Is Space Empty? Rethinking the Void through Relational Ontology

“Between any two things lies not a void, but relation.”

We often speak of space as if it were a kind of nothingness. “Empty space,” “outer space,” “a vacuum” — the metaphors persist, even in physics. These expressions carry the intuition that space is an invisible, all-encompassing medium, separating the objects we care about. A planet sits in space. A molecule is surrounded by space. Space, in this view, is like a transparent container: it holds things, surrounds them, and exists apart from them.

But this view is not only metaphoric — it’s metaphysical. It assumes space exists in itself, independent of the things and processes it contains. In classical physics, this container model was formalised in Newton's idea of absolute space: a fixed, universal framework in which events occur. Even in much of contemporary language, we retain a ghost of this idea: space as the gap between solid objects, the thing left over when there is “nothing there.”

The relational ontology offers a radically different view.

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Space is Not a Medium, but a Relation

In a relational ontology, space does not exist in absence of relation. It is not a void that lies between things, but a pattern of co-instantiating processes. If nothing is unfolding, there is no space. If two processes are unfolding in relation to one another — whether gravitationally, energetically, semiotically — then there is space-as-relation.

This means we must distinguish two fundamentally different construals:

Construal	Everyday View	Relational Ontology
Space as Medium	A background expanse between objects, capable of existing without anything in it.	A misconstrual that reifies the relational field into a substance-like thing.
Space as Relation	Not a thing between objects, but the structure of their co-unfolding — a topology shaped by interaction.	The only space that exists is the relation between processes, unfolding in time.

Why ‘Empty Space’ is a Misconstrual

To say that space is empty is to presume that space is a thing — a substance that can be full or empty. But in a relational ontology, space is not a thing at all. It’s not an entity, not a container, not a field in which events happen. Rather, it is a structural consequence of co-instantiation.

This has significant implications:

• A vacuum is not a place without things — it’s a configuration of uninstantiated potential, constrained by nearby fields and processes.

• Distance is not a measurement of empty space — it is a degree of separation in a relational topology.

• No relation, no space. A single isolated process has no spatial extension; only in relation to others can a topology be construed.

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Gravitational Fields as Spatial Topologies

When a body enters a gravitational field, it doesn’t move “through” a medium. Rather, it becomes relationally oriented within a topology of constraint. What we perceive as “curved space” is not the bending of a background, but a change in the relational unfolding of processes. The space is not bent — the relations are differently structured.

This applies not just to gravity but to all forms of process interaction. In the relational ontology, space is the unfolding pattern of how systems co-instantiate constraint.

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What About the Vacuum of Space?

Isn’t outer space still mostly empty?

Only if we mistake absence of mass for absence of relation.

Even so-called “vacuum” regions are embedded within gravitational fields, electromagnetic potentials, and quantum fluctuations — all of which are processes. These define a relational topology, not a literal emptiness. What is “there” is the structured absence of instantiated matter, shaped by nearby relational potentials. It is not nothing; it is a potential-relational field.

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Language, Grammar, and the Reification of Space

In everyday grammar, space often plays the role of an indirect participant — we say that things exist in space, or move through it. This linguistic pattern reinforces the idea of space as a container or background.

But what if we restructured our grammar to reflect relation, rather than substance? Instead of:

• “The satellite orbits in space,”
  we might say:
  “The satellite co-instantiates orbital relation with the Earth.”

Such a shift might sound strange, but it would be ontologically accurate. It would help us resist reifying what is, in fact, just a projection of relation.

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Conclusion: No Gaps, Only Relations

There is no such thing as empty space in the relational ontology. What we call “space” is always a configuration of unfolding relation. Where there are no unfolding processes, there is no relation — and therefore no space. Where processes co-unfold, space arises as a topology of constraint, not a container of contents.

This reconstrual does not negate the mathematical tools of physics, but rather, it refuses to ontologise their scaffolding. It invites us to move beyond the void — and into relation.

Falling, Orbiting, and the Myth of Motion: A Relational View of Gravitational Dynamics

“Motion is not the change of a thing in space, but the unfolding of a relation in time.”

In both classical mechanics and general relativity, the falling body and the orbiting body are typically treated as quite distinct. One accelerates downward, the other curves around. One is pulled “in,” the other maintains a stable “outward” momentum. But these interpretations rely on a common assumption: that there is a background space through which motion occurs.

The relational ontology invites a different perspective.

Instead of imagining motion as a body moving through space, the relational view sees both falling and orbiting as patterns of relational unfolding. The body does not move through space. Rather, space is the relation between co-unfolding processes — and gravitational fields are topologies of constraint that shape those relations.

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1. Motion without a Background

In Newtonian physics, a falling object accelerates because of an external force (gravity). In general relativity, it follows a curved geodesic in a warped spacetime. In both, there's still an implicit background — space as a container or geometry in which things move or curve.

But in the relational ontology, there is no container. There is no “space” to move through, only the co-instantiating relations among processes unfolding. What we call “falling” or “orbiting” is simply a differently oriented unfolding of relational dependence — not a change in location, but a change in relational constraint.

