2 Fine-Tuning as Design

Few metaphors distort physics more deeply than the trope of “fine-tuning.” We are told the constants of nature are “just right” for life — as if some cosmic engineer had turned dials on a control panel with exquisite precision. The metaphor carries teleology by stealth. Constants become knobs. The cosmos becomes a machine. Life becomes a pre-set target.

This framing collapses possibility into design. It converts contingency into intention. And it hides a basic logical flaw: we already exist, therefore the constants are consistent with our existence. To retroactively interpret this consistency as evidence of deliberate calibration is to mistake survival bias for design.

The metaphor of tuning presumes there were dials to be adjusted in the first place, as if constants exist independently of the symbolic frameworks through which we model them. But constants are not machine settings imposed from without. They are scaffolds within our theoretical architecture — stabilisations of relation that allow us to construe phenomena coherently. They function as pivots in our symbolic system, not as dials on a cosmic instrument.

Relationally, there is no fine-tuning problem. There is only the projection of design where there is none. The so-called “constants” are parameters in a symbolic system, not proof of a cosmic technician. Possibility is not calibrated intention. It is open, relational, and reflexively construed.

1 Nature’s Book of Secrets

Physics loves to cast itself as a detective story. Scientists are said to be “unlocking the secrets of nature” or “decoding the book of the universe.” This is more than a harmless metaphor. It smuggles in a metaphysical assumption: that nature is already written, a finished text with its meaning fixed in advance, waiting for us to decipher it.

The trouble is that no such script exists. There is no pre-authored cosmic manuscript. What we call “laws,” “constants,” and “principles” are not sentences in nature’s book but symbolic constructions — ways of cutting, aligning, and stabilising our experience so that it can be shared and coordinated. By imagining ourselves as readers of nature’s secrets, we mistake our own symbolic labour for transcription of an already-given truth.

This metaphor does double damage. First, it casts science as passive revelation rather than active construal. Second, it closes down the open-endedness of knowledge by imagining a final chapter: the last page of the book, where all mysteries will be resolved. But science does not read its way to closure; it constructs symbolic architectures that remain provisional, revisable, and perspectival.

Relationally, knowledge is not the discovery of a hidden script but the ongoing construction of shared architectures of construal. The universe is not a finished book we are deciphering. It is an unfinished manuscript we are collectively writing.

Events as Things

In physics discourse, events are often treated as if they were discrete objects — already-located occurrences with determinate positions in spacetime. An event, in this construal, is a “thing that happens” at a point: a raindrop falling in Bengaluru, a particle collision in Geneva, a supernova in a distant galaxy. Events are reified as substances occupying the grid of spacetime, as though they were natural furniture of the cosmos.

But this way of speaking hides more than it reveals. It conceals the act of construal that makes an “event” legible in the first place. To call something an event is not to pick out a self-standing entity but to perform a cut — a perspectival alignment across a field of potential. We decide, symbolically and operationally, where to draw the boundary: which differences count, which continuities are bracketed, which scales of process are foregrounded.

From a relational standpoint, events are not pre-given parcels of reality waiting to be discovered. They are symbolic instantiations: perspectival slices through ongoing possibility. A raindrop is not an event simply because it fell; it becomes an event when construed as such, against a background of potential histories, instruments, and interpretive frames.

This matters acutely in quantum and gravitational physics. The Feynmanian program, for instance, builds on the idea of events and histories as basic units of description. Yet to take events as things-in-themselves is to smuggle in a classical ontology by stealth. It freezes relational potential into punctual facts, obscuring the reflexive act of carving that makes them visible at all.

Treating events as things also introduces an ontological illusion of finality. If the event is “already there,” then probability appears as a mysterious add-on, a hidden property waiting to be revealed. If instead we understand events as perspectival cuts, probability itself becomes reflexive: a weighting of possible construals, not an intrinsic attribute of a thing.

To resist the reification of events is not to deny their efficacy. Events are powerful symbolic anchors for science, structuring shared worlds of observation, prediction, and explanation. But they are never ontological atoms. They are always relational, always situated, always products of construal.

Against events as things, we affirm events as cuts: provisional alignments through which meaning and matter co-constitute each other. They are not the bedrock of reality but the scaffolding of our engagement with it.

6 Patterns of Construal: Closing the Arc

The critiques of force, energy, space, mathematical structures, and universality reveal a recurrent architecture in physics’ discourse. Across domains, a single structural habit emerges: relational potential is projected as absolute decree. What is modal — degrees of possibility, structured potential, relational alignment — is routinely misread as modulation, as if reality itself compels the patterns we observe.

Force is not an agent; it is a shorthand for tendencies in interactions. Energy is not a substance; it is a symbolic measure of relational states. Space is not a passive container; it is enacted through relational arrangements and perspectival cuts. Mathematics is not the script of the cosmos; it is a lens for codifying and stabilising patterns. Universality is not a law written into nature; it is the recognition of recurring relational structures across frames.

Taken together, these posts expose a rhythm in physics: the world is construed, and the construal is repeatedly mistaken for necessity. Modality — what can, might, or may occur — is misread as modulation — what must occur. This pattern explains why physics treats laws, constants, symmetries, and forces as absolute, when in reality they are relational artefacts of observation, measurement, and modelling.

Recognising this architecture does not diminish the power or beauty of physics. It reframes it: a practice of making intelligible the relational potential of reality, rather than uncovering decrees embedded in matter. Seeing the frame, again, reveals the universe not as compelled by law, but as a landscape of structured possibility interpreted through perspective.

This arc closes with clarity: the familiar metaphors and assumptions of physics — force, energy, space, mathematics, universality — are tools for making sense of relational patterns, not ontological absolutes.

5 The Assumption of “Universality”

Physics often invokes universality: universal laws, constants, and principles that hold across all scales and contexts. Universality is treated as the ultimate guarantee of objectivity, the signature of a cosmos that is the same everywhere, for everyone, under all circumstances.

Yet universality is not given; it is inferred. What counts as universal emerges from repeated construal across frames, measurements, and perspectives. Constants are stabilised by method, models, and shared conventions; laws are recognised because patterns recur within the cuts we impose. The universe itself does not announce its universality — we construct it from relational regularities we observe and codify.

By naturalising universality as absolute, physics projects modulation onto what is modal: the potential patterns of relational alignment are misread as necessities. This slippage reinforces the illusion that laws, constants, and invariants exist independently of observation and construal. In reality, universality is a stabilised perspective, a reflection of repeated interpretation rather than a decree inscribed in nature.

