Force and Causation in a Relational Universe 1: Gravity and Quantum Mechanics

1 Reconsidering Force: From Push and Pull to Pattern and Process

In the scientific imagination, few concepts are as deeply entrenched as force. It appears to underwrite causation itself: things move because a force acts on them. This assumption is so widespread, so naturalised, that we rarely stop to ask what force really is—or what kind of construal it represents.

In this series, we take a fresh look at the concept of force, not merely as a physical quantity in scientific equations, but as a semiotic construct: a patterned construal of experience shaped by the systems of meaning through which science itself evolves. Drawing on a relational ontology informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), we treat concepts like force not as neutral descriptors of an independent material world, but as meaning selections within a symbolic universe. These selections help us construe what counts as a cause, an action, or an effect.

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From Newton to Now: The Push–Pull Paradigm

The classical concept of force emerged from the unification of terrestrial and celestial mechanics in Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It reframed all motion—on Earth and in the heavens—as a result of external forces. Newton’s famous Second Law, F = ma, encapsulates this worldview: force is a cause of acceleration. It acts from without, initiating change in an otherwise inert mass.

This construal of force assumes a world of discrete bodies, acted upon by vectorial agents. Forces, in this view, are invisible “pushes” and “pulls” imposed on things—gravity, friction, tension—each measurable, each assigned a role in the unfolding of events.

But beneath the precision of Newton’s equations lies a powerful metaphor: the universe as a machine, motion governed by contact and constraint. Within this mechanistic frame, causation becomes externalised, and explanation becomes a search for the hidden hand that moved the piece.

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A Relational Reframing: From Cause to Construal

What happens when we let go of this mechanistic metaphor?

From a relational perspective, force is not a hidden entity acting on passive matter. It is a way of construing the unfolding of process—a symbolic resource that helps us interpret patterned change. In SFL terms, force belongs not to the domain of primary experience, but to the second-order domain of meaning: it is part of how we model the world, not what the world “is.”

In this view, causation is a semiotic phenomenon. We make sense of processes by construing relations between them: temporal, conditional, enabling, or agentive. Force is one such construal—deeply embedded in the grammar of science, but not itself beyond scrutiny.

Relational construals do not require a metaphysical commitment to things acting on things. Instead, they focus on systems of interdependence. What changes, what co-varies, what patterns emerge? These are the questions we ask when we construe experience through a relational lens.

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The Semiotic Work of Force

Scientific discourse depends on high levels of abstraction. As Halliday showed, scientific language systematically foregrounds logical relations—cause, condition, result—while backgrounding agency and affect. Within this discourse, force does particular semiotic work:

• It externalises change as if it originates beyond the system itself.

• It positions events as effects of hidden causes.

• It invites explanation in terms of agents, even when those agents are metaphorical.

This gives force its rhetorical power. It compresses explanation into a singular term, wrapping complex systems of interdependence into a vector acting on a point mass. But this power can also conceal the patterned nature of change—the very thing scientific modelling seeks to illuminate.

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From Push to Pattern

As we proceed through this series, we’ll trace how the concept of force evolves—from Newtonian mechanics, through field theories in classical physics, to the redefinitions in relativity and quantum theory. At each stage, we will treat force not as an unchanging “entity,” but as a resonant attractor within the discourse of science—a recurring construal that pulls diverse phenomena into patterned coherence.

We’ll ask: How does each theory construe causation? What symbolic work does force perform? And how might we reframe force—not as an agent of change, but as a symbolic index of change within a relational field?

In doing so, we hope to make visible the semiotic scaffolding of scientific explanation—and to invite a rethinking of what it means to cause, change, and understand.

2 Newton’s Laws and the Relational Reframing of Force

In the last post, we proposed that the concept of force—central to classical physics—can be reinterpreted through a relational ontology grounded in meaning. Rather than treating force as a primitive entity acting at a distance, we considered it as an abstracted construal of patterned material relations. In this post, we apply that framework to Newton’s laws of motion.

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I. Newton’s First Law: The Grammar of Inertia

An object in motion remains in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by a net external force.

From a relational perspective, the first law is not merely a description of isolated bodies, but a semiotic generalisation of systemic stability. It construes absence of change as the default instantiation of a system in equilibrium.