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2. Falling and Orbiting as Co-instantiations

Consider a falling apple and the orbiting moon. In Newtonian terms, one moves straight down, the other sideways around. In relational terms, both are configurations of unfolding that instantiate the relational topology of the gravitational field.

• The falling body actualises a path of maximal change in relational potential relative to the gravitational centre. Its process unfolds toward deeper constraint.

• The orbiting body actualises a path of continuous dynamic balance within that same field — a closed topology of ongoing relation that maintains the body in a kind of constrained unfolding without collision.

Neither is moving through a pre-existing “space.” Instead, both instantiate different temporal-relational orientations within a shared potential.

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3. No Force, No Path, Just Relation

From this view, even the term “trajectory” is a misnomer. A trajectory is not a path carved through space, but a semiotic projection of a temporal unfolding. The appearance of movement comes from how one construes the changing relations over time.

This is a profound shift. We no longer ask, “Where is the object now?” but rather, “How is this process unfolding in relation to the gravitational centre and its own prior state?”

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4. Measurement and the Reification of Motion

The illusion of motion is sustained by our measurement tools — clocks and rulers — which we treat as neutral reference systems. But as the relational ontology emphasises, those too are fields of unfolding subject to gravitational constraint.

To say that a falling body “speeds up” is to mistake a change in relation for a property of space. To say an orbit “balances” centripetal and centrifugal forces is to reify the relations of unfolding into forces acting on a body.

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5. Language, Meaning, and Motion

From a semiotic perspective, this shift parallels something well-known in systemic functional linguistics: the difference between construing experience as participants moving through space, and construing experience as processes unfolding over time.

Just as meaning is instantiated not as fixed chunks, but through continuous patterns of systemic potential, so too is motion. A falling apple isn’t moving from point A to point B — it’s instantiating gravitational relation through an unfolding process, just as a clause instantiates a semantic relation through grammatical choices.

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Conclusion: Gravity as Topology, Not Trajectory

Seen relationally, the difference between falling and orbiting disappears. Both are ways of being-within a gravitational topology — different instantiations of potential, unfolding along differently oriented paths of constraint.

There is no background. No force. No container.

Only process, relation, and the quiet undoing of all that seemed solid in motion.

Physics Without a Background: Curvature, Clocks, and the Quiet Undoing of Absolute Space

🌌 Beyond Curvature: Rethinking Gravity through Relational Ontology

The familiar metaphor of spacetime curvature has long served as the conceptual scaffolding for general relativity. In this metaphor, space is treated as a pliable surface — a “fabric” that bends, stretches, and contracts in response to mass and energy. This imagery, while pedagogically effective, rests on assumptions foreign to a relational ontology. It implies that space exists independently of the processes it relates, and that it can be curved or compressed relative to some neutral background — a metaphysical vestige of absolute space.

But what if space is not a substance, nor even a surface? What if it is not that which is curved, but rather that which emerges from relation?

From a relational ontological perspective, space is not a container; it is a configuration of co-instantiability — the patterned topology of how unfolding processes relate to one another. Similarly, time is not a ticking backdrop, but the dimension of the unfolding itself. In this frame, we no longer ask what space is doing (expanding, contracting, curving), but rather: how is relational constraint being instantiated in a given field of interaction?

This shift renders the notion of “gravitational contraction” conceptually problematic. In a relational ontology:

• There is no absolute geometry for space to contract relative to.

• There is no background canvas against which local “curvature” can be measured.

• There is no spatial substance to be squeezed.

What physics construes as “curvature” near a massive object is more accurately understood as a tightening of relational topology — a shift in the field of possible co-instantiations. That is, in denser gravitational fields, processes cannot unfold with the same degrees of relational freedom as they can in less constrained fields. Their spacings, durations, and synchronisations alter — not because a thing called space is being warped, but because the unfolding of relation itself is differentiating under constraint.

In this view, “contraction” is not a physical phenomenon, but a semiotic construal of relational proximity. It is how physicists instantiate meaning from observed patterns, using a framework that still presumes an underlying spatial substrate.

Just as the relational ontology dispenses with the need for dark energy by dissolving the illusion of expansion “relative to itself,” it also shows that gravitational curvature is not a deformation of space, but an expression of how co-unfolding processes constrain one another.

We are not watching space bend.

We are witnessing relation express itself — recursively, coherently, and without remainder.

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📏 When the Ruler Forgets Itself: Measurement and the Misconstrual of Relation

In physics, measurement is often treated as neutral — a passive observer of a system, revealing objective quantities. Length, time, mass, and velocity are presumed to be intrinsic properties of entities or configurations in space and time, measurable in isolation from the act of measuring.

But in a relational ontology, this neutrality dissolves.

Measurement is itself an instance of relation. It does not reveal pre-existing absolutes but instead construes a field of potential through the lens of a specific relational configuration. Every measurement brings with it a perspective, a protocol, a normative scale, and a symbolic system. It is not outside the system — it is within it, participating in it, shaping what is taken to be real.

This has profound implications.

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🧠 The Illusion of Invariant Quantities

When we measure the distance between two galaxies and find it increasing, we infer “expansion.” But expansion relative to what?

• Not to a cosmic grid — for in the relational view, there is none.