Recognising universality as relational rather than absolute preserves the predictive and explanatory power of physics while exposing the hidden scaffolding: repeated cuts, perspectives, and relational assessments masquerade as cosmic decree. To see the frame is to understand that universality is not imposed by the universe but constructed through our engagement with it.

4 The Assumption of “Mathematical Structures”

Physics often treats mathematics as the language of reality itself. Equations, symmetries, and structures are interpreted as uncovering the deep order of the universe, as if the cosmos were pre-written in symbols waiting to be discovered. Mathematical forms are elevated from descriptive tools to ontological mirrors.

Yet mathematics is never observed; it is a human artefact used to model relational potential. Numbers, functions, and geometric constructs are ways of codifying patterns we detect, stabilising them through repeated construal. The “truth” of a mathematical structure lies not in the universe itself, but in its ability to capture regularities as construed from particular perspectives.

By treating mathematical structures as absolute, physics projects modulation onto modality: the relational patterns we can describe are misread as inherent decrees of reality. Equations become laws, symmetries become mandates, and structures become agents of constraint. In reality, mathematics is a tool, a lens for interpreting and organising potentialities, not a pre-existing scaffolding of the cosmos.

Recognising the relational and perspectival nature of mathematics preserves its explanatory power while correcting its ontological misplacement. The universe is not written in symbols; symbols are our means of making sense of the universe. To see the frame is to acknowledge the act of modelling as a construal, and mathematics as a lens, not a lawgiver.

3 The Assumption of “Space”

Physics often treats space as an absolute container, a stage on which all events occur. Points, distances, and volumes are measured as if they exist independently of the entities and processes they contain. Space is framed as a universal arena, immutable and objective.

Yet space is never observed in isolation. It is a relational construct, emerging from the arrangements of entities, the metrics we choose, and the perspectival cuts we impose. The distances and separations that physics measures are patterns of potential interaction, stabilised through observation and model, not inherent features of a pre-existing void.

By naturalising space as absolute, physics projects modulation — inevitability, a background framework that “holds” the universe together — onto what is properly modal: structured relational potential. The positions of bodies, the metrics of geometry, and the topology of fields are all enacted through construal, not decreed by a universal container.

Recognising space as relational does not undermine its utility. It preserves the power of geometric and metric models while clarifying their origin: they are tools for organising and predicting relational possibilities, not mirrors of an absolute backdrop. To see the frame is to understand that space is not a passive theatre but a relational artefact of perspective, measurement, and interpretation.

2 The Assumption of “Energy”

Energy is treated in physics as a conserved substance, flowing through systems, transferred, stored, and transformed. It carries authority: what has energy can act, and conservation is a law that underpins all interactions. Energy seems tangible, even almost material, a cornerstone of reality itself.

Yet energy is not observed in isolation. It is a relational accounting device, a measure of how states of a system can change relative to one another. Kinetic, potential, thermal, or even quantum energies are not objects or forces in their own right; they are abstractions we use to organise and predict relational patterns. Energy is a symbolic handle on possibility, not a substance that exists independently of the frame we impose.

By reifying energy as a thing, physics again projects modulation onto modal relations. Conservation laws appear as imperatives, as though the universe is compelled to preserve a quantity. In reality, these laws codify patterns in relational potential, stabilised by measurement, model, and perspective. What we call energy is not decreed by nature; it is the regularity we construe in the interplay of system states.

Recognising energy as relational rather than absolute does not weaken physics; it sharpens it. It reminds us that the “flow” of energy is not a literal current but a symbolic reflection of potentiality made intelligible through human construal. Energy becomes a guide for understanding patterns, not a metaphysical agent acting behind the scenes.

1 The Assumption of “Force”

Physics treats force as the engine of reality: an agent embedded in matter, compelling motion, shaping events, and linking cause to effect. Forces are measured, quantified, and described as if they are ontological primitives — invisible levers acting upon the universe.

Yet force is not observed in itself. It is a relational construct, a shorthand for the patterns of interaction between entities as construed within a given frame. When we speak of gravitational, electromagnetic, or nuclear forces, we are describing tendencies and regularities, stabilised by mathematical formalism and experimental setup. Force is a measure of potentiality enacted in context, not a metaphysical agent pushing objects along.

By naturalising force as a thing that acts, physics repeats a familiar misstep: it projects modulation — compulsion, absolute influence — onto what is properly modal, a degree of relational potential actualised under specific conditions. The world does not exert “force” in the way physics imagines; rather, our models organise interactions, creating a vocabulary for patterns that recur across frames.

Recognising force as relational preserves explanatory power while correcting ontology. Motion is not compelled by hidden agents; interactions are interpreted and stabilised through construal. To see the frame is to see that what we call force is a tool for making sense of relational patterns, not a decree imposed on reality itself.

5 Patterns of Construal: Closing the Arc

The critiques of causality, time, information, and symmetry reveal a recurring structure: physics routinely projects relational patterns as absolute features of reality. Initial conditions anchor causality, measurement enacts temporal order, randomness frames what counts as potential, information codifies relational alignment, and symmetry highlights invariants. Each move is a construal; each is treated as decree.

Together, they form a network of hidden scaffolding. What appears as necessity — laws, flows, invariants, or conserved quantities — is in fact the stabilisation of modal relations, shaped by perspective, method, and interpretive choice. The misreading of modalisation as modulation persists as a structural habit, repeated across domains and scales.

Recognising this does not diminish physics’ predictive power or its elegance; it reveals the conditions under which its explanations make sense. The universe is not compelled by absolute decrees, nor does it “contain” information as a substance. Reality presents structured possibilities, and physics slices, measures, and models these possibilities, giving rise to the patterns we observe.

Seeing the frame allows us to step back and reflect on the practice itself. It opens a horizon where the laws, objects, and measurements of physics are not unquestionable givens, but choices and construals that shape our experience of the world. From here, future explorations can follow the same diagnostic lens: examining how foundational metaphors in physics — space, force, energy, and even mathematics — structure understanding, and where relational potential is mistaken for necessity.

In short, this arc exposes a rhythm in physics’ discourse: a dance between the relational and the absolute, the modal and the modulated, the construed and the presumed. To see this rhythm is to see the frame itself.

4 The Assumption of “Symmetry”

Physics venerates symmetry. Conservation laws, invariants, and the search for fundamental symmetries are central to theory. Symmetry is treated as an objective property of the universe — a reflection of its deepest order. Deviations are exceptions; regularities are ordained.

