Sunday, 5 October 2025

Genealogies of Scientific Construal: 7 Relativity and the Expanding Field: Einstein and the Contingent Cosmos

Focus: Relational restructuring of space, time, and cosmic potential.

Throughline: Possibility is no longer absolute; it is contingent, frame-dependent, and dynamically relational.

The early 20th century introduced a profound reconstrual of the cosmos through Einstein’s theories of relativity. Newtonian absolutes—fixed space and universal time—were supplanted by a relational understanding of spacetime, where motion, duration, and simultaneity are frame-dependent. The potential for events and interactions is no longer universal; it is contingent upon relative positions, velocities, and gravitational contexts.

Einstein’s reconceptualisation extends the relational field of possibility beyond deterministic mechanics. Mass-energy curves spacetime, trajectories of objects are contextually mediated, and the cosmos itself becomes a dynamic, interdependent field. Construal is no longer purely formal or deterministic: understanding the cosmos requires awareness of the interplay between observer, system, and metric, situating potential within a flexible, relational horizon.

Modulatory voices:

  • Minkowski: the formalisation of spacetime geometry as a relational field.

  • Einstein: general and special relativity demonstrating contingent structure of potential.

In this reconstrual, possibility itself is reframed: outcomes are intelligible only within relational and contingent frameworks, emphasising co-dependence, context, and curvature. The cosmos is a field in which potential is enacted relationally, revealing that the very structures through which we understand events are historically, conceptually, and materially contingent.

No comments:

Post a Comment