Showing posts with label individuation. Show all posts

31 July 2025

Beyond the Element: A Relational Reframe of the Periodic Table

1 The Periodic Table as a Semiotic Construct

In our relational ontology, grounded in the cline of instantiation and the unfolding of process, even the most familiar scientific artefacts can be re-seen. The periodic table is no longer a map of objectively existing substances. It is a semiotic system: a structured construal of meaning potential that instantiates through patterns of interaction within and across fields of unfolding.

We begin by asking not what an element is, but how it is instantiated. An element is not a substance, nor even a particle configuration. It is a relational affordance—a field of potential interactions made actual in specific unfolding processes. The identity of an element like carbon or oxygen does not reside in an atom as an independently existing object. It emerges through configurations of unfolding fields—primarily electromagnetic and quantum—and is construed by observers through experimental, technological, and theoretical systems.

The periodic table itself is a semiotic construal of these potentials. It does not represent the elements as things, but rather organises them according to patterns of resonance and coherence across fields. What recurs is not an object but a configuration: similar patterns of orbital stability, bonding capacity, or energetic transformation. These are not fixed properties but probabilistic patterns—meaning potentials instantiated under specific material and experimental conditions.

From this view, the periodicity of the table reflects not the existence of a hidden structure of matter, but the regularities in how different configurations of potential unfold. These regularities are relational: they depend on how processes interact, not on any inner essence. The table, then, is not a periodic table of substances, but of unfolding constraints and affordances—a catalogue of relational coherence.

Moreover, the very classification of an “element” requires observer participation. It depends on how scientists choose to stabilise patterns of measurement, identify boundaries of coherence, and assign symbolic identity. The periodic table thus sits at the intersection of material and semiotic systems: it is a meaning system that organises biological and technological engagements with the material field.

In this light, each element is an instance of meaning, drawn from the collective potential of chemical experience. Like all meaning systems, the periodic table is not a window onto reality as it is, but a coordinated construal of experience—a way of making sense of patterns that repeat, resonate, and endure.

In the next post, we’ll explore how these configurations form and stabilise—how coherence is achieved not by intrinsic identity, but by configuration across interacting fields.

2 Configurations of Coherence — How Elements Stabilise Across Fields

If elements are not fixed substances but configurations of unfolding potential, then we must ask: how do these configurations stabilise? What gives rise to the relative regularity and durability that allows us to speak of “hydrogen,” “oxygen,” or “gold” as if they were discrete entities?

In our relational ontology, coherence does not result from essential properties, but from the persistence of relational patterns across interacting fields. For chemical elements, these patterns are stabilised configurations of quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear fields, structured by constraints such as charge balance, spin symmetry, and energy quantisation.

What we traditionally call an “atom” is itself a field configuration—not a nucleus orbited by particles, but a resonance between potentials. The so-called “orbitals” are not miniature planetary systems, but probability topologies: wave-structured regions of potential in which the presence of matter-energy can be instantiated. What stabilises is not a particle in motion, but the pattern of resonance between nucleus and electron fields—a pattern that resists transformation under a given range of interactions.

From this perspective, the coherence of an element arises not within a single structure, but across systems of relation. A hydrogen atom is not defined by an independently existing proton and electron, but by the persistent field relations that give rise to their observable properties. If these relations were to destabilise—if energy input shifts the configuration—the “hydrogen-ness” of the system ceases to hold. Instantiation shifts to a different region of potential.

This process is deeply context-dependent. Coherence only holds under specific conditions: of temperature, pressure, field intensity, and system isolation. The fact that elements behave “predictably” is not evidence of essential identity, but of the repeatability of coherent constraints under shared experimental affordances.

This view also casts new light on chemical bonding. Molecules form not by combining solid pieces, but by co-instantiating patterns of shared field resonance. Covalent bonds are not threads of matter, but stabilised overlaps of potential topologies, where multiple nuclei and electron fields unfold coherently. Ionic and metallic bonds instantiate different forms of coherence—through long-range electrostatic patterns or delocalised field sharing.

Importantly, these configurations are semiotically construed: the concepts of “valence,” “reactivity,” and “electronegativity” are all meaning instances in a disciplinary semiotic system. They emerge not from matter itself, but from patterns we observe, formalise, and teach.

The coherence of an element, then, is always both material and semiotic: a relational pattern in the unfolding of fields, and a symbolic pattern in the construal of knowledge.

In the next post, we will examine how this system of relations becomes systematised into the periodic table—a meta-semiotic framework for organising and predicting the relational affordances of the elements.

3 Reading the Table — Periodicity as Semiotic System

If the chemical elements are stabilised field configurations—coherent patterns in the unfolding of quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear potentials—then the periodic table is not a map of things, but a semiotic architecture: a structured construal of how coherence itself patterns and re-patterns across interactional contexts.