But symmetry, like law, time, and information, is a construal. What counts as symmetric depends on the cut the observer imposes: the frame chosen, the quantities measured, the patterns deemed relevant. Invariants are not “out there” waiting to be discovered; they are stabilised by relational perspective, by the ways we organise potentialities and interpret correspondences.

By elevating symmetry to ontological status, physics projects modulation — inevitability, universal rule — onto modal relations. The structural possibilities of systems are interpreted as prescriptive regularities. This slippage masks the act of construal: the world does not enforce invariance; observers detect, highlight, and stabilise patterns that are relationally possible.

Recognising symmetry as relational rather than absolute restores nuance. It preserves the explanatory power of invariance while acknowledging that regularity emerges from perspective, not decree. Like law, causality, time, measurement, randomness, and information, symmetry is a lens through which the universe is interpreted — not a force that compels it.

Taken together, these critiques reveal a recurrent pattern in physics: the misreading of possibility as necessity, the projection of relational patterns as absolute laws. To see the frame is to recognise that the architecture of physics rests not only on phenomena but on the symbolic and perspectival choices we enact to make sense of them.

3 The Assumption of “Information” Revisited

Physics often treats information as if it were a tangible substance or an ontological primitive. From black hole entropy to quantum information, the discourse frames bits and qubits as elements that the universe “contains” or “transmits.” The assumption is seductive: information becomes a bridge from the physical to the conceptual, a kind of hidden stuff underlying reality.

Yet information is never observed in itself. It is always a projection of relational patterning: distinctions made within a system under a particular perspective. Measurement extracts it, encoding one set of potentialities as recognisable outcomes. Randomness and constraints shape its emergence. What we call information is a relational alignment — a codification of admissible patterns, not a fundamental entity.

By treating information as a substance or an ontological feature, physics reifies the symbolic scaffolding of its own models. It conflates modal assessments (what distinctions can be made, what patterns can be actualised) with modulation (what must exist as a thing). The universe does not store or transmit “information” in the way physics imagines; it presents structured potentials that observers construe and stabilise.

Recognising information as relational rather than absolute preserves its explanatory power while returning it to the domain of modality: degrees of potentiality, structured distinctions, and perspectival cuts. In doing so, it aligns with a vision of physics where reality is not decreed, but interpreted, enacted, and made intelligible through relational construal.

2 The Assumption of “Time”

Physics treats time as a linear, flowing river: past recedes, future approaches, and the present is a moving point along this continuum. Equations are written in t; clocks measure t; processes unfold in t. Time is framed as a universal scaffold, an absolute dimension in which all events occur.

But time, like causality, is a construal. The “flow” we perceive is the perspective of a particular cut through relational potential. Past, present, and future are not facts waiting to be discovered; they are relational positions relative to observers, measurements, and chosen initial conditions.

Even in physics’ most precise formulations, “initial conditions” anchor temporal ordering, “measurement” slices events into a sequence, and randomness defines what counts as progression or deviation. Time is therefore enacted, not observed. It is a relational coordinate, stabilised by patterns of construal, not a universal river carved into reality.

By naturalising linear time, physics projects modulation — inevitability, forward compulsion — onto what is properly modal: structured potentialities arranged by perspective. To see the frame is to recognise that temporal order is not imposed by the universe, but by the interpretive lenses we bring. Time is not given; it is enacted, a relational artefact of our own construction. 

1 The Assumption of “Causality”

Physics presents the universe as a chain of cause and effect. Every event, every motion, is the consequence of what came before, constrained by immutable laws. Cause is treated as a universal bridge linking past to future, a principle written into the fabric of reality itself.

Yet causality is not observed; it is construed. When we point to one event and declare it the cause of another, we are drawing a cut in the relational potential of the system. This cut is a choice of perspective, a way of organising patterns of dependence, not a decree embedded in the world.

Initial conditions, measurement, and randomness all feed into this construal. What counts as cause depends on where we begin (our “initial conditions”), how we register events (our “measurement”), and which outcomes we treat as structured versus “random.” Causality is not revealed; it is enacted.

By treating causality as an absolute, physics naturalises a perspective-specific pattern, projecting modulation where only modalisation exists. The world does not compel sequences of events in itself; rather, our frameworks select sequences to be treated as compelling. To see the frame is to recognise that the chain of cause and effect is a relational artefact, stabilised by repeated construal, not an ontological law.

Modality Misread: How Physics Turns Possibility into Decree

In the previous posts, we traced a hidden architecture in physics: how initial conditions, measurement, and randomness are misconstrued, each revealing the same underlying error. Today, we take a step back to see the pattern more broadly: the misreading of modality as modulation.

Modality is about degrees of possibility, potentialities, and what can or cannot be actualised under given conditions. Modulation, by contrast, implies force, decree, or necessity — a compulsion imposed on reality itself. Physics, time and again, takes the modal structures of systems and treats them as laws that must act, rather than as perspectives on relational potential.

Consider a few examples:

1. Newtonian mechanics – Initial positions and velocities are treated as absolute starting points. Yet they are always framed relative to a chosen system, a cut in relational potential. What we call “initial” is a perspectival placement, not a metaphysical anchor.

2. Quantum measurement – Wavefunction collapse is framed as a sudden physical jump. But it is better understood as a modal update: a relational actualisation within a perspectival cut, not a literal enforcement by the universe.

3. Thermodynamics – Entropy is often treated as an inexorable law, an ontological tide. In reality, entropy is a reflection of phase accessibility within constraints; its “inevitability” emerges from relational framing, not from a hidden compulsion in matter.

4. Statistical mechanics – Probabilities are treated as features of reality. They are actually modal assessments of what can occur under coarse-grained conditions and constrained knowledge. Randomness is a statement of epistemic stance, not a brute fact.

Across these cases, a single misstep recurs: the potential is projected as necessity. Physics’ habitual slippage from modalisation to modulation obscures the role of construal. What appears as an absolute law, an enforced jump, or an inevitable trend is in fact a perspective-dependent assessment of systemic possibilities.

Recognising this opens new vistas. It does not deny regularities; it reframes them. The universe is not decreeing its laws, nor are particles or phases compelled by invisible commands. Instead, it presents a structured field of relational potentialities, which physics slices and names according to its own methodological and historical conventions.

To see the frame is to recognise this slippage, and to understand that much of what physics treats as “given” is actually construed. Possibility and potential, once properly acknowledged, replace the illusion of decree with a landscape of relational patterns — a universe alive with modal richness, not a clockwork of imposed necessity.

