28 August 2025

Theorising the Speed of Light: Constraint, Relation, and the Horizon of Meaning

1 Light as Boundary – From Signalling to Spacetime

In physical theory, the speed of light is a limit — a constant, a horizon, a threshold beyond which no information can pass. But in our relational ontology, we ask not just what light is, but how it constrains meaning.

We begin not with light as a substance or wave or particle, but as a condition for relation.

The Speed of Light as Semiotic Constraint

From the perspective of construal, speed is not simply how fast something moves. It is a relational meaning — the rate at which difference is propagated. And the speed of light is not just a high number: it is the maximum rate at which difference can be communicated between sites of potential instantiation.

In this sense, the speed of light is a semiotic threshold.

It constrains what can be construed together — what can be co-instantiated in a single perspective. Just as two words must co-occur within a clause to relate syntactically, two events must fall within the light-cone of a perspective to relate physically.

This is the first insight:

Light is not a medium; it is a limit on co-instantiation.

From Signalling to Relation

We often think of light as a signal — something sent from one point to another. But this presumes a system in which such signals are possible. In relational terms, signalling is a kind of meaning-making, a way of coordinating construal across distance and delay.

And every act of signalling is governed by constraint: how quickly a signal can arrive, how it transforms in transmission, whether it can be coherently construed at the other end.

Light sets the outer boundary for that coherence.

No signal — no meaningful relation — can travel faster than light.
This is not a technical inconvenience; it is a constitutive constraint.
It defines what counts as a relation across space and time.

Thus:

Spacetime itself is structured by the constraints of meaningful signalling.

Constraint as the Ground of System

If we step back, we see a pattern.

In language, grammatical constraints make meaning possible:
You cannot combine “run” and “quickly” at random — their co-selection is structured by system.

In physics, the constraints on signalling likewise shape what can be construed together.

And this gives us the general principle that grounds this series:

Constraint is not the enemy of freedom — it is the condition for relation.

Light, in this model, functions not as a carrier of truth but as a boundary of meaning — a horizon beyond which co-instantiation is no longer possible, and thus perspective loses coherence.

In the next post, we’ll explore how light not only bounds relation but structures delay — and how velocity and distance themselves are construed semiotically as relational meanings within a spacetime system.

2 Relational Distance – Meaning in Velocity and Delay

In the previous post, we construed the speed of light not as a physical quantity but as a semiotic boundary — the outer constraint on co-instantiation. It marks the limit at which processes can meaningfully relate across spacetime.

In this post, we move deeper:
What is distance in this model? What is velocity?
And what does it mean that delay is intrinsic to relation?

We begin by rethinking the nature of spatial and temporal separation — not as objective measurements, but as perspectival meanings within a relational system.

Distance Is Not Separation — It Is Delay

In everyday thought, distance separates things. It creates gaps.
But in a relational ontology, separation is not an absence — it is a meaningful delay in relation.

When a star flares 10 light-years away, we say it “happened long ago.”
But from our perspective, that delay is the relation: the process construes itself through light received today.

The event is not separate from us; it is differently located in our field of relation.

Thus, distance is not a thing between things.
It is a meaning construed through constraints on simultaneity.

Distance is delay rendered meaningful by the limits of signalling.

Velocity as Relational Change

In this same light, velocity is not the movement of a thing through space.
It is the rate of differentiation across relation — the speed at which a process becomes differently related to a point of reference.

When we say a car is moving at 60 km/h, we are describing how rapidly its spatial relation to our chosen origin is changing.
This is not a brute fact — it is a construal of unfolding under constraint.

And the constraint that makes velocity intelligible — and possible — is light.

Because nothing can relate faster than light, velocity becomes the measure of how far a process can change in a given frame before relation breaks down.

In other words:

Velocity is a measure of relational coherence across time.

It is how we track systemic differentiation under the constraint of delay.

Frames of Reference as Perspectives

The notion of a “frame of reference” is central to relativity.
But what is it in semiotic terms?

A frame of reference is not an objective point in space.
It is a position within a system of unfolding meanings — a site from which difference is construed.

Different observers are not different because of their location, but because of their construal:
Each occupies a unique trajectory through the field of relation.

This means that:

  • Simultaneity is not absolute.

  • Velocity is relative to perspective.

  • Causality is shaped by frame.

These are not distortions of a deeper truth — they are the truths of a relational universe.

All construal is perspectival — and velocity is construal in motion.

Delay as Meaningful Tension

Finally, we return to delay.

Delay is not friction.
It is the spacing that makes meaning possible.

In language, pause is not empty — it structures rhythm, contrast, anticipation.
In physics, delay does the same: it conditions which events can relate and how coherence is maintained.

