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