2 — Realism: Why “Objects First” Cannot Explain Objects

Realism seems sturdy.

Common-sense.

Philosophically conservative in the way people find comforting.

“There are objects out there. They exist independently. They have properties. They persist. They interact.”

But realism’s confidence hides a deep structural flaw:

it assumes the very thing it cannot account for — the object.

Once you shift to a relational ontology, the foundations realism stands on evaporate, not because objects don’t exist, but because objects cannot be primary.

Realism is not wrong about the world being actual.

It is wrong about how actuality happens.

Let’s cut through to the structural errors.

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1. Realism assumes objects as primitives — but objects are outcomes

In realism, objects are basic:

self-contained, bounded, independently existing units with intrinsic properties.

But what actually constitutes an “object”?

• differentiation

• boundary conditions

• stable relational constraints

• internal coherence

• scale-dependent organisation

Every one of these is relational, not intrinsic.

Objects are not what the world is made of.

Objects are what certain relational configurations actualise as, at certain scales, under certain constraints.

Realism confuses an outcome with a basis.

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2. Realism cannot explain persistence without smuggling in relation

Ask a realist: How does an object remain the same across time?

They will gesture at identity, essence, substance, or properties.

But persistence requires:

• continuity relations

• constraint maintenance

• feedback processes

• systemic stability

• perspectival coherence

That is: an organised web of relations that preserve the object’s recognisability across perspectival cuts.

There is no non-relational account of stability.

Realism treats persistence as a primitive instead of something implemented.

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3. Realism treats properties as intrinsic — but properties are relational

Even the most “intrinsic” property (say, mass or charge) is defined through systems of relations:

• gravitational relations

• electromagnetic interactions

• inertial frames

• measurement conventions

• scale-dependent behaviours

A property that does not manifest in relations is indistinguishable from no property at all.

Realism needs intrinsic properties; physics and ontology give it relational dispositions.

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4. Realism relies on a notion of “independence” that dissolves on contact

Objects, we are told, exist independently of perception.

Fine.

But independence is not an ontological primitive.

It is a relational configuration: a degree of non-dependence within a network of constraints.

For something to count as “independent,” one already needs:

• a relational field

• contrasting dependencies

• differential constraints

• perspectival boundaries

Realism imports all of this without acknowledging it.

The concept of independence presupposes the relational ontology realism denies.

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5. Realism confuses epistemic access with ontological status

Realists often say:

“We perceive objects because objects exist.”

This reverses the order.

“Objecthood” is the relational pattern that construal is sensitive to.

Realism thinks objects explain construal.

In fact, construal reveals the relational organisation that constitutes objects.

Realism keeps trying to use the map to explain the terrain, but insists the terrain is independent of mapping categories — a contradiction it cannot resolve.

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6. Realism cannot account for emergence except by ignoring it

Realism’s model predates complexity.

When higher-order phenomena appear (cells, organisms, ecosystems, consciousness), realism must say:

• either these things are reducible to lower-level objects

• or they are vague, derivative, or “not really real”

• or they are magically emergent from intrinsic properties

None of these options are coherent.

Emergence requires relational constraint architectures, not collections of self-contained things.

Objects are not the building blocks of emergence.

Emergence is the building block of objects.

Realism has the order backwards.

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7. Realism’s “world of objects” cannot produce a world

A world is not a pile of things.

A world is a structured space of potential actualisation.

Realism has no account of:

• potentiality

• construal

• system/instance differentiation

• perspectival shifts

• the conditions of eventhood

It just assumes objects interacting in space-time.

But neither “interaction” nor “space-time” nor “object” nor “causality” are primitives.

They are relational constructions.

Realism begins where ontology needs to end.

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The relational verdict

Realism is not wrong about actuality.

It is wrong about origins.

It treats objects as the ground of relation.

But objects arise from relational organisation.

It treats properties as intrinsic.

But properties only mean anything through networks of constraint.

It treats persistence as primitive.

But persistence is a relational maintenance process.

It treats independence as ontological.

But independence is a relational phenomenon.

Realism was designed for a world made of things.

We live in a world made of relations that sometimes actualise as things.

Realism sees the results.

Relational ontology explains the conditions that make those results possible.