is not reducible to it. This structure itself can then become an elemental regime for further distinction.
Here we begin with an already accomplished distinction. The experience of abstraction at the limit of thought that leads to this beginning is discussed in the introduction to the ontology and bare distinction.
Once accomplished, a distinction changes the situation. The resulting determination is the germ of quality. Distinguishing its repetitions gives multiplicity. The next distinction is made within what has already arisen.
Repetitions may almost cease to differ from one another. Non-distinction arises between distinctions, and movement becomes relatively homogeneous — an elemental regime. A new distinction organizes it into a structure within which the previous movement continues to operate.
Present distinctions simply differ. Existence as a more complex and later determination is not yet present here. When the change of one alters the possibilities of another’s continuation, non-indifference arises — a minimal relation. An organization of mutual influence takes shape over the elemental regime of individual changes.
Asymmetry becomes distinguishable within the relation: “from one to the other” differs from the reverse. This additional distinction gives direction, not yet spatial.
Within the field of directed relations, changing connections and a persisting contour can be distinguished — an invariant, rest within movement. When changes reproduce such a contour, a form arises — a structure over their elemental regime. A whirlpool remains a funnel while the water composing it is replaced.
A form may persist thanks to its surrounding conditions. If the distinction between changes that support its continuation and those that disrupt it determines its own responses, self-preservation arises. An organization takes shape over the elemental regime of changes, maintaining a working boundary between itself and the conditions of its continuation.
The way this boundary is maintained itself becomes the next object of distinction. When a form can change how it maintains its boundary, it can be called a locality. The previous organization of self-preservation becomes the elemental regime of a new structure transforming the distinction between self and non-self. A locality retains its “here” through the work of its boundary, and its identity through the boundary’s transformations.
Distinguishing possible continuations relative to the locality makes choice possible. When a locality distinguishes traces of changes in its own organization, reflection arises — a new structure over the elemental regime of these traces.
An additional distinction arises when a locality relates these changes to its persisting contour and distinguishes them as its own. This effect can be called consciousness. In distinguishing changes as its own, the locality retains itself in them — what we can call “I.”