Velocity is normally introduced as the rate at which an object changes its position in space over time. This definition already presupposes the entire representational framework we set aside in the opening post: a background space, an independent temporal axis, and an object with persisting identity moving through both.
In a relational ontology, none of these assumptions hold. There is no universal container in which change takes place, and no external clock against which to measure it. There is only a field of relational potentiality and the patterns that emerge when actualisations align across successive cuts.
The task of this post is to reconstruct velocity without any remnants of the representational picture. We treat velocity not as an intrinsic quantity carried by an object, but as a particular form of rhythm in patterning—a stability of construal across successive actualisations.
Velocity, in this model, is not something a system “has.” It is something a system enacts through the coherence of its successive instantiations.
1. Why Classical Velocity Cannot Survive Relational Ontology
Classically, velocity depends on three representational commitments:
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Position: a determinate location within a universal space.
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Time: a continuous parameter against which change of position is measured.
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Persistence: an object whose identity spans multiple time points.
Each of these collapses under relational construal:
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“Position” is not an intrinsic coordinate but a perspectival construal of relational potentiality.
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“Time” is not a parameter flowing independently of events but the ordering relation among actualisations.
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“Persistence” is not an underlying substrate but the stability of patterning across successive cuts.
To preserve velocity as a primitive feature would be to reintroduce representational metaphysics through the back door. Instead, we reconstrue velocity entirely within the relational field.
2. Velocity as Stability in the Ordering of Actualisations
Once motion is no longer a change of place, velocity cannot be a rate of change. What remains is the ordering relation itself.
Consider a sequence of actualisations of a system within its horizon of potentiality. If these actualisations display a consistent pattern—a coherent alignment that construal organises as a trajectory—then velocity is simply the stability of that pattern across successive cuts.
Thus:
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Velocity is not a measure of displacement.
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Velocity is the name for a particular mode of coherence in patterning.
When that coherence is stable, we construe the system as moving at a constant velocity. When the coherence modulates, we construe acceleration.
Velocity is therefore not a property of an object but an emergent relational rhythm.
3. Rhythm as the Right Metaphor
In relational terms, “rhythm” captures something that “rate” obscures.
A rhythm is:
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patterned,
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coherent,
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recognisable as a unity,
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but not reducible to a spatial change or to a ticking clock.
A rhythm is a temporal coherence without an independent time. It is a pattern whose stability constitutes the temporal ordering it appears to occupy.
Velocity functions analogously. It is:
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the rhythm of successive actualisations,
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stabilised across the relational field,
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and construed as a constant pattern of ordering.
The classical intuition that constant velocity corresponds to “straight-line motion” is an artefact of representational thinking. What is actually constant is not a line but a form of relational coherence.
4. No Absolute Velocities, Only System-Relative Rhythms
Since velocity is the stability of patterning within a relational horizon, it cannot be absolute. Different systems may:
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construe different patterns as “constant,”
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organise successive actualisations under different horizons of potentiality,
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and therefore disagree on what counts as a stable rhythm.
A system-relative velocity is not an approximation to an absolute velocity; it is the only coherent notion of velocity available in a relational ontology.
This is not a concession to relativity. It is a deeper statement: there is no metaphysical fact about how fast something “is moving.” There are only patterns of actualisation and the systems that construe them.
Relativistic velocity emerges naturally as the consequence of horizon constraints—constraints on how patterns of actualisation can cohere from different perspectival vantage points. No spacetime geometry is required; the relational horizon does the work.
5. Inertial Motion as Unmodulated Rhythm
In classical mechanics, inertial motion is defined as motion without forces: straight-line, constant-velocity motion. In relational terms, there is no straight line and no “constant velocity” in the classical sense.
What remains is:
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unmodulated relational rhythm → construed as inertial motion
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modulated relational rhythm → construed as acceleration
Inertia is not resistance to change; it is simply the persistence of a stable pattern of actualisation when nothing in the relational field perturbs it.
This gives us a natural relational analogue to Newton’s First Law: a system maintains its rhythm unless the potentiality field shifts in a way that modulates it.
6. What Velocity Becomes
Velocity, reconceived relationally, is:
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not a vector quantity carried by a body,
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not a derivative of position with respect to time,
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not a fact of motion independent of construal.
Velocity is a pattern of coherence across successive actualisations, stabilised by the relational field and construed by a system that occupies a particular horizon of potentiality.
Once seen in this light, velocity becomes something subtler and more profound: a measure of how the world holds together across cuts, not how objects traverse a pre-existing space.
7. What This Sets Up for the Next Post
Velocity as relational rhythm prepares the ground for the reinterpretation of acceleration. In classical mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of velocity—again tying it to a time-based representational framework.
In relational ontology, acceleration is not change of velocity. It is:
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the modulation of the potentiality field,
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generating shifts in the coherence of successive actualisations.
This will be the focus of the next post.
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