Here, the “object” is not an independent entity, but a node in a field of relations, whose “state of motion” is defined relative to a chosen frame. The law's meaning potential lies in its opposition: change in motion presupposes interaction. In our ontology, this becomes: actualised deviation from a patterned state indexes the presence of a relational perturbation.

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II. Newton’s Second Law: Patterned Perturbation and the Systemic Coding of Force

The acceleration of an object is proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass.

F = ma

In standard interpretation, this equation links three quantities: mass (m), acceleration (a), and force (F). But what is force, really?

From a systemic-functional perspective, force is not a thing—it is a symbolic coding of the relation between actualised change (acceleration) and capacity for change (mass). That is, the equation construes a relational grammar of motion:

• Acceleration = instantiation of perturbation

• Mass = resistance to perturbation (as a stable systemic potential)

• Force = the mediating motif that maps between them

Force, then, is not something that pushes or pulls in an ontologically primary sense—it is a measure of the patterned regularity with which a system departs from rest or uniform motion when other systems exert influence. It indexes the relational structure of change in a material field.

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III. Newton’s Third Law: Reciprocal Instantiation in a Relational Field

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In a substance ontology, this law puzzles the mind: how can two things act simultaneously on each other in equal and opposite ways? From a relational ontology, the problem dissolves. The law is a statement of symmetry in the field of instantiation: when one system actualises a change in another, that very actualisation is itself a relational event, distributed across the interaction.

Action and reaction are not separate events but dual aspects of a single construal: the mutual actualisation of potential in a patterned relational field. This is not only symmetrical but systemic—construed at a level where the relation itself is primary, and the relata are functions of that relation.

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Coda: Newton in the Universe of Meaning

In traditional physics, Newton’s laws operate in a mechanical universe, where forces act upon objects to produce predictable effects. But in our reconstrual, they belong to a universe of meaning: a universe where force is a construal of patterned deviation, where mass is a construal of resistance to actualisation, and where motion is never simply “out there” but always already construed from within a field of relations.

In this view, Newton’s system remains powerful—but its grammar changes. No longer the final word on causation, it becomes a register of patterned change, intelligible only within the symbolic architecture that makes it meaningful.

3 Einstein’s Revolution — From Force to Curvature in a Relational Geometry

In the previous post, we reinterpreted Newton’s laws through a relational ontology, revealing force not as a primitive entity but as a systemic construal of patterned relations of change. Today, we turn to Einstein’s profound reformulation of gravity — a conceptual shift that redefines force itself, not as an external agent, but as a geometric property of a relational field.

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I. The Problem with Force in Newtonian Gravity

Newton’s law of universal gravitation treats gravity as a force acting instantaneously at a distance, pulling objects toward one another. Yet this conception is rife with conceptual puzzles:

• Action at a distance: How does one mass “reach out” to another without a medium?

• Absolute space and time: Newtonian mechanics assumes a fixed background framework independent of the bodies it contains.

These problems suggest a need for deeper understanding — one that Einstein provided through his theory of General Relativity.

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II. The Ontological Shift: From Force to Geometry

Einstein proposed that what we perceive as gravitational force is not a force at all. Instead, it is the manifestation of curvature in spacetime, a four-dimensional relational geometry shaped by mass and energy.

In this framework:

• Objects move along the geodesics — the “straightest possible” paths in a curved spacetime.

• The curvature of spacetime encodes the systemic patterning of the gravitational field.

• What Newton called force is a construal of the relational shift in the actualisation of possible paths.

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III. Einstein’s Field Equations as a Systemic Functional Grammar

At the heart of General Relativity lie the Einstein Field Equations:

$$G_{\mu \nu} + \Lambda g_{\mu \nu} = \frac{8 \pi G}{c^4} T_{\mu \nu}$$From our relational perspective:

• $G_{\mu \nu}$

  (Einstein tensor): Represents the curvature — a systemic shift in the actualisation of spacetime structure.

• $T_{\mu \nu}$

  ​(Energy-momentum tensor): Encodes the symbolic pattern of becoming, the distribution of mass-energy that constrains actualisation.

