In developing a relational ontology informed by quantum theory, relativity, and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), we’ve been gradually reshaping how core physical concepts can be understood without defaulting to assumptions of absolute space, time, or substance. One of the most fruitful areas of this rethinking is gravity — particularly, the idea of a geodesic.
From Substance to Process
Standard models of general relativity describe gravity as the curvature of spacetime. Mass bends spacetime, and free-falling objects move along the resulting geodesics — paths of least resistance in a curved manifold. This model has tremendous predictive power. But it carries a metaphysical cost: it assumes spacetime exists independently of what unfolds within it, and that curvature is a property of a substance-like continuum.
In our relational ontology, process is primary. Space and time are not containers but dimensions of unfolding relational activity. Instead of assuming spacetime as an independent manifold, we ask: what relations are necessary to model the unfolding of processes as gravitational attraction?
The Geodesic as a Relational Path
From this perspective, the geodesic is not a path carved through a pre-existing medium, but a pattern in the unfolding of actualised relations — a trajectory determined by how potential is instantiated in proximity to mass. Mass centres are not ‘sources’ of curvature, but gravitational centres that organise unfolding.
This shift allows us to reinterpret phenomena like gravitational time dilation and spatial contraction not as distortions of spacetime, but as perspectival effects within the unfolding of processes. In short:
It is the geodesic that is curved — not spacetime.
This curvature reflects how processes actualise differently depending on their relational orientation to mass.
Gravitational Time Dilation and Spatial Contraction
In general relativity, clocks near a massive object tick more slowly (time dilation), and spatial intervals contract in the radial direction. But what is the proportional relation between these effects?
This asymmetry is telling: the effects are related, but not inverse mirrors of each other. In our ontology, this makes sense. Time and space are not equivalent dimensions of a container; they are complementary dimensions of relational unfolding:
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Time tracks the ordering of instances within a process.
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Space tracks the relational spread of processes co-unfolding.
Thus, their relative modulation in a gravitational field is not a geometrical distortion but a differential actualisation of potential — slowed unfolding (dilated time) paired with tighter binding of process relations (contracted space).
A Step Toward Light and Matter
This reframing of the geodesic prepares the ground for rethinking other key physical constructs: light, matter, particles, fields. If motion is not through space but across relational process configurations, then even the speed of light may be reinterpreted as a limit condition of actualisation, not of traversal.
In upcoming posts, we will explore how:
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Light functions as a boundary condition of process interaction,
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Particles emerge as compressed patterns in fields of unfolding,
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And how the Standard Model and chemical elements can be reconceived as semiotic systems instantiating potential meanings in the material order.
But first, it matters that we let go of the picture of masses ‘bending space’ and instead ask: what changes in how processes unfold?
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