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.