• Not to the standard of a meter stick — because that stick is itself a product of processes unfolding within the same relational field.

To say “the universe is expanding” because two systems are moving apart is to mistake a change in relation for a property of space. But relation has no absolute frame. It only ever appears from within the unfolding system.

So too with time dilation in gravitational fields: we observe clocks ticking differently depending on proximity to mass. From this, we infer that “time flows more slowly” in stronger gravitational fields. But this assumes time exists as a flow, and that the clock is reporting on it, rather than instantiating it.

Clocks do not measure time.

They instantiate a temporality — a constrained unfolding — that we interpret as “time.”

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🔍 Measurement as Construal

In relational terms:

• Measurement is not revelation; it is symbolic construal.

• It is not discovery; it is disciplined participation in a field of meaning.

• It is not objective report; it is systemic enactment of potential into instance.

This is not to say that measurement is wrong. Quite the opposite: it is necessary. But its results must be understood as co-instantiations of the system that measures and the system measured, not as access to a noumenal layer beneath the relational web.

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🪞The Deeper Error

The deeper error lies not in measuring, but in forgetting that the measuring system is not external. The ruler stretches with the fabric; the clock ticks within the flow it helps generate. To then interpret these results as though they report on an independent reality is to sever process from participation — to treat relation as substance, and perspective as objectivity.

Measurement misconstrues relation when it forgets that it is relation.

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✨ A New Ethic of Measurement

From the perspective of relational ontology, we must recover a more reflexive, participatory understanding of measurement:

• Not as observation from nowhere, but as construal from within.

• Not as the uncovering of fixed quantities, but as the instantiation of patterned meaning.

• Not as objective mapping of the real, but as relational unfolding of intelligibility.

In this light, the cosmos is not composed of things with properties, but of unfolding configurations whose patterns of mutual constraint can be disciplined into insight — but never fully removed from the act of construal.

To measure, then, is not to master the world.

It is to participate — carefully, reflexively — in its ongoing articulation.

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From Marks and Ticks to Relations Unfolding: A Personal Reflection

When I first began to rethink gravity and relativity through a relational lens, my mental image was something familiar and concrete: the marks on rulers growing closer together under gravity, and the ticks of clocks spreading further apart. It felt intuitive — a way to picture time dilation and spatial contraction as real, physical changes in measuring devices.

This image was a helpful stepping stone. It anchored abstract concepts in tangible experience, echoing how we learn and interpret through metaphor and analogy.

Yet as the relational ontology took shape, it became clear that this intuition, while not wrong, was incomplete. The marks on rulers and clock ticks do not themselves move or change independently — rather, they are manifestations of relations unfolding differently in different fields of potential and instance.

This means we must move beyond thinking of rulers and clocks as fixed “things” subject to bending or stretching, and instead see them as processes co-instantiating the very space and time they measure.

In linguistic terms, it’s a shift akin to moving from treating words as fixed labels to understanding meaning as a dynamic interplay of systemic potentials instantiated in text. Just as grammar distinguishes between the process of meaning-making and the participants within it, relational physics distinguishes between the unfolding relations and the apparent “objects” we construe.

Reflecting on this journey underscores the power of metaphor and intuition in grappling with complex ideas — and how a conceptual leap towards relationality transforms those metaphors from static images into living processes.

Why a Relational Ontology Makes Dark Matter and Dark Energy Unnecessary

Modern cosmology is haunted by two theoretical phantoms: dark matter and dark energy. These constructs are invoked to account for gravitational effects that do not align with observed luminous mass, and for the accelerating expansion of the universe. Together, they are said to comprise over 95% of the cosmos — yet they remain entirely unobserved.

The premise of this essay is simple:

Dark matter and dark energy are not mysteries to be solved, but artefacts of a misconstrued ontology.

Once we adopt a relational view of reality — one in which process, relation, and semiotic construal replace the metaphysics of substance — these constructs simply dissolve. They are not hidden entities awaiting discovery. They are symptoms of what goes wrong when we mistake meaning for matter, or relation for thing.

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Substance Cosmology and Its Anomalies

Standard cosmology inherits its metaphysical scaffolding from classical physics:

• Space and time are containers.

• Matter is substance with intrinsic mass.

• Gravity is a force between objects.

• The universe unfolds like a vast machine.

But when this model confronts large-scale cosmic dynamics, it falters:

• Galaxies rotate faster than their visible matter allows.

• The universe appears to accelerate in its expansion.

In response, the model patches its anomalies by positing two unobserved substances:

• Dark matter (to explain excess gravity).

• Dark energy (to explain accelerating expansion).

These are not empirical discoveries. They are theoretical requirements of a worldview trying to preserve itself.

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The Relational Alternative

In contrast, a relational ontology begins from different commitments:

• Reality is not made of things but of unfolding processes.

• Space is not a container but a relational topology of co-unfolding.

• Time is the dimension of processual unfolding.

• Mass and gravity are not intrinsic, but emergent constraints in relational systems.

• Meaning is not applied to reality — it is reality, as construed.

Under these principles, the “anomalies” that gave rise to dark matter and dark energy do not emerge. Why?

Because:

• Rotation curves no longer assume fixed, Newtonian mass relations across a background space. They become expressions of relational coherence, not mass deficit.