The periodic table does not catalogue substances. It organises relations. Its iconic structure reflects observed regularities in how configurations of fields behave: how they stabilise, bond, transform, and reconfigure. These are patterns in the system of potential, not in any fixed underlying substance.

From our relational perspective, the table performs three vital semiotic functions:

Construes Similarity as System
Elements are grouped not by what they are, but by what they do under shared conditions. Groupings reflect regularities in ionisation energy, bonding patterns, atomic radius—relational properties that arise across interactions. The periodic table projects these affordances as a meaning potential: a system of options for chemical unfolding.
Stratifies Fields of Constraint
The table compresses multiple dimensions—quantum shell structure, valence electron configuration, atomic number—into a unified semiotic form. This stratification allows users to read across symbolic, mathematical, and physical domains simultaneously. It is a meta-semiotic interface, enabling the interpretation of field-level phenomena through symbolic means.
Predicts Coherence Across Contexts
Because the table reflects relational potential, it functions as a model for predicting which configurations are likely to stabilise under given conditions. It is a semiotic technology of projection: not a passive record but a means of guiding scientific practice, experiment, and interpretation. Its regularity reflects the regularity of coherent constraints—not the repeatability of fixed objects.

This makes the periodic table a paradigmatic example of how meaning is made in science. It is a social semiotic construct—a system instantiated through centuries of experimentation, theory, revision, and pedagogy. It embodies both historical individuation (in its development) and systemic instantiation (in its ongoing use).

It also demonstrates the profound affordance of compressed symbolic form: the table fits a vast field of unfolding relational potential into a portable, readable, teachable structure. It bridges disciplines, institutions, and levels of expertise. It does not just represent the elements—it reconfigures our relation to them.

In this light, the periodic table stands not as a mirror of material order, but as an interface between semiotic system and relational process. It helps shape how the scientific community construes, projects, and instantiates the coherent configurations we call “elements.”

Coda: Reconstructing Reality — Meaning at the Heart of Matter

In this trilogy, we’ve followed the periodic table back to its relational foundations. What began as a catalogue of substances has emerged, in our ontology, as a semiotic construal of coherence—a map not of things, but of recurring relational potentials instantiated under specific conditions of unfolding.

This perspective changes everything.

We no longer seek the ultimate substance beneath the elements. We seek the conditions of coherence: the stabilising of field relations, the constraints that select configurations into persistence, and the symbolic technologies that let us read those selections as meaningful. Chemistry becomes not the science of stuff, but the study of structured unfolding—of how quantum, electromagnetic, and nuclear interactions are selected, individuated, and instantiated into the patterns we interpret as atoms and molecules.

The periodic table, in this light, is not a static inventory of the real, but a dynamic semiotic scaffold—a human artefact that makes the relational intelligible. It allows us to project from past regularities to future potential. It connects the quantum architecture of matter to the social architectures of meaning-making. And it reminds us that science itself is not the decoding of a mind-independent reality, but the collective construal of experience through patterned, disciplined, and evolving systems of meaning.

In other words, the periodic table is not the periodic table of the elements. It is the periodic table of relational unfolding.

And in recognising that, we are invited not just to read the table differently—but to reimagine what it means to know.

29 July 2025

Beyond the Particle: Matter, Meaning, and Relational Physics

1 From Fields to Particles — Unfolding and the Appearance of Discreteness

In the traditional ontology of physics, particles are understood as fundamental entities—discrete units of matter and energy, each with defined properties and behaviours. But when viewed through the lens of our relational ontology, this framework is upended. The ontology we’ve developed does not begin with things. It begins with unfolding processes, with fields of potential that give rise to instances of coherence. In this view, what we call a “particle” is not a basic building block, but a compressed pattern—a local coherence within a field of unfolding.

Just as language users select features from a meaning potential to instantiate a clause, so too do physical processes instantiate coherent patterns from physical potentials. A particle is not “there” until it emerges as a stable instantiation within a wider network of relational constraints. Its apparent discreteness is an effect, not a premise.

Fields as Meaning Potentials

The Standard Model of particle physics is built on the notion of fields. Each particle is associated with a quantum field that permeates space. What we observe as a particle is an excitation of the corresponding field—an instance of potential becoming actual. This fits naturally within the relational ontology:

A field is a structured potential—like a system network in SFL.
A particle is an instance of that potential, actualised in unfolding processes.
The stability of a particle is the resonance of that instantiation across time—its recursive compatibility with the wider field relations.

Importantly, there are no isolated “things”. The ontology recognises only relational patterns—fields as structured possibilities, and particles as coherent instantiations that endure (however briefly) in the unfolding.