---

Seen in this light, the critiques of initial conditions, measurement, and randomness are not isolated strikes against physics’ vocabulary — they are instances of a single, structural pattern: the misreading of possibility as necessity. Recognising modality misread opens the door to revisiting other foundational assumptions, from the nature of “objects” and “laws” to the status of “information.” Each carries its own hidden scaffolding, each awaits the same diagnostic lens: to expose construal where physics would see decree, and potential where it would see compulsion. In doing so, the frame of physics itself comes into view, revealing a universe that is not dictated, but perspectivally interpreted.

4 Framing the Sequence: From Beginnings to Ends

The three critiques just traced — initial conditions, measurement, and randomness — may appear to pick at different corners of physics. But they are in fact connected by a deeper scaffolding: the way physics construes processes across time.

Physics needs a starting point, so it posits “initial conditions.” But this starting point is never observed — it is imposed. It is a perspectival cut presented as an ontological given, a moment dressed up as the foundation of all that follows.

Physics needs a way to access the unfolding, so it invokes “measurement.” But measurement is not passive access — it is a constructive act. The very phenomena being measured are shaped, constrained, even brought into being by the act of measurement itself. To construe this as revelation is to erase the cut and disguise construction as discovery.

Physics needs a way to end the story, to explain what escapes law and prediction, so it calls upon “randomness.” But randomness, too, is not a property of being — it is the residue of framing, a statement of epistemic stance hardened into metaphysical declaration.

Taken together, these assumptions form a cycle: a starting point posited, an act of access misconstrued, and an endpoint wrapped in inevitability or chance. The cycle is stabilised by a recurring ontological error: mistaking modalisation (degrees of possibility, perspectives on unfolding) for modulation (decrees, forces, ontological features). What are in fact construals — cuts into relational potential — are recast as absolutes that nature itself must obey.

Seen in this light, physics’ hidden architecture is not simply a collection of misplaced metaphors, but a systematic pattern: a way of covering over the act of construal itself. To expose this pattern is not to diminish physics, but to make visible its conditions of meaning. Only then can we begin to imagine a science that does not mistake its own scaffolding for the structure of reality.

3 The Assumption of “Randomness”

Randomness is invoked as if it were a property of reality itself. Radioactive decay is random, quantum jumps are random, mutations are random. The word carries an aura of brute fact: uncaused, patternless, ontologically given.

But randomness is never observed — it is inferred from our framing. It is a statement of epistemic stance, not a feature of the world. To call something random is to confess ignorance of pattern, or to elevate statistical regularity into metaphysical truth. Randomness is not a property of events; it is a gloss on our construal of them.

By treating randomness as ontological, physics disguises a limit of knowledge as a feature of being. In doing so, it mistakes modality (degrees of likelihood, structured possibility) for modulation (a force of nature itself). Randomness, like law and initial condition, is a rhetorical artefact: the residue of construal turned into the substance of reality.

2 The Assumption of “Measurement”

Physics tells itself a story of transparency: measurement reveals what is already there. The ruler discloses length; the detector unveils a particle; the experiment uncovers a pre-existing value.

Yet measurement is never neutral. It is an act of construction, not a passive reading. Instruments are not windows onto reality but construal devices, shaping what can appear and how it can be registered. To measure is to transform: to bring into being a phenomenon that did not exist “out there” in the same form beforehand.

By treating measurement as revelation, physics hides its own role in the production of reality. The observer becomes invisible, the construal recedes, and what is enacted is passed off as discovered. The error is not technical but ontological: mistaking a cut in relational potential for a property of being.

1 The Assumption of “Initial Conditions”

Physics divides the world into two parts: the laws, and the initial conditions upon which those laws act. The metaphor is courtroom-like: the law itself stands above, while the specific case begins from the initial state of affairs.

But “initial conditions” are not given by nature. They are a construct of the modeller, a frame placed around some arbitrary “first moment.” To call them “initial” is to smuggle in a linear temporality, as if processes had an absolute beginning, and to elevate causality into a metaphysical principle. What counts as “initial” depends entirely on perspective: one person’s boundary is another’s continuation.

By presupposing initial conditions, physics naturalises a construal. It reifies the starting line of a race that was never marked on the ground. The world is not waiting for laws to act upon its initial states. What we call “initial conditions” are simply cuts in experience — perspectival placements, not ontological features.

The Assumption of “Laws of Nature”

Physics presents itself as the most rigorous, disenchanted of sciences. Yet one of its most basic assumptions rests on a metaphor imported wholesale from politics and theology: the idea of laws of nature.

The metaphor comes from a very particular historical moment. Early modern natural philosophers, working in a Christian Europe, construed the cosmos as the orderly creation of a rational lawgiver. Just as a sovereign issues decrees binding their subjects, so too were the motions of stars and stones taken to obey divine command. The language of “law” carried this theological-political scaffolding forward, long after physics styled itself as secular.

To call dynamics a “law” is not a neutral description. It smuggles in an image of authority, decree, and inevitability. Natural processes are not just regularities — they are obediences. This grants physics the rhetorical aura of a legal code: prescriptive, universal, inviolable. The metaphor collapses possibility into necessity, disguising the fact that “laws” are humanly construed patterns of relation.

Once we see the metaphor, alternatives come into view. We might speak of habits of nature, tendencies, or possibilities. Each shifts the construal away from authoritarian decree and toward patterned potential. To move beyond “laws” is not to deny regularity — it is to reframe how regularity is understood.

Physics prides itself on purging anthropocentrism, yet here, in its very core vocabulary, it clings to the most anthropocentric of metaphors. To see the frame is to notice that what we call “laws of nature” are not decrees from on high, but the sediment of construal, dressed in the robes of authority.

The Constructor Illusion: A Critique of Constructor Theory

Constructor Theory, proposed by David Deutsch and developed with Chiara Marletto, claims to offer a new foundation for physics. Rather than describing what does happen, it seeks to describe what could and could not happen: which transformations of the physical world are possible, which are impossible, and why.

On the surface, this might look like a radical break. But if we take a closer look at its metaphors, assumptions, and ontology, a more familiar pattern emerges: physics once again mistaking its own symbolic construals for the bedrock of reality.

---

1. The Central Metaphor: The “Constructor”

At the heart of the theory is the metaphor of a constructor — like a catalyst or a machine that enacts transformations repeatedly without degrading. But this is not an ontological primitive; it is a metaphor imported from technology and chemistry. By elevating this image to foundational status, Constructor Theory reifies a figure of speech, mistaking a convenient analogy for a universal category of being.