• Cosmic expansion is not motion through space but differentiation across relational unfolding. Acceleration is not a problem if there's no background grid to accelerate relative to.

In this model, the universe is not full of missing matter — it's full of misconstrual.

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Why the Dark Dissolves

The key insight is not that dark matter and dark energy should be redefined.

It’s that they should be let go entirely.

They are:

• Boundary artefacts of a substance ontology.

• Conceptual ghosts conjured when relation is misread as substance.

• Theoretical duct tape holding together a model that cannot interpret its own misfit with the data.

In a relational ontology, there is no “dark sector” — not because it has been explained, but because:

The phenomena it was invented to explain do not arise.

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A Closing Reflection

To continue asking what dark matter and dark energy really are is to ask the wrong question. It is to remain inside an ontology that no longer serves.

The relational ontology offers a way out. Not a better patch, but a better premise.

In this light, the greatest mystery may not be the missing mass of the universe — but the tenacity of the metaphysical assumptions that made us think something was missing in the first place.

Fields of Meaning: Scientific Modelling Through a Relational Lens

1 What Is a Model?: From Compression to Construal

Scientific models are often thought of as simplified representations—“maps” or “pictures”—of reality, tools that help us navigate complexity by reducing it to manageable form. But within a relational ontology grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and informed by Edelman’s Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS), models can be understood far more profoundly: not as static mirrors, but as dynamic instances of meaning potential that both compress and construe the unfolding coherence of phenomena.

Compression as Coherence

At their core, models are compressions of relational processes and fields of unfolding. Just as particles emerge as compressed patterns within continuous fields, models condense vast webs of interaction and variation into structured, accessible forms. This compression is not arbitrary but is shaped by coherence: the patterned relations that hold together phenomena across dimensions of space, time, and causality. Models extract and amplify these coherences, enabling observers to grasp and work with them.

Construal as Meaning-Making

But compression alone is not modelling. For a model to function as a semiotic system—one that is meaningful and usable—it must be construed by conscious agents within communities of practice. This construal draws on value systems, purpose, and shared conventions to interpret the compressed patterns as meaningful configurations, whether numerical, visual, conceptual, or linguistic.

Models as Semiotic Instances

This perspective reframes models from static “pictures” to semiotic instances: dynamic, interpretable construals arising from material coherence but transcending mere physicality. Models are not simply “out there” but are enacted through the interaction of observer, community, and the phenomena under study. They instantiate meaning potentials shaped by cultural, cognitive, and methodological systems.

Implications

Understanding models as compressed and construed relational processes invites a new epistemology: one that foregrounds the role of the observer, the semiotic system, and the collective meaning potential from which models emerge. It also opens paths to explore how models evolve, how they relate across domains, and how they mediate the unfolding of scientific knowledge.

2 The Model in Practice: Interactions, Limits, and the Ecology of Knowledge

Building on our understanding of models as compressions and semiotic construals, we now turn to the practical dimensions of modelling in science and knowledge-making. How do models operate within fields of interaction? What are their limits? And how do they participate in the broader ecology of knowledge?

Models as Interactional Processes

Models are not isolated artefacts; they emerge, evolve, and function through ongoing interactions among observers, instruments, data, and phenomena. Each iteration—whether a mathematical formula, a conceptual framework, or a computational simulation—is shaped by this relational interplay. Models adapt to new observations, refine predictions, and respond to challenges, reflecting the dynamic and situated nature of knowledge.

Limits and Boundary Conditions

Every model embodies constraints—boundary conditions that define its domain of applicability and the assumptions it carries. These limits are essential: they acknowledge that models compress complex realities and that no model can capture every detail. Recognising these boundaries prevents the conflation of second-order semiotic reality (the model) with first-order material reality (the processes being modelled), and invites continual critical engagement and revision.

The Ecology of Models

Models coexist within an ecology of knowledge, interacting with other models, theories, and practices across disciplines. This ecology is not hierarchical but networked, with models influencing and transforming one another. Interdisciplinary dialogues reveal complementarities and tensions, highlighting how models mediate meaning across contexts.

The Role of Meaning and Value

As semiotic construals, models also carry meaning potentials that extend beyond empirical fit. They embody values, priorities, and interpretive frameworks that influence how phenomena are understood and acted upon. Awareness of these dimensions enriches the practice of modelling, situating it within human purposes and cultural contexts.

Towards Reflexive Modelling

Informed by a relational ontology, reflexive modelling acknowledges the mutual shaping of models and observers. It encourages openness to alternative perspectives, iterative refinement, and the embracing of complexity without succumbing to reductionism.

3 Compression and Coherence: Modelling as Meaning-Making

Having explored models as relational construals and situated practices, we now turn to the underlying dynamics that allow models to function at all: compression and coherence. In the relational ontology we are developing, these are not just technical or cognitive processes — they are meaning-making activities, unfolding within and across fields of potential.

Compression: From Process to Pattern

To model is to compress unfolding phenomena — to abstract patterns from complex processes. This is not simplification for its own sake, but a necessary condition of intelligibility. Just as language compresses experience into meaning, models compress relational unfoldings into selective representations. A model, then, is not a mirror of reality, but an enactment of coherence within constraint.