Compression and Coherence

When a pattern of unfolding compresses into a coherent configuration—localised, stable, and recurrent—we name it a particle. This compression is not imposed from the outside, nor does it involve a hidden substance underneath; rather, it is a self-organising dynamic. Much like how a melody takes shape from the interplay of musical values, a particle arises as a local coherence in a relational field.

In this view, mass, charge, and spin are not intrinsic properties, but features of the coherence—ways of modelling the nature of the instantiation and its interaction with other fields. This has profound consequences:

Mass is not a substance, but a measure of how strongly the coherence couples to the unfolding gravitational potential.
Charge is a pattern of relational interaction within the electroweak potential.
Spin is a topological feature of the field's unfolding around the instantiation.

Each of these can be modelled not as intrinsic traits, but as relational qualifications of a compressed field instance.

From Discreteness to Disposition

This model helps us reframe a longstanding philosophical tension: how do continuous fields give rise to discrete particles?

In the relational ontology, this isn’t a metaphysical mystery. Discreteness is a construal—a categorisation of recurrent instantiations. We treat a stable field compression as an individual for the purposes of scientific modelling, but this does not mean it is a self-sufficient entity.

We no longer need to ask “What is a particle made of?” but rather:

How does a particle instantiate relational coherence from a field of potential?

This subtle shift has major implications for how we understand matter, interaction, and the role of modelling itself. It repositions physics not as a catalogue of fundamental things, but as a semiotic system that construes patterned instances of unfolding.

2 The Electron as a Relational Instance

In classical and even early quantum physics, the electron is treated as a particle: a negatively charged point mass orbiting a nucleus, scattering through space, or probabilistically “smeared” across a field. But from the perspective of our relational ontology, the electron is not a thing but an instance—a patterned coherence within a field of potential. To understand the electron, then, is to trace how its recognisable features emerge from and participate in relational unfolding.

Electron Potential and Instantiation

The electron field is a quantum field that spans what physics construes as space. In standard formulations, this field can be excited to produce a quantum—an electron—which interacts with other fields according to fixed rules. In the relational ontology, we reframe this process:

The electron field is a structured potential, defined not by space but by its topology of interaction—the dimensions along which its potential can be instantiated in unfolding relation.
An electron is a local coherence within this topology—an actualisation of the field that attains stability across a region of unfolding.

This instance is not separate from the field. It is the field, in a particular configuration—compressed, resonant, and qualified by its relational position. What we call the “electron” is a token of this coherence: something we recognise and semiotically distinguish across contexts.

Charge, Mass, and Spin as Relational Effects

In standard physics, the electron is said to have intrinsic properties: a negative electric charge, a specific mass, and a half-integer spin. In relational terms, these are not substances or hidden essences but relational qualifications:

Charge arises from how the electron field couples to the electromagnetic field. The electron is negatively charged because its instantiation resonates in a specific way within the electroweak potential. The sign and magnitude are systemic features—values selected within the broader field grammar.
Mass is not a thing the electron “has,” but a measure of its inertial relation—how tightly or loosely the electron’s instance coheres across the gravitational unfolding. In this view, mass is the degree to which unfolding is resisted, compressed into a consistent pattern of activation.
Spin is a topological property of the field’s mode of unfolding. In the relational model, it indexes how the coherence circulates around itself in spacetime-like interactions. It is a pattern of relation, not a literal rotation.

These qualifications don’t define what an electron “is”—they describe how its instantiation relates to other fields and patterns. The electron is thus not a miniature marble with a charge label, but a knot in the relational fabric—a recurrent field pattern with certain dispositional effects.

Individuation and Generalisation

Every electron instantiation is singular—it unfolds in a particular context. But its recognisability comes from its participation in a collective potential. There is a meaning potential of “electronhood” within the field—a set of system features that are reliably selected and instantiated.

This duality maps cleanly onto the ontology’s clines:

Individuation: Each electron instance is individuated—it is a local construal of a broader potential. But it is also generalisable, as it instantiates the same features across contexts.
Instantiation: The field has a continuous potential. The electron is a point of actualisation—a construal that has coherence.

From this view, the idea of a “fundamental particle” gives way to a typology of stable relational instances. The electron is not a substance under the microscope, but a recurring semiotic event in the field grammar of physics.

3 From Particle Zoo to Relational Grammar

The Standard Model of particle physics has long been described as a “zoo” of particles—a crowded menagerie of quarks, leptons, bosons, and more, each with a catalogue of properties and interactions. But within the relational ontology we’ve been developing, these particles are not elementary things. They are instantiations of structured field potentials, and the so-called zoo is better understood as a grammar of unfolding relations.

Particles as Instantiations

In this framework, each “particle” is a coherence pattern—an instance of particular features selected from the potential of one or more fields. These patterns become salient in relation to other unfolding processes. Their apparent discreteness (mass, charge, spin, etc.) is not ontological but semiotic: they are recognisable tokens of patterned relational dynamics.