• $g_{\mu \nu}$

  ​(Metric tensor): Functions as the grammatical structure of construal, defining how spacetime relations are interpreted.

Together, these tensors form a relational grammar that governs how potentialities (mass-energy distributions) actualise as spacetime curvature and, thus, influence the paths of objects.

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IV. Gravity as a Relational Event

In this view, gravity is not a “force” pulling masses together but an effect of relational patterning in spacetime itself. Mass-energy shapes the curvature of spacetime, which in turn constrains how matter moves — an interdependent dance of systemic actualisation.

This relational event:

• Dissolves the notion of isolated objects acting on one another.

• Emphasises mutual co-actualisation of potential and instance within the field.

• Aligns perfectly with a systemic-functional ontology: the meaning of gravitational interaction emerges from the patterns and grammars of relation, not from intrinsic force entities.

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V. Implications for Causation and Meaning

Einstein’s reframing compels us to rethink causation:

• Cause and effect become expressions of relational geometry rather than linear force chains.

• The meaning of force itself shifts from substance to pattern, from actor to systemic relation.

• This invites a richer semiotic understanding of the universe as an interconnected web of actualised potentials constrained and realised through patterned relationality.

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Looking Ahead

Having reinterpreted Newtonian force as patterned deviation and now Einsteinian gravity as relational curvature, the next post will explore how quantum theory further challenges and enriches our understanding of force and causation — revealing a universe where observation, potentiality, and actualisation entwine.

4 Quantum Entanglements: Force, Causation, and the Collapse of Possibility

The relational rethinking of force has already led us from Newton’s vision of objects exerting pushes and pulls, to Einstein’s vision of mass curving spacetime and objects following geodesics within a dynamic geometry. Each step has taken us deeper into a universe where causation is not transmitted through invisible hands, but emerges from patterned relations — geometrical, systemic, and meaningfully structured. Now, quantum theory invites us to take the next, and in many ways most radical, step.

1. The Challenge of Quantum Theory

In the quantum world, force is no longer the central explanatory device. Instead, we confront wavefunctions — mathematical expressions of potentiality — and phenomena like entanglement and superposition, where particles appear to be spread out over many possibilities until observation collapses them into a single actuality.

This raises profound questions:

• What is being caused when a quantum event occurs?

• What is the 'force' that brings about the actual from the potential?

• Is causation still a matter of transmission, or has it become a matter of transformation?

2. From Force to Potential: A Shift in Ontology

Quantum mechanics invites us to think of the universe not as made of things interacting by forces, but as a field of possibilities, which are actualised through interaction with systems capable of observation — that is, through relational constraint. The collapse of the wavefunction is not caused by a force; it is an instantiation, a shift from potential meaning to actual occurrence, brought about by an act of measurement or entangling interaction.

In a systemic-functional ontology, this maps neatly to the cline of instantiation:

• The wavefunction corresponds to potential: a structured range of possible meanings.

• The act of measurement instantiates one of these possibilities: an instance emerges.

• The pattern of repeated instantiations feeds back into the evolving meaning potential of the system.

Force, in this view, is replaced by constraint and selection — not a push from outside, but a relational process that constrains the possible into the actual. This is not causation by impact, but causation by context.

3. Entanglement as Relational Causation

Quantum entanglement offers the clearest case of a relational ontology in action. Two particles become entangled and then, regardless of their spatial separation, behave as a single system. Measurement of one instantly determines the state of the other — not because a signal travels faster than light, but because their joint potential is constrained by prior interaction. The cause is not a force acting at a distance; the cause is a relational commitment embedded in the system’s history.

We might say:

• The entangled system has a relational meaning potential.

• The act of measuring one part of the system instantiates a particular configuration.

• This instantiation selects a compatible configuration for the other part — not by transmission, but by patterned constraint.

This is causation reimagined as semiotic actualisation: a shift from one state of potential meaning to another, brought about by internal systemic logic, not by external force.

4. Quantum Causation as Meaningful Constraint

The quantum world teaches us that what comes into being does so not by being pushed, but by being chosen — not arbitrarily, but within a structured system of possibilities. The laws of quantum mechanics provide the grammar of this system; the events we observe are texts: instances of meaning, selected from and contributing to the ongoing evolution of potential.

