The usual story says that the universe is “made of particles” which pre-exist relations. Our story inverts this. What physics calls a particle is, in relational terms, a mode of relational cut—a stable pattern of construal in which specific potentials are actualised as horizons, metabolisms, or ecologies.
These three are not substances but orientations of constraint:
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Horizon-modes hold open structured potential. They set the scene of what can unfold and how inclination can propagate.
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Metabolic-modes stabilise readiness. They maintain oriented internal organisation, allowing exchange, persistence, and structured becoming.
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Ecological-modes carry inclination across difference. They connect horizons to metabolisms, allowing coordination, transmission, and transformation.
With this triad, the so-called “fundamental particles” fall into a coherent relational topology.
1. Ecological Modes: Carriers of Inclination and Transition
Photons (γ)
Function: Pure ecological inclination.
The photon is a pathway without interiority. It carries directional readiness from one relational configuration to another. It does not stabilise itself; it is pure transmission—ecology without metabolism. A “particle” here is simply the minimum cut needed to propagate an ecological bias across spacetime.
Gluons (g)
Function: Ecology as binding pressure.
Gluons are ecological not in space but in constraint-space. They transmit the inclinations that enforce quark complementarity. They do less “travel” and more “insist.” Their ecology is one of containment, maintaining the tension that keeps quarks in mutual orbit.
W and Z Bosons (W±, Z⁰)
Function: Broken ecologies of transformation.
Where photons and gluons maintain ongoing ecological pathways, the weak bosons represent ecologies that terminate. They create cuts that convert one metabolic form into another. They are ecological pathways that end in a different horizon.
Gravitons (hypothetical)
Function: Ecology at the scale of structured potential.
If they exist, they would not be particles moving through space, but the ecological stitching of horizon curvature. They would articulate the global tendency of readiness to converge.
Summary: Ecological particles are paths of transformation—pure inclination, binding inclination, terminating inclination, and horizon-bending inclination.
2. Metabolic Modes: Stabilised Readiness and Internal Organisation
Electrons (e⁻)
Function: Archetypal metabolic stabiliser.
The electron is the minimal construal of internally stabilised orientation. It maintains a persistent readiness-profile, enabling structured exchange without dissipating into pure ecology. The reason ions, shells, and chemical bonds work is that the electron is not a path but a poised system.
Quarks (u, d, s, c, t, b)
Function: Fragmented metabolic potentials that can only stabilise together.
Quarks own metabolic orientation, but only partially. Their readiness is directional but incomplete, requiring complementary quarks to stabilise into a whole. Individually, they are fractured metabolisms; collectively, they form coherent metabolic wholes (protons, neutrons).
Neutrinos (ν)
Function: Metabolism approaching ecological minimality.
Neutrinos maintain an extraordinarily thin metabolic profile—barely stabilised, barely interacting, almost a passing inclination. They mark the boundary where metabolism fades toward ecology without becoming it.
Summary: Metabolic particles define persistence, internal organisation, and structured readiness. They are systems that endure.
3. Horizon Modes: Stabilised Potentials That Shape Possible Futures
The Higgs Field / Higgs Boson (H⁰)
Function: The horizon of stable massed construal.
The Higgs is not a “particle” in the relational sense but a horizon-cut: it fixes what counts as a stable metabolic orientation by imposing a background of structured potential. The Higgs boson is simply the ripple that reveals the horizon’s curvature.
Composite Nucleons (protons, neutrons)
Function: Higher-order horizons emerging from metabolic collectives.
Protons and neutrons—while composed of quarks and gluons—function as metabolic-horizons. They both contain metabolism and cast constraints outward. They are structured potentials in which electrons may stabilise coordinated readiness.
Summary: Horizon-modes define what kinds of metabolic forms can persist, and what ecologies can anchor to.
4. The Big Picture: A Relational Taxonomy of the Standard Model
Below is the compact grouping for the post:
Ecological Modes
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Photon — pure inclination
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Gluons — binding inclination
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W/Z bosons — transforming inclination
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Graviton (if actualised) — horizon-level inclination
Signature: no internal persistence necessary; defined by the biases they transmit.
Metabolic Modes
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Electrons — stable oriented readiness
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Quarks — partial metabolisms needing complementary stabilisation
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Neutrinos — minimal metabolic persistence
Signature: internal orientation, persistence, exchange, “stayingness.”
Horizon Modes
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Higgs field / boson — the mass-horizon
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Protons & neutrons — emergent metabolic-horizons
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(Optionally later) nuclei, atoms, molecular scaffolds as higher-order horizonings
Signature: structured potential rather than dynamical inclination.
5. Why This Classification Matters
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It reframes particle physics as relational topology, not billiard-ball ontology.
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It dissolves the particle/field dichotomy, replacing it with horizon/metabolic/ecological dynamics.
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It prepares the ground for extending the same relational logics to atoms, molecules, chemistry, and later biological evolution.
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It provides an elegant, clean starting point for the subsequent posts on quark confinement, nucleon formation, atomic shelling, and molecular bonding.
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