Physics and Cosmology Through the Relational Cut: A Glossary

Physics is not a catalogue of what exists.

It is a set of high-precision construal practices that stabilise relational potentials into coherent phenomenal architectures.

Different branches correspond to different regimes of stability — ways of slicing relational potential so that patterns behave as if they were governed by objects, fields, trajectories, or probabilistic amplitudes.

This glossary treats every term as a construal-effect, a semiotic artefact, or a metaphenomenal operation. There are no metaphysical objects independent of meaning, no “things” that exist unconstrued.

The glossary is organised in four regimes:

1. Classical Physics

2. Relativistic Physics

3. Quantum Physics

4. Cosmology

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I. CLASSICAL PHYSICS — Stable Patterns and Object Persistence

Classical physics operates where construal stability is high: everyday scales, moderate speeds, low energies. It treats patterned regularities as if they were external objects governed by deterministic rules.

• Space: A stable metaphenomenal frame that construes relational distinctions as fixed distances.

• Time: A linear ordering schema for changes in phenomena; a conventionally-stabilised sequencing of perspectival cuts.

• Object: A semiotic compression of persistent pattern-recognition; a “habit of recognition,” not a metaphysical unit.

• Matter: The construal of enduring pattern-consistency across perspectival change.

• Energy: A numerical measure of a system’s capacity to undergo patterned transformation.

• Momentum: A quantified tendency of a pattern to maintain continuity across sequential cuts.

• Force: The representation of relational constraints in a form compatible with the object schema; not a push or pull.

• Mass: A measure of pattern-resilience to perspectival reorganisation (inertia).

• Work: A semantic linking of force and displacement — a way of codifying change.

• Trajectory: A narrative stitching of cuts that construes a pattern as following a continuous path.

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II. RELATIVISTIC PHYSICS — When Classical Frames Break

Relativity destabilises the separation of space, time, object, and cause by showing these are not primitive categories but construal-coherences that vary with perspectival structure.

• Spacetime: A unified construal architecture stabilising differences and changes within a single geometric schema.

• Frame of Reference: A meta-construal defining which cuts and invariances are being stabilised; there is no “view from nowhere.”

• Invariance / Covariance: The robustness of relational patterns under transformation of the construal frame.

• Speed of Light: A limit-constraint of the construal architecture, marking the boundary of perspectival ordering.

• Relativistic Mass: How pattern-resilience changes as the construal frame shifts.

• Curvature (of spacetime): A geometric construal of how relational coherence varies; not literal bending.

• Geodesic: A path of maximal relational coherence within a chosen construal architecture.

• Gravitational Field / Gravity: A mapping of coherence-changes in the relational schema, construed as influence.

• Simultaneity: A context-dependent alignment of perspective-cuts; not a universal relation.

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III. QUANTUM PHYSICS — Construal Granularity and Limit Behaviour

Quantum mechanics operates at scales where classical continuity collapses. In our ontology, quantum behaviour is the limit behaviour of construal itself.

• Quantum State: Structured potential for phenomenological actualisation, not an underlying reality.

• Superposition: A non-committed construal; multiple incompatible patterns held open until a cut is applied.

• Measurement: A perspectival cut that actualises one construal among many.

• Wavefunction: Mathematical expression of potential coherence before perspectival fixing.

• Probability Amplitude: A formal weighting of possible construal outcomes; not a physical propensity.

• Uncertainty Principle: A constraint on joint construals; incompatible patterns cannot be stabilised simultaneously.

• Entanglement: Relational indivisibility across cuts; one pattern cannot be stably drawn without the other.

• Nonlocality: A sign that classical spatial construal is inadequate at this resolution.

• Observable: A construal-operator defining what can be actualised under a measurement architecture.

• Quantum Field: A high-order construal schema whose excitations behave as particles when cut.

• Particle (Quantum): A momentary objectification produced by a specific cut.

• Vacuum Fluctuation: A way of describing unstable potential within a relational field.

• Decoherence: Loss of potential compatibilities as a system is embedded in a higher-stability context.

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IV. COSMOLOGY — Large-Scale Construal and Relational Horizons

Cosmology operates at maximal scale. Its terms are often narrative artefacts or limit-conditions imposed by representational habits.

• Cosmic Inflation: Retrospective smoothing operation to reconcile large-scale uniformity; not a temporal event.

• Dark Matter: Surplus relational structure arising when gravitational coherence is treated as substance-based.

• Dark Energy: Constitutive asymmetry stabilising the cut that produces “expansion.”

• Horizon Problem: A symptom of treating perspectival distinctions as ontological partitions.

• Cosmological Constant: Formal stabiliser repairing the cut of spacetime-as-object.

• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations: Structured echoes of cuts imposed on early-universe potential.

• Cosmic Microwave Background: Background relational equilibrium projected as quasi-material glow; horizon of construal.

• Structure Formation: Retrospective narrative projecting current asymmetries backward.

• Multiverse: Maximal objectification of relational potential; reification of unconstrued possibility.

• Singularity: Failure mode of object-based construal; signals a cut that cannot be coherently maintained.

• Entropy (Cosmological): Bookkeeping of pattern dispersion; price of refusing to treat potential as relational.

• Arrow of Time: Asymmetry of construal emerging from ordering cuts.

• Cosmic Neutrino Background: Limit pattern required to complete thermodynamic construal symmetry.

• Boltzmann Brains: Ghost-image of object realism; self-parody of microstate modelling.

• Flatness Problem: Signature of a cut minimising global curvature to stabilise coherence.

• Cosmic Acceleration: Artefact of interpreting relational divergence as metric motion.

• Baryogenesis: Narrative retrofit reconciling symmetrical potential with asymmetrical actualisation.

• Reionisation Epoch: Segmenting of large-scale relational gradients into discrete “epochs.”

• Last Scattering Surface: Outermost coherent boundary of observational cut; not a literal surface.

• Big Rip / Heat Death / Doom Scenarios: Narrative closures imposed on indefinitely projected cuts.

• Quantum Foam: Conceptual turbulence arising from forcing relational geometry through an object-based sieve.

• Anthropic Principle: Patch applied when representational cosmology encounters circularity; false reconciliation of meaning and mechanism.

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Meta-Glossary Statement

Across classical, relativistic, quantum, and cosmological regimes, physics does not reveal layers of the universe.

It reveals different stabilisation strategies for organising relational potential:

• Classical physics: persistence and continuity.

• Relativity: invariance across cuts and frames.

• Quantum physics: potential under resolution limits.

• Cosmology: relational patterns at maximal scale, often as narrative artefacts.

All terms — objects, fields, particles, waves, laws, states, expansion, inflation, dark matter, singularities — are artefacts of perspectival construal, structured potential, and metaphenomenal regularisation.

Nothing exists unconstrued. Physics is not wrong.

It is relationally actualised.