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.