A quark is not a part of matter but an instance of the quantum chromodynamic (QCD) potential, qualified by colour charge and confined within broader relational structures (like baryons).
A boson is not a particle that “carries force” but an instance of a mediating potential—an unfolding relation that enables interaction between cohering field patterns.

What we call a “particle” is thus an abstraction from process—a construal that stabilises certain qualities of relational unfolding into repeatable roles.

The Grammar of Fields

Instead of treating particles as fundamental and fields as their backdrop, the relational model reverses the hierarchy:

Fields are the structured meaning potentials of physical reality. They define dimensions along which relational patterns can be instantiated.
Particles are instances—coherences actualised within these fields in a way that persists long enough to be individuated, named, and measured.

This allows us to treat the Standard Model not as a list of ingredients but as a semiotic grammar: a set of system networks whose features instantiate as relational configurations with particular consequences.

The electroweak grammar governs how weak and electromagnetic interactions unfold and co-qualify their instances.
The QCD grammar governs how colour charges interact, giving rise to confinement, gluon dynamics, and hadron formation.
The mass grammar arises from how the Higgs field constrains the coherence of field configurations, rather than "giving mass" as an ontological act.

In this way, the Standard Model becomes a relational semiotic—a system of structured potentials from which recognisable, individuated patterns (particles) can be instantiated and organised.

From Measurement to Meaning

When physicists describe particles through their interactions—via cross-sections, decay channels, or collision signatures—they are tracing meaning instances: selections from a potential field system, rendered measurable through technology.

But just as meaning in language cannot be reduced to lexicogrammar, the coherence of particles cannot be reduced to numeric outputs. What’s measured is not a thing but a token of relation—an actualised point in a topologically unfolding system.

This reframes physics itself as a construal of meaning: not a discovery of fundamental building blocks, but a disciplined semiotic system for naming, measuring, and modelling unfolding relational processes.

Reflective Coda

Across this trilogy, we have sought to move beyond inherited metaphors that portray the world as made of things — discrete, independent particles in fixed space and time — and instead foreground an ontology of unfolding: where what we call “particles” are compressions of processual relations, and what we take as “matter” is the patterning of coherent interactions across fields of potential.

This shift matters. It reconfigures the very premises of physics, not by discarding its achievements, but by re-situating them in a broader account of meaning, instantiation, and consciousness. From this perspective, the so-called building blocks of nature are not ultimate entities but phase-bound construals — semiotic compressions of value, stability, and transformation within unfolding systems.

We have reframed quantum fields not as abstract mathematical surfaces but as relational potentials — structured landscapes of possibility, instantiated by processes and patterned by coherence. And we have traced how apparent “particles” emerge not as atoms of substance, but as the crossings and recursions of fields in relation.

This is not a new physics, but a new orientation toward physics — one that places observer, meaning, and relational process at the heart of the model. It asks not what things are, but how coherence unfolds, and in doing so, it clears ground for a more integrated view of science, semiosis, and self.

To go beyond the particle is not to deny its usefulness, but to recognise its place: not as the foundation of reality, but as a symbolic compression within the unfolding of relation.

28 July 2025

Relational Ontology and the Phenomenon of Black Holes

1 Into the Horizon: Black Holes as Relational Boundaries

Black holes are often described as mysterious “objects” in space — regions where gravity crushes matter into a singularity, and nothing, not even light, can escape. But what if we set aside the notion of black holes as things and instead think of them as extreme configurations of relational unfolding? What if the event horizon is not just a physical boundary, but a boundary of relational coherence and meaning?

In this post, we begin a relational exploration of black holes — not by asking what they are in themselves, but how they unfold as processes within the complex interplay of space, time, and observation.

1. Beyond “Things”: Black Holes as Processes of Relation

Traditional physics often treats black holes as entities with properties — mass, density, event horizons — existing in an absolute spacetime backdrop. Our relational ontology suggests a shift: black holes are not static “things” but dynamic, unfolding processes defined by their relational interactions.

They arise as boundary conditions where the potential for co-unfolding relational processes between observer and observed reaches a limit. This is not merely a boundary of physics but a boundary of meaningful relational interaction.

2. The Event Horizon: A Boundary of Relational Coherence

The event horizon is commonly seen as the “point of no return” — a surface beyond which events cannot influence distant observers. Relationally, the event horizon can be understood as a meaning boundary, a limit of relational synchrony:

From the perspective of an external observer, processes unfolding inside the horizon cease to co-unfold relationally with the outside.
The horizon is not an absolute wall in space, but a perspectival, dynamic limit shaped by how processes relate and unfold across gravitational potentials.
It marks where the topology of relational meaning breaks or transforms — a shift in what can be instantiated as meaningful interaction.