Compression does not negate complexity; it manages it. By selecting what differences make a difference, models allow us to interact meaningfully with the world — to anticipate, to question, to interpret. But every act of compression implies exclusions: unmodelled variables, unacknowledged assumptions, unseen interactions.

Coherence: Holding Meaning Together

If compression makes a model functionally possible, coherence makes it meaningful. A model must hold together across its internal structure and its external deployments. It must cohere with other models, with empirical observations, and with the broader systems of knowledge in which it operates.

Coherence is not reducible to consistency or predictive success. In a relational ontology, coherence is the resonance of a model within a field of meaning — its capacity to stabilise intelligibility across instances. A model coheres when it enables understanding, links phenomena, and supports purposeful action, even if it is partial or provisional.

The Model as Semiotic Instance

From this perspective, each model is an instance of meaning — not a derivation from reality, but an actualisation of meaning potential in a particular relational configuration. It is a semiotic act, grounded in material processes but structured by symbolic systems. This holds whether the model is a graph, a mathematical expression, a verbal explanation, or a simulation: all are instances of construal.

This view also dissolves the divide between scientific and everyday models. The child’s mental model of gravity, the engineer’s stress diagram, and the physicist’s field equations are all compressions of potential into instance, meaningful because they resonate within their contexts.

A Modelling Ethic

If models are acts of meaning, they carry responsibility. We must attend not only to how well a model works, but also to what it foregrounds, what it hides, whom it serves, and how it might evolve. Modelling, then, is not just a methodological activity — it is an ethical and ontological one.

Reflective Coda — Modelling as Construal, Relation, and Responsibility

Throughout this trilogy, we have re-examined scientific modelling through the lens of relational ontology: not as a search for ultimate reality, but as a patterned unfolding of meaning. Models, in this view, do not depict things-in-themselves but instantiate relational coherences — selective construals of experience within specific fields of potential.

We began by reframing models not as mirrors of reality, but as relational construals: semiotic instances that emerge from the activation of social and cognitive potentials. These construals are not arbitrary. They compress patterned regularities across processes, stabilising meaning within a shared context of interpretation.

We then examined the situated practices through which models are produced and refined — not as neutral activities, but as forms of social semiosis shaped by tools, traditions, constraints, and purposes. The scientist does not merely extract truth from the world but configures meaningful relations within it. Modelling, like all meaning-making, is a material and symbolic process.

Finally, we turned to compression and coherence as fundamental operations in modelling. Compression renders complexity tractable; coherence holds meaning together across time, context, and application. Modelling is thus always perspectival: it selects, relates, omits, and reframes. Its power lies not in its completeness, but in its meaningful partiality.

This relational approach does not weaken the epistemic power of science — it situates it. By understanding models as semiotic acts within unfolding systems, we gain a clearer view of both their capacity and their limits. We can ask not just whether a model works, but how and why it means what it does, for whom, and with what consequences.

The implications are both theoretical and ethical. To model is to construe. And to construe is to take a stance within a world of unfolding relations.

Beyond the Element: A Relational Reframe of the Periodic Table

1 The Periodic Table as a Semiotic Construct

In our relational ontology, grounded in the cline of instantiation and the unfolding of process, even the most familiar scientific artefacts can be re-seen. The periodic table is no longer a map of objectively existing substances. It is a semiotic system: a structured construal of meaning potential that instantiates through patterns of interaction within and across fields of unfolding.

We begin by asking not what an element is, but how it is instantiated. An element is not a substance, nor even a particle configuration. It is a relational affordance—a field of potential interactions made actual in specific unfolding processes. The identity of an element like carbon or oxygen does not reside in an atom as an independently existing object. It emerges through configurations of unfolding fields—primarily electromagnetic and quantum—and is construed by observers through experimental, technological, and theoretical systems.

The periodic table itself is a semiotic construal of these potentials. It does not represent the elements as things, but rather organises them according to patterns of resonance and coherence across fields. What recurs is not an object but a configuration: similar patterns of orbital stability, bonding capacity, or energetic transformation. These are not fixed properties but probabilistic patterns—meaning potentials instantiated under specific material and experimental conditions.

From this view, the periodicity of the table reflects not the existence of a hidden structure of matter, but the regularities in how different configurations of potential unfold. These regularities are relational: they depend on how processes interact, not on any inner essence. The table, then, is not a periodic table of substances, but of unfolding constraints and affordances—a catalogue of relational coherence.

Moreover, the very classification of an “element” requires observer participation. It depends on how scientists choose to stabilise patterns of measurement, identify boundaries of coherence, and assign symbolic identity. The periodic table thus sits at the intersection of material and semiotic systems: it is a meaning system that organises biological and technological engagements with the material field.

In this light, each element is an instance of meaning, drawn from the collective potential of chemical experience. Like all meaning systems, the periodic table is not a window onto reality as it is, but a coordinated construal of experience—a way of making sense of patterns that repeat, resonate, and endure.

In the next post, we’ll explore how these configurations form and stabilise—how coherence is achieved not by intrinsic identity, but by configuration across interacting fields.