---

2. Reality as Tasks

Constructor Theory describes reality in terms of tasks: possible or impossible transformations. This is a computational and instrumentalist framing — the world as a ledger of operations. But “task” is already a perspectival cut: an observer’s way of marking input-output relations. To treat this as the true furniture of reality is to confuse an epistemic construal with an ontological foundation.

---

3. Absolutising Counterfactuals

For Deutsch and Marletto, counterfactuals are objective truths about the world: possibilities and impossibilities exist independently of perspective. This ignores the fact that possibility is always construed within a system — the cut between possible and impossible is not “out there” but made in the act of construal. Constructor Theory thus absolutises its own perspective, mistaking relational potential for law-like edict.

---

4. Information as Physics

Constructor Theory grounds “information” in which copying or distinguishing tasks are possible. This collapses meaning into physics. The symbolic and semiotic dimensions of information are erased, leaving only operational traces. By reducing the meaningful to the physical, the theory confuses the semiotic order with the order of physical affordances.

---

5. The Sharp Cut: Possible vs Impossible

Constructor Theory insists on a binary: every task is either possible or impossible. This imposition of a hard boundary erases gradience, emergence, and perspectival nuance. What is in fact a fluid horizon of potential is projected as a sharp ontological divide.

---

6. The Universal Ambition

Constructor Theory casts itself as a universal meta-framework for physics, a final explanatory layer. But this is a familiar move: the hubris of mistaking a local construal — physics framed through tasks and constructors — for the ultimate structure of reality.

---

7. Anthropocentric Smuggling

Finally, Constructor Theory draws its metaphors from human technological experience: machines, tasks, copying, constructors. These anthropocentric figures are smuggled into physics under the guise of neutrality, disguising a cultural projection as an ontological revelation.

---

Seeing the Frame

Constructor Theory is not a neutral foundation of physics but a telling case study in how physics frames itself. It elevates technological metaphors, absolutises counterfactual possibility, reduces meaning to information, and projects perspectival cuts as universal laws. Its ambition to be a universal theory is itself a symptom of its blindness to construal: mistaking the symbolic scaffolding of its own discourse for the architecture of reality itself.

In this sense, Constructor Theory is less a breakthrough and more a mirror: a window into the hidden architecture of physics, showing once again how much of its foundation rests not on nature, but on metaphor.

---

Notes:

1. The Central Metaphor: Constructor

• CT move: Imports the metaphor of the constructor (like a catalyst, or a machine that builds without degrading). This image is supposed to anchor the theory.

• Problem: It reifies a metaphor. A “constructor” is just a way of picturing repeatability. By elevating it to an ontological primitive, CT mistakes a familiar technological image for a fundamental category of reality.

• Fallacy: Reification through metaphor — turning a metaphorical abstraction into the bedrock of ontology.

---

2. The Task Ontology: Reality as Transformation

• CT move: Claims that reality can be fundamentally described in terms of possible/impossible tasks.

• Problem: This smuggles in a strongly computational and instrumentalist worldview — as if reality itself were a ledger of operations. But “task” is already a perspectival construal (an observer marking an input-output relation). To treat it as ontological is to absolutise an epistemic cut.

• Fallacy: Category mistake — mistaking an observer-relative construal for an observer-independent ontology.

---

3. Counterfactual Absolutisation

• CT move: Elevates counterfactuals (what could or could not happen) to the status of fundamental reality.

• Problem: Possibility in CT is conceived as objective, mind-independent, law-given. This ignores that the possible/impossible distinction is always perspectival — a cut made in the potential of a system. By erasing construal, CT absolutises its own perspective.

• Fallacy: Absolutisation of possibility — treating systemic potential as if it existed unconstrued.

---

4. Information as Physics

• CT move: Grounds information in which copying/distinguishing tasks are possible.

• Problem: This collapses meaning into physics. “Information” here is a purely operational category, stripped of its symbolic dimension. CT thus confuses the value dimension (copying, distinguishing) with the semiotic dimension (meaning).

• Fallacy: Reductionism — collapsing symbolic into physical by redefining it in operational terms.

---

5. The Sharp Cut: Possible vs Impossible

• CT move: For any task, it is either possible or impossible.

• Problem: This imposes a binary cut onto systemic potential, ignoring gradience, emergence, and perspectival nuance. It naturalises the cut as if it were “out there,” when in fact it is a feature of construal.

• Fallacy: False dichotomy — projecting perspectival distinctions as absolute ontological divides.

---

6. Universal Ambition

• CT move: Positions itself as a universal meta-framework for physics.

• Problem: This is a familiar hubris — mistaking a local construal (physics through tasks and constructors) for a universal ontology. In relational terms, CT is just one more system of meaning, reflexively construing itself as ultimate.

• Fallacy: Ontological imperialism — confusing the scope of a construal with the structure of reality itself.

---

7. Hidden Anthropocentrism

• CT move: Talks of “tasks,” “constructors,” “machines,” “copying,” etc.

• Problem: These are all drawn from human technological experience. They smuggle anthropocentric metaphors into the foundations of physics while pretending to be neutral.

• Fallacy: Metaphorical anthropomorphism — hiding human categories inside universal claims.

---

Synthesis

Constructor Theory is not just speculative physics; it is a metaphorical construal elevated into ontology. Its central images (constructor, task, counterfactual) are not universal categories of being but human-symbolic ways of cutting systemic potential. By ignoring the role of construal, CT falls into reification, absolutisation, and reductionism.

From a relational-ontological standpoint, CT is itself a phenomenon: a reflexive construal of reality through computational and Popperian lenses. Its value lies in showing how physics, once again, reaches for possibility as fundamental — but then misrecognises possibility as given, rather than construed.

Time Travel

The metaphor is everywhere: we “move through time” as if it were a place. We imagine ourselves carried along a river, or seated in a vehicle whose engine is the ticking of clocks. From there it is only a short step to fantasy: if time is a place, perhaps we could visit its other districts. Past and future become destinations, waiting rooms, or holiday sites. Thus is born the dream of time travel.

But the metaphor deceives. Time is not a place and cannot be traversed. What we call the “flow of time” is nothing more than the unfolding of events, the continual actualisation of possibility. To project this process as if it were a landscape through which one might stroll is to mistake construal for ontology.

Relationally, the error is clear. Events are not coordinates within a terrain called “time.” They are the fabric of reality itself. The past is not a location behind us, nor the future a country ahead; both are relationally constituted by the possibilities that have been cut off and those still open. To “move through time” is not to change our position along a line but to participate in the ongoing alignment of events.