Without delay, there would be no orientation, no causality, no spacetime.

Thus:

Delay is not an obstacle to meaning. It is meaning's grammar.

In the next post, we turn to one of the deepest implications of this perspectival construal:
How frames of reference themselves become meanings — and how the observer is not an external witness, but a participant in the field of relation.

3 Frames of Reference and the Observer

We’ve reimagined light as a semiotic constraint and velocity as relational change. Now we deepen the perspective:
If distance is delay, and velocity is orientation through unfolding, then what is a frame of reference?
And who — or what — is the observer?

This post explores how meaning arises from within a system — not from outside.
A frame of reference is not merely where we stand.
It is how we mean.

Frames of Reference Are Sites of Construal

In physics, a frame of reference is a coordinate system: a set of axes from which motion is measured.

In our ontology, that coordinate system is a metaphor for meaning.

A frame of reference is:

  • A structured site of relation.

  • A perspective from which differentiation is construed.

  • A grammar for tracking unfolding.

It is not a point in space.
It is a position in a semiotic system — an orientation within a field of potential relations.

This means:

There is no frame without meaning, and no meaning without a frame.

Every Observer Is Inside the System

Classical physics imagined an external observer: someone who looks at the world from outside.

But relativity — and our ontology — denies this.

There is no “outside” to the field of relation.

Every observer is:

  • A participant in the system.

  • A site where relational potential is instantiated.

  • A cut in the field — not a mirror of it.

Observation is not about watching. It is about meaning from within.

The observer is not separate from the observed.
The frame of reference co-defines what is seen.

Construal is Constitutive

This leads us to a powerful shift.

Observation is not passive.
It brings into being the frame through which relation unfolds.

In semiotic terms:

  • A clause construes a process through the perspective of a participant.

  • A speaker construes meaning through a chosen metafunctional alignment.

  • A physicist construes a world by adopting a reference frame and measuring within it.

Each construal is a theory of relation.

And each theory determines what can be instantiated as meaning.

The Observer as Construal-in-Process

From this angle, an observer is not a thing.
It is a moment of construal: a configuration of meanings instantiated from systemic potential.

This means:

  • A reference frame is not chosen arbitrarily; it emerges from a history of construal.

  • The “speed of light” is the semiotic ceiling within which such construal can remain coherent.

  • The difference between “motion” and “rest” is not absolute — it is perspectival.

So:

The observer is not a noun. It is a clause: an unfolding relation.

Perspective Shapes Potential

Because every observer occupies a frame of reference, and every frame is a theory of meaning,
it follows that:
the construal of one event changes the field for future construals.

This is how spacetime evolves.
This is why systems of reference don’t just record meaning — they structure it.

We live in a universe of reference frames — not as fixed scaffolds, but as semiotic attractors, each shaping what can come next.

In the next post, we push this logic to the horizon:
What happens when construal itself reaches its limit?
We turn to simultaneity, causality, and the semiotic paradoxes they bring — a prelude to the black hole as the collapse of meaning.

4 Simultaneity and the Tension of Meaning

Having grounded speed and distance in relation, and reframed observers as perspectival sites of construal, we now encounter one of the deepest tensions in physics — and in meaning itself:
Simultaneity.

What does it mean for two things to happen at the same time?
And what does it mean for that claim to differ depending on your frame of reference?

In our relational ontology, these questions reveal a profound insight:
Simultaneity is not a property of events.
It is a tension in the construal of relation.

The Problem of Simultaneity

In classical physics, time was assumed to flow uniformly — the same everywhere.

But relativity shattered this assumption.
It showed that:

  • Events that are simultaneous in one frame may not be in another.

  • There is no universal “now.”

  • Even temporal order can reverse, depending on motion and location.

This isn’t a trick of perception.
It is a structural feature of relational systems.

And it forces us to abandon any idea of absolute timing.

Simultaneity Is a Meaning Relation

In our model, time is not a container.
It is a relation among unfolding processes.

So simultaneity isn’t when two things “really” happen at once.
It’s when two events are construed as co-instantiating — as meaningfully aligned in a frame of reference.

This means:

  • Simultaneity is a choice in the construal of difference.

  • Like theme and rheme, or actor and goal, its meaning depends on system.

  • It expresses a relation, not a clock.

Simultaneity is where perspective meets constraint.

Tension as Meaningful Disagreement

Different frames disagree on simultaneity.
But that disagreement isn’t a failure.
It’s a semiotic tension — a divergence of construals within a system of possibility.

Like polyphony in music or ambiguity in language, this tension is not an error.
It is what makes complex meaning possible.

And that tension is held open by light — by the delay that relation requires.

Without delay, no relation.
Without relation, no construal.
Without construal, no simultaneity.

