Order emerges from relations between things, not from an external observer’s frame

Evidence

Order does not occur, in this sense, in relation to the idealised position of an observer (or reader) situated outside itself. Rather, order occurs as a play of correspondence and difference between things, or perhaps better, between forces; and always as a particular order, contingent upon a point or person formed out of this play. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 538

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishing two senses of ‘order’ — relational play versus enframed representation — is the chapter’s key conceptual move.
• DEEPTHINKING: The distinction between order-as-copy and order-as-play of forces is a genuinely paradigm-shifting framing that resists summary.
• XREF: connects to: Modern science relocates the observer inside the observed system; Value emerges from relational valuation practices, not from objects themselves. — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 23; Relation is an ongoing process without presupposable prime elements or origin — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 868 (+4 more)