CONCEPT
Transduction
Simondon's term for the structuring activity that propagates across domains, constituting its terms as it advances — distinguished from mere transfer by the fact that it transforms both ends of the relation.
When a seed crystal triggers crystallization in a supersaturated solution, the crystalline structure propagates outward, and each newly formed layer creates the conditions for the next layer's formation. There is no pre-existing sender and receiver. There is a structuring activity that creates its own domain as it advances. The crystal does not move through the solution. The crystal is the process of structured propagation itself, frozen in mineral form. Simondon generalized this thermodynamic phenomenon into the fundamental concept of his entire philosophy: transduction names any process by which a structuring activity propagates from one domain to another, constituting a new domain as it goes. The distinction between transfer (which presupposes pre-existing terms and moves fixed information between them) and transduction (which constitutes its terms through the process itself) is the fulcrum of Simondon's thought.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Transfer assumes pre-existing terms. Information moves from point A to point B; both points exist before the transfer begins and persist unchanged