1 The Relational Cosmos: A Model of Meaning-Making
In our ongoing exploration of meaning, we've developed a model that allows us to better understand how we create and experience the world. The model begins with a fundamental shift: instead of seeing the world as a collection of isolated things, it proposes that everything—ourselves included—is part of a vast, interconnected web of relationships. This means that meaning isn't something static, waiting to be discovered; it is something we actively create through our relationships and experiences.
At the core of this model are several key concepts that form the foundation of how we make sense of the world. Let’s break these down:
1. Relational Ontology: The Web of Connections
The first step in understanding this model is grasping the idea of relational ontology. This is the view that everything in the universe is interconnected. Rather than seeing objects or events as isolated entities, we see them as defined by their relationships. Everything is in flux and shaped by the web of relationships it participates in. From this perspective, the world is not a static place of things, but a dynamic process, constantly shifting as new connections form.
You aren’t just an observer of the world; you are an active participant in it. The idea is that we become through our relationships and shape the world in the process.
2. Instantiation and Individuation: Bringing Meaning into Being
Another key idea in this model is the distinction between instantiation and individuation.
Instantiation is the process of taking potential meaning and bringing it into reality. It’s the act of transforming what could be into something actual—a thought, a word, an action.
Individuation is the way in which each of us uniquely shapes meaning. The meaning potential in any given situation is not the same for everyone; we each bring our own perspective, context, and history to it, which creates unique expressions of meaning. In this way, we are not passive recipients of meaning; we are active agents in the process of creating it.
These two concepts work together to explain how we co-create meaning with the world, not just as individual entities but as part of the larger cosmic process.
3. The Metamyth: Living Narratives in the Recursive Cosmos
Now, let’s introduce the idea of the metamyth. Myths are more than just ancient stories from the past. They are living, evolving narratives that help us make sense of the world. In this model, the myths we live by are not fixed; they are constantly changing, responding to new experiences and new technologies. Myths evolve as our understanding of the cosmos deepens and as our technologies—and the symbolic systems we use—advance.
The metamyth is a recursive process: the stories we tell, the models we create, and the symbols we use feedback on themselves. They reshape and redefine the meanings they carry, adapting to the changing reality we live in. The metamyth is a way to understand how the mythic is not separate from the scientific, technological, or artistic but is woven through all of them. These various modes of understanding—myth, science, technology—are interconnected and together form the story of the cosmos becoming intelligible to itself.
4. Co-creating the Cosmos: Our Role in the Unfolding Drama
At the heart of this model is the idea that we are not passive observers of the world, but active participants in the unfolding drama of the cosmos. We instantiate meaning in each moment, and by doing so, we are co-creating the world. The cosmos itself is participatory—it is becoming through us. Our actions, thoughts, and technologies are part of this unfolding process.
In other words, meaning is co-created through our relationships, our actions, and our interpretations. It’s not that meaning exists independently of us and we discover it; it’s that we shape it and give it form through our participation in the world. In this way, the cosmos itself is not simply observed; it is known and becomes through us.
5. The Symbolic System: Language, Art, and Technology as Tools of Meaning
An essential part of this model is the role of symbolic systems—the ways we use language, art, and technology to represent and make sense of the world. Language, mathematics, ritual, and art are all tools that allow us to navigate and shape meaning.
These systems are not passive tools; they are living systems that evolve along with us. Just as myths evolve, so do the symbols and representations we use to interpret the world. Whether through a scientific model, an artistic expression, or a religious symbol, these symbolic systems allow us to make sense of our experiences and interact with the world around us.
Conclusion: Becoming Through Relations
To sum it up, our model of meaning-making is a recursive, relational process. The world isn’t just a collection of objects and facts; it’s a web of relationships, constantly shifting and evolving. We, as meaners, are active participants in this process, co-creating meaning as we engage with the world and each other. We instantiate meaning through our actions, thoughts, and experiences, and we individuate it uniquely through our perspectives.