3. Relational Implications of Space Contraction and Time Dilation

Near the event horizon, spatial intervals contract while time intervals dilate — processes unfold at different rates depending on gravitational potential. Relationally, this means:

The unfolding of events inside the horizon is effectively “compressed” relative to an external frame.
Time itself becomes a perspectival dimension of unfolding, slowing dramatically as the horizon is approached.
From afar, instantiations appear to pile up at the horizon, reflecting the horizon’s role as a temporal asymptote — a relational boundary limiting how and when events can be instantiated.

4. The Black Hole as an Extreme Individuation of Gravitational Potential

Black holes can also be seen as extreme individuations where localized gravitational potential dominates all relational unfolding with the wider cosmos. In this sense:

They represent regions where the internal relational processes become so dominant that interaction with the outside relational field becomes constrained or altered.
This extreme individuation reshapes the meaning potential and the ways processes can instantiate meaning within and outside the horizon.

Conclusion: A New Beginning Beyond the Horizon

By reframing black holes as relational boundaries — sites where the interplay of unfolding processes, meaning, and observation reaches a limit — we begin to see these phenomena not as paradoxical singularities but as natural limits of relational coherence.

This view invites us to explore not what black holes are, but how they unfold relationally — paving the way for further reflections on singularities and time’s ontological limits in the next posts of this trilogy.

2 Singularity and the Breakdown of Relational Meaning

In the first post, Into the Horizon, we reframed black holes not as static objects but as relational boundaries where the coherence of unfolding processes reaches a limit. Now, we turn our attention inward — to the singularity, traditionally portrayed as a point of infinite density and a breakdown of physical law.

What does the singularity mean in a relational ontology? If reality is meaning unfolding through processes, then singularities are not “things” but zones where relational meaning itself breaks down — where the topology of spacetime can no longer sustain coherent instantiation of process.

1. The Singularity as a Breakdown of Relational Coherence

The classical singularity in black hole physics is often seen as a “point” where density and curvature become infinite, signalling the failure of our physical models. From a relational perspective:

The singularity marks a limit in the meaningful unfolding of processes.
It is a breakdown in the topology of relational fields, where the relational potential for co-unfolding fails.
This failure is not a physical “thing” but a loss of instantiable meaning, a boundary to how relational processes can meaningfully proceed.

2. Rethinking “Infinity” in Relational Terms

Infinity in physics is often a signpost of theory breakdown, not an actual physical state. Here:

Infinite density or curvature is understood as a signal of relational breakdown, not a material reality.
It flags where the processual instantiations we use to understand reality lose coherence or applicability.
This invites us to rethink singularities as ontological limits rather than physical points, thresholds beyond which relational meaning cannot unfold as before.

3. Topology, Individuation, and Meaning Collapse

Within the black hole, the spacetime topology that allows for the unfolding of meaningful relations compresses and contorts:

The internal field becomes an extreme individuation of gravitational potential.
The “collapse” of meaning is a consequence of this extreme individuation, where the relational “space” for interaction shrinks beyond instantiation.
The singularity is thus a zone of meaning collapse, a boundary where the relational process of meaning construction reaches an ontological limit.

4. Implications for Understanding Reality and Observation

This relational reframing offers new ways to think about observation and reality at the edge of singularities:

Observation is itself a relational unfolding, reliant on the co-presence and co-unfolding of processes.
Near the singularity, the breakdown of relational coherence means observation, and thus meaning, is fundamentally altered or ceases.
This aligns with quantum gravitational intuitions that classical notions of space and time lose their meaning near singularities.

Conclusion: Singularities as Limits, Not Paradoxes

By interpreting singularities as breakdowns of relational meaning and topology, rather than physical infinities, we demystify these extreme conditions and align them with our broader relational ontology.

This sets the stage for the next post, Time Folds In: Gravitational Asymptotes and Ontological Limits, where we explore how time itself behaves as an unfolding process near these ultimate relational boundaries.

3 Time Folds In: Gravitational Asymptotes and Ontological Limits

In our previous posts, Into the Horizon and Singularity and the Breakdown of Relational Meaning, we explored black holes as relational boundaries—zones where the unfolding of relational processes and meaning reaches fundamental limits. Now, we turn to the role of time, the dimension of unfolding, as it behaves in the presence of extreme gravitational fields.

1. Time as the Dimension of Unfolding Processes

In our relational ontology, time is not an independent container but the dimension of processual unfolding itself—how instances actualise from potential in relation. It is fundamentally perspectival and emergent from co-unfolding processes.

Near a black hole’s event horizon, this unfolding slows dramatically from the perspective of an external observer, but what does this mean relationally?

2. Gravitational Asymptotes: Processes Slowing to a Standstill

Approaching the event horizon, gravitational potential warps the relational topology:

The unfolding of processes contracts in time and space intervals relative to distant observers.
From afar, processes appear to slow and asymptotically approach a halt at the horizon—an ontological boundary where relational instantiation becomes frozen.
This “freezing” is not a universal cessation but a perspectival effect of relative unfolding rates between interacting processes.