The image of the time machine — the vehicle that slips its tether to the present and glides to another temporal address — is the triumph of metaphor over thought. It confuses representation with being, and turns the necessary asymmetry of actuality into a symmetry of travel.

The relational alternative is disarmingly simple:

• The past is the set of possibilities that have been closed.

• The future is the set of possibilities not yet cut.

• The present is the event of actualisation.

There is no railway of time to ride, no district to visit, no coordinates to which we can return. There is only the ever-renewed becoming of events.

So the polemical cut is this:

Time is not a place — and time travel is a tourist map to nowhere.

Probability as Strangeness

Quantum mechanics is often presented as a domain of inherent oddity. Popular accounts speak of particles being “in two places at once,” of outcomes that “defy logic,” or of probabilities that introduce a “strangeness” into the very fabric of reality. One metaphor that recurs is that of a “ruck in the carpet” — a wrinkle in the tidy, predictable landscape of classical physics. Probability, in this framing, is a hidden quirk of nature, a subtle irregularity that disrupts the world’s expected order.

From a relational perspective, this interpretation is deeply misleading. Probability is not a property of events themselves; it is a reflection of the relational weighting of potentialities. It arises from the interplay of the symbolic choices we make — which events to observe, which interactions to track, which instruments to employ — and the alignment of these choices across histories. When we calculate probabilities, we are not peering into some ontological secret hidden in the universe. We are assessing how potential construals instantiate within the selected framework of observation and theory.

Consider Feynman’s “sum over histories” approach. Each history contributes to the probability of an event, but these contributions are not independent pieces of reality stacked together; they are relationally interwoven, their effects mediated by the complex structure of the theoretical framework. What emerges as probability is a property of the alignment between framework, instrument, and phenomenon — not an intrinsic “weirdness” lodged in the particles themselves.

Treating probability as a source of strangeness encourages the mistaken view that the universe is fundamentally irrational or that quantum mechanics is ontologically fractured. Relationally, what appears as “strangeness” is simply the reflection of a more subtle ordering: the probabilistic pattern is a fingerprint of the relational structure that makes prediction possible.

In short: probability is not a hidden quirk of the cosmos; it is a measure of relational construal. The ruck in the carpet is not in reality itself — it is in the interpretive lens through which we engage it. Understanding this shifts quantum mechanics from a theatre of mystery to a domain of disciplined relational reasoning, where what we call probability is nothing more — and nothing less — than the echo of our own symbolic choices.

Absolutisation

One of the most seductive claims in contemporary physics is that “nothing is external to spacetime.” Within the framework of general relativity, this appears almost undeniable: every event, particle, or wave is said to occur in or as spacetime. The model leaves no outside, no beyond, no vantage point from which spacetime could be observed as a whole.

The rhetorical force of this claim is powerful. It suggests completion: an all-encompassing system that exhausts the possibilities of reality. But this is precisely where the danger lies. To take representational closure as ontological closure is to mistake the boundaries of a theory for the boundaries of being.

From a relational ontology, we must resist this absolutisation. Every model of reality is perspectival — a symbolic cut through possibility, not the totality of what is. Relativity offers a remarkable construal of the cosmos, but it is still a construal. To say “nothing is external to spacetime” is to efface the very act of construal that generates spacetime as a category in the first place. It confuses the map with the terrain, the symbolic architecture with the ontological ground.

The problem with absolutisation is not just philosophical neatness; it has practical consequences. Once a system is taken as final, its internal categories harden into essences. The question is no longer “how does this construal organise meaning?” but “what is reality made of?” — as if reality were waiting to be unwrapped like a package. This forecloses the possibility of new symbolic architectures that might reframe the very terms of inquiry.

Against absolutisation, we must hold fast to the principle of perspectival openness: every scientific system is a way of structuring potential, not a mirror of what is. There is no final vantage point, no theory that abolishes the cut. The strength of science lies not in offering totalising accounts, but in generating symbolic frames that can be re-aligned, re-cut, and re-construed.

To rephrase the claim: nothing is external to spacetime — within the construal of general relativity. This is a powerful and generative insight. But it is not the last word. It is only one instance of the symbolic reflexivity through which we make sense of reality, and in that sense, it is not closure but opening: a cut that enables other cuts, a frame that prepares the ground for its own re-framing.

Space-Time as a Fixed Stage

A Nature article (here) describes Feynman’s approach as embedding quantum events and histories within space-time. While this correctly situates quantum phenomena in a physical context, the narrative risks reviving a subtly classical assumption: that space-time is a passive stage upon which events merely occur.

From a relational perspective, space-time is not inert. Each event — from a particle transition to the expansion of the cosmos — is both located in and constitutive of space-time. The “fabric” is not a backdrop; it is an emergent pattern of relational potential that co-instantiates matter, energy, and geometry. Treating it as fixed obscures the fact that quantum gravity is not about events occurring in pre-existing coordinates, but about the mutual actualisation of events and the structure that hosts them.

Effect: Thinking of space-time as a stage encourages the illusion that quantum and gravitational phenomena are separable, and that they can be fully understood independently of their co-constitutive relational context.

Punchline: Space-time is not the scenery; it is the choreography itself, inseparable from the dance of events it hosts.

Synchronisation as a Necessary Condition

A Nature article (here) presents the Copenhagen framework as relying on a “perfect synchronisation” between the passage of time in Hilbert space and in physical 3D space. This gives the impression that quantum mechanics demands a universal clock, coordinating abstract state evolution with tangible measurement events.

From a relational standpoint, this is a misleading framing. There is no absolute temporal axis against which quantum potentials and measurement outcomes must be aligned. Time is not a pre-existing grid to be synchronised; it is instantiated relationally, differently for each system, each measurement, and each event. The notion of a universal clock belongs to classical intuition, not the ontology of quantum phenomena.

The Feynmanian “sum-over-histories” approach, highlighted in the article, makes this explicit. Probabilities are calculated over histories embedded in space-time, without reference to Hilbert space or synchronised time. The relational content is in the pattern of potential events themselves — each history is an unfolding of possibilities constrained by interactions and the physical structure of space-time. Synchronisation is not a law of nature but an artefact of a particular formalism.

Effect: Presenting synchronisation as fundamental obscures the relational character of quantum systems and misleads readers into seeing a dual ontology where none is required.

Punchline: Quantum probabilities don’t wait for a master clock; they emerge in the unfolding relational patterns of events.