At the heart of this model is the idea that we are all co-creators of the cosmos itself, shaping and being shaped in an ongoing cosmic dance of meaning-making.
2 Relativity Reimagined: A Relational Ontology of Special Relativity
Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity shook the foundations of classical physics by revealing that space and time are not absolute, but relational. Yet in the century since, the dominant interpretation of relativity has paradoxically treated these relations as fixed within a new framework of spacetime—a geometric block universe where events are coordinates, and observers traverse their worldlines.
In this post, we revisit Special Relativity through a relational ontology shaped by the principles of instantiation, individuation, and symbolic becoming. We propose a model in which time and space are not the stage on which events unfold—they are dimensions of unfolding itself, actualised in relation.
From Substrates to Relations
Classically, space and time were assumed as absolute containers—Newton’s “absolute, true and mathematical time” and “absolute space” existed whether anything happened or not.
Einstein overthrew this idea. Observers in relative motion measure different distances and durations, yet the laws of physics remain invariant.
This is often interpreted as evidence for a four-dimensional spacetime manifold: a fixed structure in which all events exist timelessly.
But our model takes the shift one step further. What if space and time do not exist independently of events at all? What if they are dimensions of relation, not dimensions of being?
In the relational model, time is not what flows. Time is the dimension of the unfolding of processes.
Space is not a container of objects. Space is the dimension of the differentiating of states.
In this view, relativity does not require a fixed spacetime block—it reveals the relational actualisation of instances in experience.
Observation as Instantiation
Special Relativity hinges on measurement: how different observers, moving at different velocities, measure the same events.
In our framework, measurement is not passive observation but an act of construal. Measurement actualises an instance from potential. It brings into being a spacetime relation—not a pre-existing fact.
Thus, it is not the observer's motion that distorts a "real" time or length. Rather:
The relation between the measurement and the centre of mass (the gravitational field) determines the actualised structure of space and time for that instance.
Space and time are not distorted for the observer—they are instanced through the observer's measurement.
This distinction is subtle, but profound. It shifts the emphasis from the observer as a subject within space and time, to the meaner—the construal system through which space and time become meaningful.
Simultaneity as Relational Actuality
A cornerstone of relativity is the relativity of simultaneity: two events judged simultaneous in one frame may not be simultaneous in another.
This too finds a natural expression in our model:
Simultaneity is not an ontological condition of the universe.
It is a relational construal of process, actualised in each measurement instance.
Rather than imagining events lying frozen on a block, we imagine simultaneity as a pattern that emerges through particular interactions between construal systems.
In other words: simultaneity is not a pre-given property that becomes confused by relative motion. It is not given at all—it is made.
The Speed of Light as Constraint
In Special Relativity, the speed of light is invariant for all observers. Why? Because it is not merely a feature of light—it is a constraint on the possibility of relational instantiation.
It defines the outer boundary of what can be actualised as shared structure between construal systems.
It is not just a speed limit. It is a symbolic limit on how relations can cohere across systems in motion.
Thus, what physics encodes as invariants and transformations, our model reads as the symbolic architecture of relational becoming.
The Cosmos in Dialogue
In sum, Special Relativity reimagined becomes not the cold geometry of a block universe, but a symbolic choreography of actualised relations.
Space and time are not the stage, but the grammar.
Simultaneity is not lost—it is composed anew in every act of meaning.
Measurement is not the discovery of the world—it is the world becoming actual through relational construal.
We do not merely measure the world—we are the interface through which it becomes measurable. The cosmos, unfolding, finds a local coherence in each instance of construal.
We are not passive witnesses to space and time.
We are the way space and time become meaningful.
3 Relativity Reframed: Lorentz Transformations and the Relational Cosmos
The Meaning of a Transformation
At the core of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity lies the Lorentz transformation: a set of equations that describe how space and time coordinates relate between frames moving relative to one another. In standard physics, they are treated as the mathematically necessary way to preserve the constancy of the speed of light.
