Classical physics treats light as either a wave propagating through space or a particle carrying energy and momentum. Both accounts rely on representational assumptions: space as a container, time as a uniform background, and photons as entities with intrinsic properties that traverse the manifold of spacetime.
From the perspective of relational ontology, these assumptions are neither necessary nor coherent. There is no “space through which a photon moves,” no “time along which it travels,” and no intrinsic particle-ness or wave-ness independent of relational construal. Yet the phenomena we describe as light — propagation, frequency, interference, redshift — remain fully observable and consistent. The task of this post is to define the photon without appealing to classical metaphysics, as a pattern emergent from relational potentiality.
1. Dispensing with Particle and Wave Metaphors
The wave-particle duality arises because classical representations cannot capture the relational essence of light. In the relational view:
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Light is not an object that moves.
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Light is not a wave oscillating in a field.
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There is no substance that “carries energy” independent of actualisation.
Instead, a photon is:
a sequence of null cuts in relational potentiality.
Each null cut is an instantiation at the limit of what is possible for a given system. The photon is the pattern formed by successive such instantiations, coherently construed across relational horizons.
2. Propagation as Perspectival Ordering
In classical thinking, photons traverse space. In relational terms, “propagation” is not motion but a perspectival ordering of instantiated potentialities:
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Each cut occurs within the horizon of a system’s potentiality.
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Successive cuts are constrained by relational coherence.
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Observers construe these ordered cuts as continuous light “moving” from source to detector.
The photon is therefore a relational event, not a mobile entity. Its trajectory is the emergent ordering of actualisations, and its apparent motion is a property of construal rather than an intrinsic fact.
3. Frequency as Relational Patterning
Classically, frequency is an intrinsic oscillation of an electromagnetic wave. In relational ontology:
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Frequency is a description of patterning across successive cuts, not an intrinsic vibration.
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Observed frequency emerges from the alignment of relational horizons: the rhythm with which actualisations appear to recur from a given perspective.
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Doppler shifts, gravitational shifts, and other phenomena are horizon-dependent pattern modifications, not changes in an intrinsic oscillation.
Frequency is therefore perspectival: it depends on both the system emitting the light and the system observing it. Each system construes a pattern, and the resulting rhythm is what we measure as frequency.
4. The Photon at the Limit of Potentiality
By treating photons as sequences of null cuts, we situate light at the boundary of actualisation:
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The photon is an extremum of what the relational potentiality field allows.
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Its “existence” is the pattern instantiated at that boundary.
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Its properties — including energy and momentum in classical terms — are derivable from the patterning and tension of successive actualisations, not from an intrinsic substrate.
This aligns naturally with the relational treatment of motion and dynamics: light is simply the extreme case of coherent patterning, constrained not by space or time but by the structure of relational potentiality itself.
5. Implications for Observation
Observing a photon is not detecting a particle; it is recording the construal of a relational pattern. Detection events are cuts that instantiate the photon pattern within the observer’s potentiality horizon.
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The classical “click” in a detector is the relational analogue of a null cut.
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Interference and diffraction arise from the ordering and compatibility of potentiality constraints across successive cuts.
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There is no paradox: apparent dualities arise naturally from the relational ordering of instantiations, not from contradictory intrinsic properties.
6. Setting the Stage for Frequency, Redshift, and EM Patterns
This relational reconception of the photon provides the foundation for the rest of the series:
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Frequency emerges from patterning across cuts.
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Redshift and blueshift emerge from modulation of relational horizons.
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Electromagnetic phenomena emerge as coherence and modulation of relational potentiality, not as fields or forces.
In short, photons are not things, and light is not motion; light is relational pattern instantiated at the limit of potentiality, visible only through the order of successive actualisations.
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