The Hilbert Space as a Physical Container

Popular accounts often describe Hilbert space as a “location” in which quantum states live, or a “space” through which vectors move. In a Nature article (here), this metaphor underpins the notion of synchronising time between Hilbert space and 3D space.

From a relational perspective, this is deeply misleading. Hilbert space is not a physical container or backdrop. It is a mathematical abstraction encoding the potential relations among possible measurements — a symbolic structure, not a place in which anything literally exists. Treating it as a “space” encourages an ontological misreading: that quantum states somehow inhabit a reality separate from physical systems, awaiting interaction with instruments to materialise.

This metaphor obscures the relational character of quantum phenomena. A quantum state is not “somewhere”; it is a pattern of dispositional potential, defined only in the context of interactions and symbolic cuts. The “movement” of vectors in Hilbert space is not a literal motion but a way to calculate relationally structured probabilities.

Relational ontology reframes the story: the physics is not about objects floating in an abstract space but about how potentialities co-occur, actualise, and align with measurement contexts. Hilbert space is a tool for representing these relations, not a new dimension of reality.

Punchline: Quantum states do not dwell in a hidden space; they describe the unfolding possibilities that emerge when systems and measurements interact.

Time as a Universal Parameter

Many discussions of quantum gravity and fundamental physics assume a universal, Newtonian-style time: a single parameter flowing identically for all systems, instruments, and observers. In a Nature article (here), this assumption underlies the description of synchronising “time in Hilbert space” with “time in 3D space.”

From a relational perspective, this is misleading. Time is not an external, absolute grid on which events are stamped. It is relational: each event, each system, each measuring instrument has its own unfolding, defined only in relation to others. The concept of a universal clock obscures this, masking the fundamental heterogeneity of temporal experience in both quantum and relativistic contexts.

Treating time as a universal parameter imposes a metaphenomenal lens on the phenomena: it suggests that events are happening “out there” in a single temporal framework, when in fact what is measured, predicted, and observed is a network of interdependent temporal relations. This assumption hides the reflexive, constructed nature of temporal coordination, especially in quantum gravity, where the very fabric of space-time is the system under study.

Relational ontology reframes the problem: the challenge is not to reconcile quantum and gravitational dynamics under a universal clock, but to articulate coherent temporal alignments across interacting systems. Time is not a backdrop to reality; it is a consequence of relational instantiation.

Punchline: There is no single “cosmic time” to discover — only the patterns of temporal coordination we create through measurement, modelling, and symbolic alignment.

Quantum Gravity as a Final Answer

Popular and even specialist discourse often frames the quest for quantum gravity as the pursuit of nature’s ultimate truth: a final, definitive theory that will resolve the tension between general relativity and quantum mechanics. This framing carries an implicit promise of ontological closure — as if, once discovered, the quantum nature of gravity will answer the question of “what gravity really is.”

From a relational standpoint, this is a category error. There is no single, pre-existing entity called “quantum gravity” waiting to be uncovered. Instead, what we call quantum gravity is a potential symbolic architecture: a set of relational patterns and experimental construals that allow previously incompatible systems to be coherently aligned. The theory does not discover a preordained reality; it constructs a framework in which phenomena previously seen as disjointed can be meaningfully related.

This misframing has consequences. It erases the role of the observer, the cut, and the institutional and social scaffolding that shapes which experiments are proposed, funded, and interpreted as successful. It suggests a linear trajectory of progress culminating in a metaphysical fact, when in reality the evolution of physics is iterative, reflexive, and contingent on symbolic and collective acts of alignment.

Relational ontology reframes the ambition: quantum gravity is not a final answer, it is an ongoing articulation. Each experiment, each calculation, each model contributes to a provisional stabilisation of symbolic relations across theoretical and observational domains. Success is not the uncovering of truth but the creation of coherence.

Gravity does not need a quantum crown to reign; it needs thoughtful articulation within the relational architectures we actively construct.

Gravity as Glue

In much of a Nature article (here), gravity is presented as the force that “holds things together,” a cosmic glue that binds matter and space-time. Such language is common in popular accounts: planets orbit because gravity tethers them, galaxies spin because gravity threads them into coherent forms. The metaphor is intuitively appealing but ontologically misleading.

Gravity is not a substance, nor is it a universal adhesive acting independently in the world. In relational terms, gravity is a systemic construal — a symbolic articulation of how events and matter align across the relational field of space-time. To speak of gravity as glue conflates the observed patterns of relation with an inherent property of matter or space.

This framing also masks the constructive role of the theorist. The selection of reference frames, the imposition of metric relations, and the modelling of curvature are all symbolic acts that instantiate the patterns we call gravitational phenomena. We do not uncover “glue” in the world; we construct a coherent symbolic system that captures the relational regularities among events.

Treating gravity as glue naturalises a model of relational alignment as an ontological fact. It encourages the assumption that the patterns of interaction are properties waiting to be discovered, rather than emergent structures contingent on our symbolic cuts.

A relational ontology insists: gravity is not a thing sticking the universe together. It is a patterning of potential and actualised relations, a way of construing the coherence of events. The universe does not require glue; it requires a lens — and that lens is ours to articulate.

Space-Time as Substance (2)

In a Nature article (here), space-time is treated as if it were a material medium — something that can stretch, curve, or even dissolve under the right conditions. The metaphors shift easily between fabric, container, and substance, as though space-time were a kind of cosmic stuff. This imagery makes it possible to speak of “tearing” or “emerging” space-time, as though it were woven cloth or molten fluid.

But space-time is not a thing. It is a schema of relation, a way of ordering events through symbolic architecture. To construe it as a substance confuses a model for a medium, reifying an abstraction into a kind of cosmic fabric. This is a category error: mistaking the coordinates of description for the material of reality.

Relationally, what we call space-time is an instantiated perspective on potential orderings — a way of cutting events relative to one another. It is not “out there” waiting to be curved or torn. Instead, it is a symbolic scaffolding through which phenomena are construed and aligned.

The effect of treating space-time as substance is to naturalise the model as reality. The imagery of fabric, curvature, and emergence not only obscures the symbolic cut but also installs a false ontology: that the universe consists of a malleable medium we can peer into and manipulate.

A relational ontology resists this temptation. Space-time is not a material container of being, but a patterned construal of relation. To take the metaphor of substance literally is to weave our own cloth and mistake it for the cosmos.

Time as Synchronisation

A Nature article (here) portrays time as a kind of cosmic metronome: a shared beat that must remain in perfect sync between Hilbert space and 3D space, or between histories and measurements. Even when general relativity undermines the possibility of global synchronisation, the assumption persists — time must be something like a clock, ticking away identically across all layers of description.