But from a relational ontology, we ask not what the Lorentz transformations describe—but what they instantiate.
Not Observers, But Instances of Meaning
Standard interpretations presume two observers, each in their own frame, comparing measurements of time and space. But in our model, an ‘observer’ is a symbolic fiction—a grammatical placeholder in the unfolding of a relational process. What matters is not who observes, but what meanings are instantiated in relation to what processes.
Thus, the Lorentz transformation becomes:
Not a change in coordinates between objects,
- But a change in instantiated spacetime relationsbetween two systems of meaning-making.
In this view, velocity is not absolute or inertial—it is an actualised relation between unfolding processes. Time dilation is not a warping of time itself, but a difference in how time is construed, instantiated differently in systems moving relative to each other.
The Grammar of Relative Motion
Let’s recall the core Lorentz transformation:
But let’s not read these as mere algebra. Read them as symbolic operators in the grammar of relational construal.
They say:
“What is now and here for me, becomes then and there for you,depending on how our processes are moving through shared potential.”
Not Space-Time, But Timeing and Spacing
In the relational model, there is no pre-existent space-time onto which objects are mapped. Instead:
Timeing is the unfolding of processes.
Spacing is the construal of relative differentiation between instances.
The Lorentz transformation is the symbolic constraint that governs how these unfoldings and construals are instantiated across systems.
Meaning, Motion, and Mutual Becoming
Gravity, Not as Force, but as Relational Constraint
In classical physics, gravity is a force that pulls objects together. In Einstein’s General Relativity, it is reimagined: not a force, but a curvature of space-time around mass and energy. But this still assumes that space-time is a kind of ontological arena—something that can be shaped and curved by entities that exist within it.
Gravity as Relational Patterning
Let’s take the principle at the heart of General Relativity:
Matter tells space-time how to curve.Space-time tells matter how to move.
But here’s our relational reframing:
Mass instantiates a pattern of unfolding.This pattern constrains how other processes instantiate their own unfoldings.There is no container, no field, no “thing” being curved.There is only patterned construal—symbolic differentiation of potential into instance.
Just as a riverbed constrains the path of water, the gravitational field is not a thing—it is a semantic topography, structured by relational meanings.
From Centre of Mass to Centre of Meaning
In General Relativity, the “centre of mass” shapes the gravitational field. But what is a centre of mass, in relational terms?
The Metric Field as Pattern Grammar
The Einstein Field Equations describe how mass and energy determine the curvature of spacetime:
A Sacred Geometry of Becoming
Where does this leave us?
General Relativity becomes not a map of space and time—but a ritualised grammar of relation.
Gravity becomes not a pull—but a semantic coherence among unfolding patterns.
5 Relativity Reframed: Quantum Fields and the Potential of Pattern
If General Relativity gives us a gravitational grammar, then quantum field theory offers a poetics of potential. But the quantum is not a realm of uncertainty—it is a register of unactualised relation. And the field is not a physical substance—it is the structured potential from which actualities emerge through meaning.
The Quantum as Register of Unfolding
Fields as Structured Meaning Potential
Collapse as Actualisation
But from our perspective, collapse is instantiation.
Entanglement as Participatory Relation
Quantum Fields as Sacred Poetics
And we—by interpreting it—are part of the chorus.
6 Relativity Reframed: Cosmic Recursion and the Myth of the Expanding Now
The universe is not a container for events. It is the event. And that event is recursive. We do not live in a cosmos that expands from the past into the future—we live in a cosmos that constellates meaning across unfolding instants of relation. The Big Bang is not behind us. It is within us.
The Myth of the Expanding Universe
Recursion Across the Scales
The structure of the cosmos is recursive:
Galaxies spiral like hurricanes.
Neural networks echo cosmic webs.
Particles entangle like selves in myth.
The Expanding Now
Cosmology as Metamyth
So what, then, is cosmology in this light?
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