The Horizon of Causality

Simultaneity also touches causality.
If different frames disagree on what came first, can we still say one thing caused another?

Yes — but only if we reconstrue causality.

In our ontology:

  • Causality is not a chain of external events.

  • It is a system of meaning — a construal of how one unfolding constrains another.

Relativity limits causal construal to what can be linked within a light cone — i.e., within communicable delay.
This limit is not arbitrary.
It is what makes causal meaning coherent.

So:

Causality is a semiotic structure that depends on constrained difference.

Simultaneity and the Cut

At its core, simultaneity confronts us with the cut between system and instance:

  • The system allows multiple construals of time.

  • Each instance selects a frame — and that selection excludes others.

This is not a defect. It is the logic of instantiation.
To construe at all is to cut a path through potential.

Simultaneity is where the universe stretches its grammar to the edge.
And light is the punctuation that keeps it readable.

In the next post, we move to a paradox that cannot be resolved within any frame:
the black hole — where construal collapses, and the system’s horizon becomes absolute.
We’ll explore how the grammar of relation reaches its event-boundary.

5 Black Holes and the Collapse of Construal

If construal is the patterned unfolding of relation —
If light is the limit that keeps construal coherent —
Then what happens when even light can’t escape?

We reach a boundary not just of space or time,
But of perspective itself.

This is the black hole:
Not a “thing” but a collapse in the system’s ability to differentiate.
A semantic singularity where construal breaks down.

What Is a Black Hole?

In physics, a black hole is a region of spacetime so warped that nothing — not even light — can escape its gravity.

But in relational terms, this means:

  • No light means no signalling.

  • No signalling means no relation.

  • No relation means no construal.

From outside, we see only the event horizon:
The point beyond which no information returns.
The cut becomes impassable.

The black hole is where difference becomes invisible —
Where the system can no longer construe the instance.

Meaning Requires Distinction

All construal is differentiation:

  • This from that.

  • Now from then.

  • Here from elsewhere.

But if no light escapes, no distinction can be made.
The interior of the black hole becomes uninstantiable —
Not because nothing is there, but because nothing can be construed.

From the system’s point of view,

The black hole is not silence —
It is unspeakable.

The Compression of Perspective

As matter approaches the event horizon, its perceived time slows.
From an external frame, it freezes at the edge —
An asymptotic approach to invisibility.

This is not just a gravitational effect.
It is a semiotic compression:

  • The event continues to unfold internally.

  • But from outside, construal loses traction.

  • The sign collapses under its own constraint.

This is the limit of logogenesis —
Where the grammar of unfolding meaning hits its vanishing point.

Inside the Horizon

What lies beyond?

From within, the system still unfolds.
Potential still constrains instance.
But no new construal is possible from without.

This gives us a crucial insight:

The black hole is not the absence of meaning.
It is meaning that has been cut off from relation.

This is the deep paradox:

  • Relation creates the conditions for meaning.

  • But extreme relation (gravity, mass, curvature) can also erase it — by collapsing all construal into singularity.

The system folds in on itself.

A Limit Case of Perspective

Black holes do not destroy meaning.
They reveal its limit.

  • They show that perspective is not optional.

  • That relation is constrained by delay.

  • That construal requires openness.

They are where the universe says:
This far, and no further.

The event horizon is not just a physical threshold.
It is a grammatical one — the boundary of what can be meant.

In the next post, we step back from the brink.

If black holes are where construal breaks down,
then what lies on the other end of the scale?

We return to the beginning — not as a moment in time,
but as a structured field of potential:

The Big Bang, re-read as theory:
The system pole of the universe.

6 The Universe as Theory: Reading the Big Bang as Meaning Potential

If black holes mark the collapse of construal — where relation becomes unintelligible — then what lies at the opposite end of the scale?

We return not to a “beginning in time,” but to the beginning of time as theory.

To the Big Bang — not as a bang, not as a singularity, not even as an event — but as a semiotic construct:
the system pole of the universe,
the most abstract construal of potentiality from which all unfolding becomes possible.

Not a Moment, but a Model

In the standard story of cosmology, the Big Bang is framed as the origin of everything: time, space, matter, causality.

But in a relational ontology, what comes first is not what happens, but what constrains what happens.

The Big Bang, in this sense, is not the first instance — it is the structured field of potential from which instances can arise.

It is theory, not event.

It is the most abstract system that makes relation possible — not a moment that occurred, but a model we construct to ground all occurrence.

The Big Bang as System Pole

System and instance are not separate realms. They are complementary perspectives on the same unfolding.

To perceive a text is to perceive it as an instance of a system.

To perceive a particle is to construe it as an instance of a quantum field.

