Physics Without Divinity: 2 Coordination of Matter — Beyond Obedience

From Following Rules to Relational Alignment

Physics often imagines matter as passive: a mute substance that “follows” instructions. Equations dictate, particles comply. The picture is one of obedience — nature as a vast congregation of things disciplined into perfect submission.

But nothing in relation obeys. Processes do not “follow orders”; they coordinate. What looks like compliance is in fact mutual alignment, potentials actualising in concert. When we see a pendulum swing, or a photon bend, we are not watching inert matter submit to law. We are witnessing processes interlock: forces, masses, energies, potentials entwined in relational movement.

To speak of obedience is to miss the vitality of relation. Coordination is never absolute; it depends on conditions, scales, and perspectives. At times alignment persists, giving the appearance of universal order. At other times, it shifts or breaks down, revealing contingency where obedience had been assumed.

Matter is not a servant of law. It is the ongoing choreography of relation, actualising in ways that are patterned, but never decreed. Physics need not invoke obedience; it need only see that regularity is the form coordination takes when viewed across the weave of possibility.