This metaphor of synchronisation suggests that time is an external standard, a ruler against which the universe must keep pace. It reduces temporal unfolding to the mechanics of keeping in step, as though the cosmos were a choir following a conductor’s baton.

Relationally, however, time is not synchronisation but ordering. What we call “time” is the structured potential of sequences within relational processes. Cuts do not align themselves to a universal clock; they carve temporal orderings relative to the perspective enacted. There is no master beat, only locally instantiated rhythms of relation.

The insistence on synchronisation hides the reflexive fact that the very notion of “keeping time” is a symbolic imposition, born of our cultural technologies of measurement. When physics speaks as if reality itself must follow these conventions, it mistakes our tools for the structure of being.

The effect is a double distortion: it presents temporal order as external and uniform, and it conceals the perspectival nature of temporal construal. A relational ontology resists this reduction. Time is not the synchronisation of clocks, nor the ticking of an absolute metronome, but the patterned unfolding of relations, cut differently according to the vantage taken.

Events as Atoms

One of the boldest moves in one Nature article (here) is the suggestion — following Sorkin — that events might be “atomic,” indivisible building blocks of reality. On this view, every event comprises a finite number of smallest, irreducible events, like Lego bricks from which the cosmos is assembled.

The metaphor of atomic events rests on an alluring symmetry: just as matter once dissolved into indivisible particles, so too might the fabric of experience dissolve into indivisible happenings. Yet this is another case of reification. It takes a symbolic operation — the cutting of experience into bounded phenomena — and projects it onto reality as if those cuts pre-existed our construal.

Relationally, an “event” is not a unit of substance but the outcome of a symbolic cut: a perspectival alignment that selects and configures aspects of the flux. To imagine that events have atomic essence is to confuse the act of cutting with the material of the cut. There are no smallest events waiting to be discovered, only finer and finer symbolic distinctions we can choose to make.

The effect of the atomic metaphor is twofold. First, it creates the illusion of ontological finality: if only we can find the indivisible grains of happening, physics will have reached bedrock. Second, it disguises the reflexivity of the very concept of an “event,” which arises not from nature presenting us with discrete units, but from our own semiotic structuring of possibility.

A relational ontology reframes the question entirely. Events are not atoms of reality, but perspectival instantiations within a relational field. To imagine otherwise is to mistake our symbolic partitions for the fabric of the cosmos.

Space-Time as Substance

General relativity is often presented as having elevated space-time from a passive backdrop to a physical “fabric” in its own right — bending, rippling, carrying energy, and acting as a protagonist in the play of reality. This metaphor of a “substance-like” space-time has become so entrenched that it is repeated in textbooks, press releases, and even in serious theoretical discussions.

But treating space-time as a material fabric is itself a category error. It takes a symbolic architecture — a relational geometry encoding possible alignments of phenomena — and reifies it into a thing. In effect, the map is mistaken for the terrain.

Relationally, “space-time” is a theory of ordering, a system of constraints on how events can co-instantiate. To call it a substance collapses that systemic potential into an imagined material essence. It suggests that, absent “space-time,” nothing can exist, as though existence depended on a background stuff rather than on symbolic construals that bring phenomena into being.

The effect is to naturalise what is in fact a theoretical construction. By speaking of “ripples of space-time” as though they were waves on a pond, the discourse hides the cut that instals geometry as the language of gravitational relations. The metaphor smuggles ontology into physics, turning a relational ordering into a physical medium.

From a relational ontology standpoint, space-time is not “out there” as a fabric. It is a semiotic system — a construal of potential alignments. To ask whether space-time itself is “real” in the sense of substance is to fall into the very mirage this metaphor creates. What is real are phenomena as construed within a symbolic frame, not a hidden medium beneath them.

Synchronisation

Standard presentations of quantum theory assume that “time” in Hilbert space runs in lockstep with “time” in physical space. The state vector rotates by an angle proportional to elapsed time, and the clock on the measuring instrument ticks along at the same rate. The two are said to be “synchronised,” as though Hilbert space and 3D space were performers keeping in perfect rhythm.

But what is being synchronised here? Once again, a metaphor has hardened into ontology. “Time” in Hilbert space is not time at all — it is a parameter in a theory, a measure of change in potential configurations. “Time” in physical space, by contrast, is already relational, defined along worldlines and interactions. To conflate the two under a shared symbol t is to pretend that mathematical order and experiential ordering are the same.

The effect is to smuggle in an absolute clock through the back door. It installs a God’s-eye synchrony where, in practice, each cut, each construal, establishes its own temporal ordering. Relationally, time is not a universal metronome but an alignment of sequences within a frame of reference. There is no cosmic beat with which Hilbert vectors must march.

This illusion of synchronisation conceals the constructive act: physicists align theory and measurement by design. The synchrony is not discovered but imposed — a convention that allows predictions to work, not a window into some deeper essence of time.

From a relational standpoint, there is no puzzle of “keeping Hilbert space and physical time in step,” because the premise itself is misguided. There is only the symbolic alignment of potential with event, system with instance. The synchrony is not a fact of nature but a choice of cut.

Dual Locations

Popular accounts of quantum mechanics often say that “the system evolves in Hilbert space” while “measurements occur in physical space.” This framing produces what a Nature article (here) calls a “duality of location”: as though there were two distinct arenas — one mathematical, one physical — that must somehow remain in perfect synchrony.

But this is a category error. Hilbert space is not a second “place” alongside physical space. It is a system of potential — a structured theory of possible states. To spatialise it, to imagine quantum processes “happening” inside Hilbert space, is to reify representation as reality.

The effect of this metaphor is subtle but profound. It turns a relational model into a parallel universe. It makes the theory itself into a second stage on which events unfold. And then, having invented this unnecessary duplication, physicists are forced to marvel at the miraculous synchronisation between the two.

From a relational perspective, there is no “where” of Hilbert space. What it encodes is potential, not phenomenon. Events are not “located” in Hilbert space but actualised through construal: cuts in the fabric of possibility that manifest as phenomena. To treat Hilbert space as a place is to mistake the map for the territory — worse, to mistake the theory of maps for a second territory.

The problem is not that Hilbert space and physical space are hard to reconcile. The problem is the assumption that Hilbert space is a “space” at all. It is not an arena, but a model of relational potential. Remove the misplaced spatial metaphor, and the so-called “duality of location” dissolves.