Horizons, Metabolisms, and Ecologies in the Becoming of the Universe
Having traced how relational modes articulate the shift from quarks to molecules, we can now follow the same grammar outward through cosmic evolution. The cosmos, in this perspective, is not a stage upon which matter evolves, but a recursive deepening of relational potential—a sequence of horizon formations, metabolic stabilisations, and ecological propagations that progressively reconfigure what kinds of becoming are possible.
This post extends the relational classification to the early universe, the emergence of stars and galaxies, and the long arc of cosmic complexity.
1. The Early Universe: A Horizon Without Form
The primordial state is often described as a seething plasma, but from a relational standpoint, it is better viewed as an unresolved horizon of potential: a maximally entangled field of readiness without stable metabolic differentiations.
Immediately after the first cuts of actualisation, the cosmos manifests:
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ecological hyper-abundance: inclination everywhere, without structure
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metabolic instability: no persistent carriers of readiness
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horizon ambiguity: no long-lived constraints to shape unfolding
This is a state of pure ecological turbulence—inclination without anchor. Nothing yet holds a stance long enough for organisation. In this sense, cosmic evolution begins not with objects but with the search for stability: the universe seeking ways to metabolise its own openness.
The first stabilisations—quarks binding into nucleons, electrons pairing with nuclei—are therefore cosmic metabolic events, not chemical ones.
2. The First Atoms: Emergence of a Cosmic Horizon
Recombination (when electrons stabilised with nuclei) marks a crucial relational shift: the cosmos acquires its first large-scale horizon.
Individual atoms are not important here as units of substance; rather, their stability:
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reduces ecological turbulence,
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establishes long-range constraints on inclination,
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allows photons to propagate coherently.
This is the first moment in which ecological pathways can extend across vast expanses without immediate disruption. The universe becomes transparent because it becomes relationally coherent. Photons move as ecological messengers across a newly stabilised horizon.
This moment—often marked mathematically as “decoupling”—is ontologically the first cosmic-scale metabolic-horizon.
3. Gravity as a Slow Horizon-Tendency
Without importing classical metaphysics, gravity appears relationally as a horizon-shaping inclination—a tendency for stabilised metabolisms to deepen the local horizon, attracting additional readiness toward themselves.
Where density slightly increases, the horizon thickens; metabolisms cluster; ecological pathways bend inward. This becomes a feedback loop:
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Slight metabolic density
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Deepened local horizon
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Increased ecological inclination
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Further metabolic clustering
Cosmic structure seeds are therefore relational amplifications of minor asymmetries—not “matter clumping” but horizon differentiation.
4. Stars: Metabolic Hearths of Cosmic Becoming
When local metabolisms (atoms) cluster densely enough under horizon-tendency, they face two contradictory pressures:
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They are held together gravitationally,
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Yet their internal metabolisms resist compression.
This tension drives a new stabilisation: nuclear ignition.
A star is what happens when a region of matter resolves its internal tension by forming a self-sustaining metabolism. The star converts stored horizon tension into continuous metabolic activity, radiating ecological pathways (photons, neutrinos) outward.
In relational terms, a star is:
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A deepened horizon containing
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A high-intensity metabolism that
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Generates vast ecological outflows
Stars are not merely reactors; they are cosmic metabolic centres that reorganise the field of inclination around them. They pull in matter, fuse it into heavier metabolic-horizon units (elements), and project ecological pathways that shape the behaviour of surrounding structures.
5. Supernovae and Elemental Diversity: Horizon Metabolism Under Stress
As stellar metabolisms exhaust their simplifying pathways, they accumulate heavy internal stabilisations. At a certain threshold, the star’s metabolism cannot maintain its horizon structure. The resulting collapse is a catastrophic reconfiguration:
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the horizon implodes,
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the metabolism becomes over-constrained,
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ecological pathways explode outward with enormous intensity.
Supernovae are not just violent events; they are relational phase transitions in which:
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metabolic readiness fragments,
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new horizon-stabilised metabolic structures (heavy elements) actualise,
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ecological pathways carry these potentials outward.
The diversity of the periodic table is thus the history of horizon collapses and metabolic reinventions.
6. Galaxies: Meta-Ecologies of Structural Coordination
As stars cluster into galaxies, a new relational level appears: the galactic ecology.
A galaxy is a meta-ecology in which:
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stars serve as metabolic hearths,
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interstellar mediums act as ecological potentials,
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large-scale gravitation shapes a collective horizon,
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supermassive black holes anchor meta-horizon dynamics.
The key is that galaxies are not aggregates but coordinated relational systems. Their spiral arms, bars, rings, and voids are emergent patterns of mutual readiness and inclination—cosmic-scale equivalents of molecular structure.
Galaxies metabolise star-formation potential, regulate ecological flows of radiation and matter, and maintain a horizon that scaffolds billions of nested metabolisms and ecologies.
7. Cosmic Evolution: Recursive Deepening of Relational Potential
Throughout cosmic history, the same triadic grammar recurs:
1. Horizon formation
stabilising constraints that set the shape of possible relations
2. Metabolic differentiation
persistent processes that maintain internal organisation through exchange
3. Ecological propagation
pathways of inclination that transmit orientation across scales
This recursion produces:
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nucleons
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atoms
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molecules
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stars
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planets
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galaxies
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and, eventually, the ecological-metabolic-horizon systems characteristic of life
The cosmos does not evolve objects; it evolves patterns of relational readiness. Each new stabilisation expands the horizon of possibility for subsequent ones.
Life, in this view, is not an anomaly but the continuation of the cosmic logic: a highly recursive metabolic-horizon system threaded with ecological pathways of information.
8. The Universe as Becoming, Not Being
Cosmic evolution, when seen through relational ontology, is not the story of things becoming more complex. It is the story of potential differentiating itself through successive relational cuts. Complexity is the byproduct; the core phenomenon is the recursive stabilisation of possibility.
From quarks to galaxies, every step in the universe’s evolution is an elaboration of the same underlying principle:
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