2 Configurations of Coherence — How Elements Stabilise Across Fields

If elements are not fixed substances but configurations of unfolding potential, then we must ask: how do these configurations stabilise? What gives rise to the relative regularity and durability that allows us to speak of “hydrogen,” “oxygen,” or “gold” as if they were discrete entities?

In our relational ontology, coherence does not result from essential properties, but from the persistence of relational patterns across interacting fields. For chemical elements, these patterns are stabilised configurations of quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear fields, structured by constraints such as charge balance, spin symmetry, and energy quantisation.

What we traditionally call an “atom” is itself a field configuration—not a nucleus orbited by particles, but a resonance between potentials. The so-called “orbitals” are not miniature planetary systems, but probability topologies: wave-structured regions of potential in which the presence of matter-energy can be instantiated. What stabilises is not a particle in motion, but the pattern of resonance between nucleus and electron fields—a pattern that resists transformation under a given range of interactions.

From this perspective, the coherence of an element arises not within a single structure, but across systems of relation. A hydrogen atom is not defined by an independently existing proton and electron, but by the persistent field relations that give rise to their observable properties. If these relations were to destabilise—if energy input shifts the configuration—the “hydrogen-ness” of the system ceases to hold. Instantiation shifts to a different region of potential.

This process is deeply context-dependent. Coherence only holds under specific conditions: of temperature, pressure, field intensity, and system isolation. The fact that elements behave “predictably” is not evidence of essential identity, but of the repeatability of coherent constraints under shared experimental affordances.

This view also casts new light on chemical bonding. Molecules form not by combining solid pieces, but by co-instantiating patterns of shared field resonance. Covalent bonds are not threads of matter, but stabilised overlaps of potential topologies, where multiple nuclei and electron fields unfold coherently. Ionic and metallic bonds instantiate different forms of coherence—through long-range electrostatic patterns or delocalised field sharing.

Importantly, these configurations are semiotically construed: the concepts of “valence,” “reactivity,” and “electronegativity” are all meaning instances in a disciplinary semiotic system. They emerge not from matter itself, but from patterns we observe, formalise, and teach.

The coherence of an element, then, is always both material and semiotic: a relational pattern in the unfolding of fields, and a symbolic pattern in the construal of knowledge.

In the next post, we will examine how this system of relations becomes systematised into the periodic table—a meta-semiotic framework for organising and predicting the relational affordances of the elements.

3 Reading the Table — Periodicity as Semiotic System

If the chemical elements are stabilised field configurations—coherent patterns in the unfolding of quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear potentials—then the periodic table is not a map of things, but a semiotic architecture: a structured construal of how coherence itself patterns and re-patterns across interactional contexts.

The periodic table does not catalogue substances. It organises relations. Its iconic structure reflects observed regularities in how configurations of fields behave: how they stabilise, bond, transform, and reconfigure. These are patterns in the system of potential, not in any fixed underlying substance.

From our relational perspective, the table performs three vital semiotic functions:

1. Construes Similarity as System
   Elements are grouped not by what they are, but by what they do under shared conditions. Groupings reflect regularities in ionisation energy, bonding patterns, atomic radius—relational properties that arise across interactions. The periodic table projects these affordances as a meaning potential: a system of options for chemical unfolding.

2. Stratifies Fields of Constraint
   The table compresses multiple dimensions—quantum shell structure, valence electron configuration, atomic number—into a unified semiotic form. This stratification allows users to read across symbolic, mathematical, and physical domains simultaneously. It is a meta-semiotic interface, enabling the interpretation of field-level phenomena through symbolic means.

3. Predicts Coherence Across Contexts
   Because the table reflects relational potential, it functions as a model for predicting which configurations are likely to stabilise under given conditions. It is a semiotic technology of projection: not a passive record but a means of guiding scientific practice, experiment, and interpretation. Its regularity reflects the regularity of coherent constraints—not the repeatability of fixed objects.

This makes the periodic table a paradigmatic example of how meaning is made in science. It is a social semiotic construct—a system instantiated through centuries of experimentation, theory, revision, and pedagogy. It embodies both historical individuation (in its development) and systemic instantiation (in its ongoing use).

It also demonstrates the profound affordance of compressed symbolic form: the table fits a vast field of unfolding relational potential into a portable, readable, teachable structure. It bridges disciplines, institutions, and levels of expertise. It does not just represent the elements—it reconfigures our relation to them.

In this light, the periodic table stands not as a mirror of material order, but as an interface between semiotic system and relational process. It helps shape how the scientific community construes, projects, and instantiates the coherent configurations we call “elements.”

Coda: Reconstructing Reality — Meaning at the Heart of Matter

In this trilogy, we’ve followed the periodic table back to its relational foundations. What began as a catalogue of substances has emerged, in our ontology, as a semiotic construal of coherence—a map not of things, but of recurring relational potentials instantiated under specific conditions of unfolding.

This perspective changes everything.

We no longer seek the ultimate substance beneath the elements. We seek the conditions of coherence: the stabilising of field relations, the constraints that select configurations into persistence, and the symbolic technologies that let us read those selections as meaningful. Chemistry becomes not the science of stuff, but the study of structured unfolding—of how quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear interactions are selected, individuated, and instantiated into the patterns we interpret as atoms and molecules.