To perceive the universe is to construe it as an instance of… what?

The Big Bang, in this reading, is the theory of the universe — its grounding semiotic system, the most abstract construal of what it is possible to be.

Not the first thing that happened, but the necessary condition for anything to happen.

It is not the zero point of time.
It is the zero point of relation.

Meaning Requires Boundary

Without constraint, nothing can unfold meaningfully.

The Big Bang is the limit of differentiation — the maximal compression of potential. It functions, semiotically, like a deep origin clause: not “this happened,” but “from this, all else becomes possible.”

It is the ultimate system boundary — not in scale or scope, but in orientation.

It gives directionality to expansion, a default for time, a baseline for entropy. But all of this unfolds from within a construal — from a particular relation to the system as potential.

The Big Bang marks the edge of theory, just as the event horizon marks the edge of instance.

Cosmology as Meaning-Making

When physicists theorise the Big Bang, they are not discovering a primordial object.

They are construing a theory of instance — a way of modelling how the system as a whole constrains what can be.

Like all systems, it is built from instances — from background radiation, redshifts, particle ratios. And yet, it stands above them, as an organising construal.

This is not metaphysics. It is semiotics: the attempt to systematise the conditions of meaning at cosmic scale.

The Big Bang, read this way, is a human theory about what it means for the universe to have a meaning.

From Beginning to Becoming

The power of this construal is not that it explains a singular moment, but that it opens a space in which all further moments can unfold.

It gives coherence to the grammar of spacetime.

It constrains what counts as a cause, a signal, a structure.

And it grounds our most fundamental orientations — to time, to matter, to possibility — in a shared field of relation.

Coda: Theory as Universe

In this light, the universe is not a fixed collection of things, nor even a set of processes.

It is a meaning system, continuously updated through unfolding instance.

And the Big Bang is its system pole — the construal of ultimate potential, from which all differentiation arises.

To theorise the Big Bang is not to look back in time.
It is to stand at the edge of meaning, and trace the grammar of what it means to be.

7 The Cut Between Theory and Event

Light and the Differentiation of Meaning

Throughout this series, we’ve traced a consistent insight: that the speed of light is not just a number in physics, but a semiotic constraint—a boundary that allows relation, constructs distance, enacts simultaneity, and frames experience.

Now we arrive at the final consequence:

The speed of light marks the cut between theory and event.

It is the condition for meaning to arise as difference: between here and there, before and after, potential and instance.

Constraint as the Condition for Differentiation

In our relational ontology, constraint does not block meaning—it makes meaning possible.
Without systemic constraint, there would be no differentiation, no structure, no relation—no way to distinguish anything from anything else.

Light-speed is one such constraint:

  • It limits what can be co-instantiated, creating delay.

  • It prevents absolute simultaneity, enforcing perspective.

  • It conditions the unfolding of events, structuring spacetime itself.

In this way, light becomes the semiotic horizon:

A boundary that both enables and limits what can be construed as meaning.

Theory and Event as Complementary Perspectives

We have repeatedly drawn on the distinction between systemic potential and instance.

  • Theory construes the range of what can happen.

  • Event is what happens, construed as an instance of that potential.

In this model:

  • The potential is a theory of the event.

  • The event is a perspectival cut through that theory.

This is the relation between system and instance, Range and Medium, potential and selection.

And in physical theory, the same applies:

  • The wavefunction is a theory of potential.

  • The particle trace is an event.

  • The physicist's construal of this event is already shaped by the speed-of-light constraint.

Light marks the boundary of co-instantiation—the point at which potential resolves into an instance, a cut is made, and construal becomes possible.

The Universe Makes Meaning Through Cuts

This “cut” is not a problem to be solved—it is how the universe theorises itself.

Every construal—every instance of meaning—depends on such a cut:

  • A selection from what could have been said.

  • A perspective within what could have been seen.

  • A differentiation from what could have been meant.

To make meaning is to mark a boundary within a field of potential.
To theorise is to construe those boundaries as system.

The speed of light is such a boundary—not just for physics, but for perspective itself.

The Light Between Us

Even here—across time and space—this post reaches you through a delay.
Not instantaneously, not from nowhere, but within a system of constraint:
light, time, media, memory, construal.

And it is that delay, that structured difference, that allows this to be meaningful.

This is not a failure of immediacy.
It is the condition for relation.

A Final Reflection

Meaning is not found in what is.
It is made in what could have been—and what, through perspective, was selected.

The speed of light is not merely a constant in a field equation.
It is the horizon of meaning:

  • a limit that enables difference,

  • a relation that constructs distance,

  • a delay that makes meaning possible.

To theorise light is to theorise meaning.
To reach the horizon is to make the cut.

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