3. The Black Hole as a Temporal Boundary Condition

The black hole thus acts as a temporal asymptote, a boundary condition limiting the relational unfolding of process:

Instantiations—events, interactions—“pile up” near the horizon without fully crossing it in external time.
Internally, however, unfolding continues differently; the horizon is a boundary between relational regimes, not an absolute end.
This reframes the event horizon as a meaning boundary, delimiting where certain relational processes can co-unfold coherently.

4. Ontological Limits and the Folding of Time

At the singularity, where relational meaning breaks down, time itself encounters an ontological limit:

The familiar metric of unfolding time collapses with the breakdown of spatial and processual topology.
Time “folds in” — ceasing to serve as a meaningful dimension of relational instantiation.
This invites new ways of thinking about quantum gravity and the fabric of reality where classical time dissolves into relational potential.

5. Observational Perspectives and the Nature of Reality

This perspectival unfolding emphasises that observation and reality are relationally co-constructed:

Time dilation near black holes is not just physical but ontological—reflecting differences in relational co-unfolding between observers and phenomena.
Reality, as meaning unfolding through processes, is fundamentally linked to these perspectival relations.
This aligns black hole physics with our broader relational ontology, dissolving paradoxes by grounding them in process and relation.

Conclusion: Time’s Edge and the Horizon of Meaning

The black hole horizon is not a mere physical barrier but a profound boundary of relational unfolding and meaning—where time folds, processes compress, and ontological limits emerge.

This relational reimagining deepens our understanding of black holes, not as isolated singularities or objects, but as dynamic horizons of relation, marking the edges of coherent process and temporal meaning.

Reflective Coda: Horizons of Relation and the Unfolding of Meaning

Through this trilogy, we have journeyed beyond conventional notions of black holes as mere physical objects or singularities. Instead, we have reframed them as extreme configurations of relational unfolding, boundaries where the interplay of time, space, process, and meaning approaches profound limits.

The event horizon emerges not as a fixed frontier but as a dynamic boundary of coherence—a perspectival edge defining where relational processes can synchronise and unfold meaningfully. The singularity is not a point of infinite density but a signal of the breakdown of relational topology and meaningful instantiation.

Most strikingly, time itself reveals its fluid, perspectival nature as it folds near these horizons. This invites us to reconsider our deepest assumptions about temporality, causality, and the nature of reality—not as static entities, but as unfolding processes shaped by relation.

By embracing this relational ontology, black holes transform from paradoxical curiosities into profound illustrations of how meaning, process, and reality intertwine at the limits of experience. They invite us to rethink physics, not in terms of isolated ‘things,’ but in terms of relations, boundary conditions, and the unfolding dance of potential and instance.

As we close this exploration, the horizon remains open—an invitation to further inquiry into how relational processes sculpt not only the cosmos but the very fabric of meaning itself.

26 July 2025

A Relational Reimagining of Cosmology

1 Cosmology as Construal

In developing a relational ontology grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and informed by theories of process, perception, and meaning, we have consistently challenged the assumption that science describes a mind-independent reality. Instead, we have treated scientific models as semiotic construals: disciplined, symbolic enactments of meaning within specific contexts of inquiry. Nowhere is this perspective more needed—and more revealing—than in the domain of cosmology.

Cosmology, on first encounter, appears to be the most objective of sciences. It concerns itself with the large-scale structure of the universe, the passage of cosmic time, and the origin and fate of everything. Yet these grand narratives emerge not from detached observation but from a deeply mediated process of semiotic work. Every model of the cosmos is a meaning instance within a historically evolving field of scientific meaning potential—a construal, not a mirror.

The Universe as a Field of Potential, Not a Container of Things

Classical cosmology operates on a foundational metaphor: the universe as a vast container filled with matter, energy, and fields. But our relational ontology begins elsewhere. It views the universe not as a container but as a field of unfolding processes, each related to others through coherence, resonance, and instantiation. Space is not a backdrop, but a topology of relations. Time is not a separate dimension, but the axis along which processes unfold.

From this view, cosmology is not the description of an objective universe out there, but the attempt to instantiate semiotic coherence across the relational fields that unfold around us and within us.

From Observation to Meaning Instance

Scientific cosmology is built on observation—but observation is always mediated. Photons arriving from distant stars are captured, filtered, interpreted, and modelled. What we call “data” is not raw input but already-semiotic material. The “cosmic microwave background” is not a discovered thing but a construed field: a patterned construal that emerges through recursive meaning-making between instrumentation, theory, and interpretation.