The periodic table, in this light, is not a static inventory of the real, but a dynamic semiotic scaffold—a human artefact that makes the relational intelligible. It allows us to project from past regularities to future potential. It connects the quantum architecture of matter to the social architectures of meaning-making. And it reminds us that science itself is not the decoding of a mind-independent reality, but the collective construal of experience through patterned, disciplined, and evolving systems of meaning.

In other words, the periodic table is not the periodic table of the elements. It is the periodic table of relational unfolding.

And in recognising that, we are invited not just to read the table differently—but to reimagine what it means to know.

Particles as Processes: Rewriting Physics from the Ground Up

1 Rethinking Fundamentality: The Standard Model in a Relational Ontology

In the standard account of particle physics, the so-called “fundamental particles” are the indivisible building blocks of nature, structured into families of fermions and bosons, all governed by quantum field theory and its unification under the Standard Model. But from the perspective of a relational ontology grounded in unfolding process, this picture invites a deep reconsideration.

Our ontology does not begin with things, but with fields of potential, instances of unfolding, and the relations that arise between them. In this model:

• Particles are not fundamental objects.

• They are coherent patterns—instantiated compressions of field potential.

• Their stability and detectability are not signs of ontological primacy, but of highly individuated regularities across experimental conditions.

From Entities to Instantiated Constraints

In the conventional view, a particle like the electron is described as a point-like entity with fixed mass, charge, and spin. But what if instead, these attributes are not intrinsic properties but constraints on how certain regions of potential can unfold?

• Mass is not a substance, but a measure of resistance to acceleration—an effect that emerges from how an instance constrains energy exchange across a relational field.

• Charge is not a hidden feature of a thing, but a way of organising potential interactions under the rules of field symmetry and conservation.

• Spin is not rotation, but a marker of how an instance transforms under symmetry operations.

All of these suggest that what we call “particles” are not irreducible bricks of matter, but stabilised instantiations of patterned relation, distinguished by how they persist, transform, and constrain within the semiotic system of physics.

Quantum Fields as Meaning Potentials

In the Standard Model, particles are excitations of quantum fields. This maps surprisingly well onto our own framing:

• Fields are meaning potentials—structured spaces of possibility within which instantiations may occur.

• Particles are not “in” the field but are instances of the field, actualised through relational constraint and interaction.

• Measurement collapses this potential, not to a thing, but to a semiotically constrained value, interpreted through the social system of experimental physics.

Thus, the Standard Model becomes not a map of the ultimate furniture of reality, but a highly abstracted semiotic system, one that tracks the coherent instantiations of relations among physical fields in ways that are functionally predictive and materially constrained.

From Composition to Constraint

Crucially, in this ontology, one thing is not made of another. The ontology is not compositional but instantiational. A proton is not made of quarks, but rather:

• The regular instantiation of the proton includes constraints that, when perturbed, manifest as patterns we name "quarks".

• The rules governing these manifestations (like colour charge or confinement) are themselves metasemiotic constraints—rules not of substance but of allowable relation.

In this way, the relational ontology deflates the notion of 'fundamental' in favour of a more dynamic and process-oriented view of persistent regularities within interacting fields of potential.

2 Fields of Force: Coherence and Constraint in Relational Physics

In classical and quantum models alike, forces are described as interactions between entities—gravitational pulls, electromagnetic charges, nuclear attractions and repulsions. But what if this framing is a projection of substance metaphysics onto what are, more fundamentally, fields of relation?

In our relational ontology, we begin not with things that interact, but with fields of unfolding—potentials constrained into actualisation. Forces are not external exchanges between particles, but internal regularities within the unfolding of relation.

Force as Structured Constraint

Rather than treating force as a vector acting on a mass, we treat force as:

• A patterned constraint on how a process unfolds.

• A local compression in a larger relational topology.

• A boundary condition that shapes the instantiation of energy, position, or momentum.

This turns familiar concepts on their head: gravitational “attraction” becomes a local unfolding along a shared geodesic; electromagnetic “repulsion” becomes a divergence of unfolding constrained by field symmetries.

Coherence Across Fields

From this perspective, what distinguishes one force from another is not the substance of the “interaction” but the type of coherence each field enforces:

• Gravity: enforces coherence through shared unfolding toward mass centres—contracting spatial intervals and dilating temporal ones.

• Electromagnetism: enforces coherence through polarity and field topology—governing how charged instances constrain one another across space.

• Weak and Strong Nuclear Forces: operate not as 'forces between particles', but as deeply localised field constraints that regulate how certain types of unfolding (like decay or fusion) can be instantiated at all.

Each “force” is thus a grammar of unfolding—a set of conditions under which particular fields constrain and stabilise relation.

From Forces to Systems of Meaning

Physics construes these relational constraints using its own semiotic system—mathematics, diagrams, measurement. These systems don’t mirror reality; they instantiate meaning in disciplined ways that allow relational coherence to be tracked, predicted, and extended.

Force, then, is not a thing in the world—it is a construal of patterned relation: a semiotic scaffold that helps us navigate the energetic and spatial implications of co-unfolding fields.

