Why Einstein’s “Miracle of Comprehensibility” Isn’t a Miracle at All (Once Relation Is Primary)

Einstein’s line — “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible” — expresses a bewilderment that only arises inside a representational ontology.

It presupposes:

1. a world “out there,” fully formed and self-standing

2. a mind “in here,” equally self-standing

3. a mysterious bridge between the two (language, mathematics, reason)

From that frame, of course comprehension looks miraculous.

You’ve imagined two independent domains and then discovered — surprise! — they align.

But once you take relation as primary, the whole paradox evaporates.

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1. Comprehensibility only feels miraculous if you assume stand-alone entities.

Einstein presupposes a metaphysical cut:

• world (independent, objective, structured)

• mind (subjective, representational, separate)

Wigner presupposes a further layer:

• mathematics as a human invention that somehow “fits” the world

But all three are already products of relational organisation, not independent edifices attempting to connect.

The “miracle” is an artefact of a bad ontology.

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2. In relational ontology, intelligibility is not a feature of the world. It is a feature of how actuality is cut.

There is no pre-given, unconstrued world waiting to be decoded.

There are structured potentials, and actuality is a perspectival cut through that possibility space.

Comprehension is not a mapping between two independent domains.

It is an alignment of relational organisation across strata:

• construal

• meaning

• experience

• discourse

• measurement practice

• theoretical modelling

They are co-individuating expressions of the same relational system.

Of course they align — they are the alignment.

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3. Mathematics isn’t a “gift from the universe.” It’s a relational construal that inherits the organisation it models.

Wigner’s “miracle” collapses immediately once you stop treating mathematics as an external language strapped onto reality.

Mathematics:

• is a system of second-order construal

• inherits its formal organisation from patterns of relational cohesion

• gains applicability because it re-articulates those relations at a different stratum

It’s not miraculous.

It’s structural resonance across levels of relational potential.

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4. The universe is comprehensible because comprehension is one of the ways the universe actualises itself.

Once you reject representation and take relation as foundational:

Comprehension is not a window onto reality.

It is one trajectory through which reality becomes intelligible as relation.

Einstein thinks the universe is first actual, then intelligible.

Relational ontology says:

• actuality is itself already a mode of intelligibility

• no phenomenon is unconstrued

• meaning is not added to the world — it is how the world shows up

Thus there is no gap to be bridged, and no miracle to explain.

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Punchline

Einstein’s “incomprehensible comprehensibility” is only puzzling if you posit a mind and world that must somehow match.

If relation is primary:

• world and mind are co-actualisations of the same relational dynamics

• mathematics is a formal construal of those dynamics

• intelligibility is a constitutive feature of relational actuality, not an added bonus

What Einstein called a miracle is simply the metaphysics showing through.