To claim, then, that we “know” the age of the universe or the structure of space-time is to confuse semiotic model with material process. This does not reduce the validity of cosmological inquiry—it sharpens it. The task is not to describe some imagined reality beyond construal — a metaphysical fiction — but to understand how meaning is instantiated across systems as they unfold in relation.

A Semiotic Ecology of Models

Models like the Big Bang, cosmic inflation, dark matter, and dark energy are not isolated conjectures but part of a semiotic ecology. Each draws on shared systems of meaning: mathematics, physics, observational technologies, philosophical assumptions. Each brings certain aspects of the cosmos into focus while rendering others backgrounded or unmodellable.

Our relational ontology invites us to treat these models not as approximations of truth but as expressions of individuation within the scientific community. They are ways of constraining potential into instance, shaped by material affordances, social imperatives, and the ongoing evolution of meaning.

Looking Ahead

In the posts that follow, we will revisit some of cosmology’s most profound constructs—black holes, the Big Bang, and cosmic expansion—through this relational lens. We will ask not what they are, but how they instantiate across relational fields. We will treat them not as objects of knowledge, but as meaningful compressions of unfolding processes, whose very intelligibility depends on the semiotic systems in which they are embedded.

Cosmology, then, is not the story of what the universe is. It is the story of how we, as semiotic beings embedded in unfolding processes, make meaning at the outermost edges of what we can construe.

2 Black Holes and the Collapse of Construal

In the previous post, we proposed a reframing of cosmology as a semiotic enterprise: not a mirror of an objective cosmos, but a set of disciplined construals that instantiate meaning from potential. In this frame, cosmological constructs like black holes must be understood not as fixed entities “out there” in a pre-given universe, but as meaning instances that compress and coordinate fields of experience within the scientific community. Few cosmological construals test this perspective more profoundly than the black hole.

From Prediction to Construal

Black holes entered scientific discourse not as observations but as mathematical inferences—solutions to the equations of general relativity under extreme conditions. Their subsequent evolution, from speculative singularities to central objects in astrophysics, illustrates the semiotic power of modelling. The black hole is not a thing; it is a boundary condition of a model—a projection of relational stress within an unfolding field.

From a relational-ontological perspective, the black hole instantiates the collapse of construal: it marks the limit at which the semiotic systems used to model gravitational interaction can no longer produce coherent symbolic interpretation. The breakdown of spacetime geometry at the singularity is not a feature of the material cosmos but a signal that the model’s meaning potential has reached its outer bound.

Event Horizon as Semiotic Boundary

The event horizon—often described as the boundary beyond which nothing can escape—is better understood as a boundary of construal. It marks the point beyond which observational processes can no longer instantiate meaning in the classical sense. What happens beyond the horizon cannot be modelled by light-based observations, and thus resists integration into the shared meaning potential of our scientific systems.

In this sense, black holes don’t just curve geodesics; they curve the field of construal itself, pulling semiotic coherence toward a singular limit. They instantiate relational compression so extreme that time, space, mass, and even process lose their conventional semantic coherence.

The Semiotics of Collapse

At its heart, the black hole is a semiotic paradox: it is the most predicted and indirectly observed entity in astrophysics, yet it fundamentally resists direct construal. The tension between prediction and observability forces the scientific community to instantiate coherence across models—linking gravitational lensing, accretion disk radiation, and gravitational wave signatures into a shared constellation of meaning.

This isn’t error; it’s how science functions as a semiotic ecology. The black hole emerges not as an ontological substance but as an effect of coordinated construal across multiple, interacting systems of interpretation.

Meaning Beyond the Horizon

So what lies beyond the black hole’s horizon? From our relational perspective, the better question is: what does it mean to posit such a region? The singularity is not a place; it is a collapse of coherence, where potential meaning cannot be instantiated with our current systems.

Black holes thus reveal something fundamental about the ontology of science: that every field of inquiry has limits of construal, and that these limits are not failures but structural boundaries of meaning-making. The more extreme the compression of relational fields, the more radically our semiotic systems are tested—and perhaps transformed.

A Space for New Construals

The continuing study of black holes—especially in relation to quantum mechanics and information theory—presses on the outermost edge of scientific meaning potential. It invites the development of new systems of construal: not merely extensions of general relativity or quantum theory, but novel architectures of meaning, able to hold together previously unconnected fields.

What we observe is not a collapse of reality, but a demand for deeper coherence. In this way, black holes are not just phenomena to be explained; they are generators of semiotic innovation, forcing us to rethink what it means to know.

3 Cosmological Expansion and the Scaling of Meaning

If black holes represent the collapse of construal—points at which semiotic coherence reaches a relational singularity—then cosmological expansion presents the opposite challenge: not compression, but scaling. The expanding universe does not rupture our models through intensity, but through scope. It asks how far meaning can extend before its coherence thins into abstraction.

What Expands in Expansion?