Particles Revisited: Held by Fields

In this light, what holds particles together—inside an atom, a nucleus, or a proton—is not an internal composition of parts, but a co-instantiation of fields, made coherent by shared constraints:

• The proton is not three quarks bound by gluons.

• It is an instance of potential constrained by the topologies of colour confinement and nuclear coherence.

• The fields do not sit beside the proton; they are the condition of its stability—the grammar through which it persists.

This view eliminates the idea that force is a separate entity, acting on things. Instead, it recasts forces as the inner logic of relational unfolding, organising what persists, what transforms, and what vanishes.

3 Symmetry, Meaning, and the Semiotics of the Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is often celebrated as a triumph of modern science: a compact set of mathematical formulations that predicts with astonishing precision how particles behave and interact. But beneath this precision lies a deeper architecture—a semiotic system that construes the unfolding of reality through the lens of symmetry, quantisation, and constraint.

In our relational ontology, the Standard Model is not a theory about ultimate building blocks. It is a symbolic construal of fielded relations, organised through a specific grammar of mathematical meaning.

Symmetry as a Semiotic Principle

At the heart of the Standard Model lies symmetry. Group theory and gauge invariance are not simply mathematical tricks; they function as selection principles—ways of constraining how meaning is instantiated across physical processes.

Symmetries specify:

• What can be transformed without changing the underlying structure (invariance).

• Which kinds of unfolding are allowed or disallowed.

• How relational potentials cohere into stable patterns.

In our terms, symmetry is a metafunctional scaffold: it constrains instantiation (what can happen) by organising potential across spatial, temporal, and energetic fields. These are not constraints on things, but on how processes can unfold and relate.

Quanta as Grammatical Units

Quantisation, too, is semiotic. It reflects not the discreteness of matter, but the discreteness of allowed relations under certain constraints.

Just as language has phonemes and morphemes—minimal units that cannot be subdivided meaningfully—quantum fields are described as having quanta, indivisible units of action, charge, or spin. These are not “particles” in the marble sense, but syntagmatic selections in a system of field potentials.

For example:

• The electron is not a point-like object with fixed properties.

• It is a constrained instantiation of a field with a particular set of symmetries (mass, charge, spin, lepton number).

• What persists as the “electron” is a pattern of coherence within and across relational unfoldings.

In this sense, the Standard Model is not a map of stuff—it is a relational lexicogrammar, expressing how material systems can unfold, interact, and be instantiated.

The Standard Model as a Semiotic System

This reframing invites a radical reconstrual of what the Standard Model is:

• It is not a description of the world as it is.

• It is a semiotic system that instantiates a disciplined construal of potential, through quantised fields, symmetries, and interaction topologies.

Physics becomes one among many semiotic systems—but a particularly powerful one: one that has evolved to describe material regularities with a high degree of predictive power.

This doesn’t make it less “real.” On the contrary—it grounds its realism in how it constrains meaning across repeated instantiations. The Standard Model is not a mirror of nature but a grammar of what persists, what interacts, and what transforms under specific semiotic constraints.

From Model to Meaning

To understand the Standard Model relationally is to shift from a question of what the world is made of to how unfolding processes cohere under constraints that are expressible through symbolic systems. This brings the Standard Model into alignment with music, language, gesture, and other systems of meaning—not because it is subjective, but because it is structured, fielded, and selective.

Its great achievement is not that it reveals fundamental particles—but that it gives us a relational map of coherence within the broader topology of unfolding experience.

Coda: Reframing the Standard Model — From Substance to Semiotic Structure

As we step back from our relational re-examination of the Standard Model, a new picture comes into view. What was once presented as a catalogue of ultimate particles and forces now appears instead as a profound semiotic achievement: a symbolic system that constrains and organises how physical experience may be construed.

We began by reframing particles not as entities but as compressed patterns in fields of unfolding—points of coherence in relational processes. These patterns, sustained by symmetry constraints, emerge through structured interaction, not through intrinsic substance.

We then explored the forces and fields that govern these patterns, recognising them not as mediators between separate things but as the conditions for interaction within a topological system of relational unfolding. What physics names “forces” become modalities of coherence, maintaining the persistence or transformation of structured relations.

And in this final post, we’ve seen that symmetry and quantisation function not only mathematically but semiotically, as a kind of lexicogrammar: a structured meaning potential governing how the universe is construed within physics. The Standard Model is not a window into substance—it is a semiotic interface between conscious observers and the patterned potentials of our world.

In this view, the “reality” described by physics is perspectival. It is not what is there before or beneath experience, but what emerges when consciousness construes fielded potentials through symbolic systems. The Standard Model is one such system—highly evolved, extraordinarily precise, but still an organised construal of meaning, not an ontological finality.

By moving beyond the marble metaphor—beyond particles as things—and embracing the ontology of relational unfolding, we open space for new connections: between physics and music, between symmetry and signification, between biological value and cultural form. We come to see that meaning is not a late addition to a material world. It is the very mode through which reality is construed, instantiated, and known.

The Standard Model, in this light, becomes not an answer to what the world is made of, but a powerful expression of how coherence is sustained in the dance of unfolding potential—a relational grammar of the real.