As I said two days ago, the field does not just describe science, but also systems, experience. I think science is obvious as the idea of the field is already well understood there. So in the next couple of days I want to apply the folded-field to an area not related to science: political power.

We’re used to seeing politics as a contest, where groups and individuals compete to get power over others. But in the folded-field ontology, which owes a lot to thinkers like Spinoza and Deleuze, power isn’t something you can possess. Instead, power propagates. It moves like a wave of intensity through the whole field, shaping its curvature. Things like authority, or even resistance, are just field effects. They are patterns of synchronisation or blockage that appear when the collective field tightens or loosens. Power is really just the field’s own capacity to organise itself.

With this in mind, I think we can see our institutions a little bit differently. Our laws, our traditions, and our bureaucracies aren’t fixed objects. We can see them as “slow folds” in the social field. They stabilise our behaviour by setting a common rhythm, like a rule or a schedule. This stability helps us coordinate, but it also creates inertia. The trouble comes when those institutions become rigid, resisting modulation. They stop being able to reconfigure in response to new needs or new voices. Reform, then, isn’t about smashing the system from the outside. It’s about “re-curving” it from within, introducing flexibility back into a hardened shape.

So, what holds a society together? I believe it maintains itself through shared resonances. Our languages, our media, our economies, and our rituals are the frequencies that let separate folds feel like they are part of a whole. If that resonance weakens, the group fragments. But if it becomes too strong, individuality just collapses into conformity. This offers a new angle on democracy. Perhaps democracy isn’t just a system of representation. Perhaps it’s a mode of tuning. It’s the collective, ongoing practice of adjusting frequencies so that all our multiplicity can coexist in coherence. Censorship and propaganda are the opposite. They are distortions of resonance, attempts to force one frequency to drown out all the others.