To put it differently:

• Causation in quantum mechanics is systemic, not mechanistic.

• It is relational, not local.

• It is semiotic — not in the sense of being symbolic, but in the sense of being the actualisation of structured possibility.

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Looking Ahead

Having followed the trajectory from Newtonian mechanics to Einsteinian curvature, and now into quantum potentiality, we arrive at a view of force and causation as fundamentally relational, systemic, and instantiated within fields of meaning. In the next post, we will explore how these insights might converge — and what a unified relational ontology of force and causation could offer to both science and philosophy.

5 Toward a Unified Relational Ontology of Force and Causation

Across the preceding posts, we’ve followed the evolving story of force and causation through the major paradigms of physics — from Newtonian mechanics to Einsteinian curvature, and then into the quantum domain. Each framework has revealed a new aspect of causation: as interaction, as relational geometry, as actualisation of potential. Now, we pause to ask: can these perspectives be integrated into a unified relational ontology — one that reframes causation not as a chain of impacts but as the patterned unfolding of possibility within meaningfully structured systems?

1. Three Models, One Trajectory

Let us briefly recall the trajectory:

• Newton gave us a vision of force as the push or pull between objects — causation as external influence across space.

• Einstein reinterpreted force in gravitational contexts as the effect of relational curvature in the geometry of spacetime — causation as systemic structure.

• Quantum theory then reoriented us again, toward a universe of potentialities constrained into actuality through observation — causation as relational actualisation.

In all three, we find the same fundamental shift: from external imposition to internal relation, from mechanical impact to systemic constraint. This is the path from force to field, from event to pattern, from thing to meaningful configuration.

2. A Relational Ontology of Force

In a unified relational ontology, force is no longer a primitive. Instead, it emerges as a moment in the systemic unfolding of relations.

We might reconstrue force as:

• A constraint on the degrees of freedom within a system,

• A deviation from equilibrium generated by patterned interactions,

• A tendency toward reconfiguration, driven by the internal dynamics of a meaningfully organised field.

Rather than saying "object A exerts a force on object B", we might say: "Within this relational field, B's trajectory is constrained by its patterned relation to A." This shift removes the mysterious intermediary of force-as-thing and replaces it with a systemic grammar of possibility and constraint.

3. A Relational Ontology of Causation

Causation, likewise, is reinterpreted. In this ontology:

• Causation is not transmission but selection.

• It is not local but relational.

• It is not linear but systemic — a function of the field of potentialities within which instances are actualised.

From this vantage point, causation is akin to meaning-making: it is the process by which a system instantiates a new configuration from within its available options. This links directly to our systemic-functional framework, where meaning unfolds through instantiation along a cline from potential to instance.

In such a universe:

• Newtonian forces are derivatives of relational patterns.

• Einsteinian curvature is a higher-order constraint on the possible geodesics of motion.

• Quantum events are actualisations of potential, constrained by prior entanglements and present context.

Causation becomes the grammar of becoming.

4. Science, Philosophy, and the Semiotic Universe

This unified ontology is not a replacement for physical theories but a metatheoretical framework — a way of understanding what they reveal, not just how they compute.

• For science, it offers a non-reductive lens that preserves the precision of physical law while recognising the deeply relational character of the universe.

• For philosophy, it dissolves the Cartesian split between matter and meaning, offering a view in which every instance — physical or mental — is an actualisation of potential within a shared ontological architecture.

• For systemic-functional linguistics, it resonates with the idea that meaning is structured, potential, and instantiated — and that reality itself may be understood as semiotic: not reducible to signs, but emerging through systems of structured possibility.

5. A Universe of Meaningful Relations

Ultimately, the convergence of these insights invites us to see the cosmos not as a machine driven by forces, but as a living topology of patterned becoming. A universe where:

• Relations precede relata,

• Meaning precedes mechanism,

• And causation is the name we give to the actualisation of potential within a field of constraint.

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Looking Ahead

With this unified relational ontology in hand, future posts may explore its implications for other domains: from thermodynamics and entropy, to biological evolution and the emergence of consciousness. But for now, we have reached a turning point: force has been reinterpreted, causation reframed, and the semiotic universe opened to science.