Standard cosmology construes expansion as the stretching of spacetime itself: galaxies are not moving through space so much as space unfolding between them. From a relational ontology, this construal is already highly abstracted: it interprets redshift, background radiation, and spatial distribution through a semiotic system—not as reality itself, but as a way of coordinating observations across time and frame.

But what does “expansion” instantiate in a system that models reality as unfolding relations? Not a ballooning of substance, but a scaling of relational topology. The fabric of co-unfolding processes spreads, not as metric extension, but as the increasing separation of interactive potential.

In other words, expansion is not of a container (space), but of the relational field that coordinates processual interaction.

Scaling Meaning Potentials

This scaling creates a unique semiotic challenge: how do we maintain coherent construal across increasing separation? How do we relate observations from early universe microwave background to current galactic structures without losing the meaning potential of either?

In the SFL-based framework, such work requires realising coherence across strata. In cosmology, coherence is realised across systemic models: from inflation theory to dark energy parametrisation to standard candles. Each instantiates meaning from a distinct set of potential, yet all are held together as instances of a single construal of unfolding.

The Horizon Problem as Semiotic Discontinuity

The horizon problem, for example—why regions of the universe not in causal contact display similar properties—can be reframed not just as a physical puzzle, but as a semiotic inconsistency: a mismatch in the instantiation of coherence across a relational field.

Inflation theory attempts to resolve this by reconfiguring the unfolding itself. It introduces a new construal of early process, compressing relational proximity into a prior epoch of co-interaction. This shows how cosmology innovates not just by observing more, but by reshaping the field of meaning to restore semiotic consistency.

Dark Energy and the Strain of Abstraction

The concept of dark energy represents a new form of semiotic strain. It is not observed directly; it is invoked to sustain coherence between the model and the observed acceleration of expansion. In relational terms, dark energy is a placeholder for a missing processual relation—an inferred dynamic necessary to uphold the model’s integrity across scale.

Like the singularity of a black hole, dark energy reveals the limits of current construal. It marks a region of potential that remains uninstantiated—a gap in meaning that propels the ongoing evolution of the semiotic system we call physics.

Expansion as a Semiotic Pressure

Thus, cosmological expansion is not just a physical phenomenon; it is a semiotic pressure. It demands the coordination of increasingly disparate instances of observation into a shared meaning potential. The challenge is not just to explain more, but to maintain coherence across scale, to trace unfolding relations even as their proximity thins.

In this sense, the expanding universe becomes a metaphor for the task of knowledge itself: not to capture the whole in a single frame, but to sustain meaningful construal across diverse and widening perspectives.

The Cosmos as Construal

In the relational ontology we are developing, the cosmos is not a container of things but a field of co-unfolding processes. Cosmology, then, is the attempt to instantiate coherence across that field—to construe unfolding at the limits of scale, time, and relation.

What expands is not space alone, but the field of semiotic engagement. And what science accomplishes is not the mapping of reality, but the organised construal of its unfolding.

Reflective Coda: Construal at the Edge of Everything

Across this trilogy, we have reframed three of cosmology’s most foundational concepts—black holes, the big bang, and expansion—not as brute physical realities, but as semiotic construals: patterned interpretations of how processes unfold and relate at different scales.

Each concept, in its own way, presses on the boundaries of our relational ontology:

Black holes reveal the compression of meaning, the limits of construal where processual coherence breaks down under intensity.
The big bang reframes origin not as a substance-based event, but as an inflection in the topology of unfolding: a convergence of potential and interaction whose reverberations persist in every instance of process.
Cosmological expansion shows that what unfolds is not space as container, but relation as field. The challenge is not tracking material drift, but maintaining semiotic coherence across widening scales.

Together, these re-interpretations lead us to a radical insight: cosmology is not the study of a thing called ‘the universe’ but the organised construal of how relational processes unfold at scale.

From Physics to Semiotics

This shift has significant consequences. What has long been treated as physics—the modelling of space, time, mass, energy—is here reunderstood as a semiotic system: a disciplined language for instantiating meaning from the field of observable process. What we call “laws of nature” are not directives from the cosmos but constraints on coherent construal within that system.

This is not relativism. It is not to deny the consistency of experience or the success of scientific modelling. It is to ground that consistency in relation, not in substance; in the logic of meaning-making, not the assumption of mind-independent objects.

The cosmos unfolds. Meaning construes. And what we call cosmology is their intersection.

A New Vision of the Universe

To see the universe through this lens is not to diminish its majesty. On the contrary, it draws us more deeply into its logic. We are no longer outside observers looking at a universe. We are participants in a field of unfolding, whose own meaning potentials instantiate the construals by which the universe comes to mean.

In this view, the universe is not something we find, but something we unfold with—a field of meaning instantiated process by process, relation by relation, across the clines of time, individuation, and semiotic abstraction.

The universe is not a noun. It is a clause complex.