How Horizons, Metabolisms, and Ecologies Scaffold the Emergence of Complex Matter
The usual cosmological narrative begins with particles and builds upward. This sequence presupposes that particles are self-subsisting objects which later combine into atoms, atoms into molecules, and molecules into life. A relational ontology reverses this direction of explanation. Instead of treating particles as the primitive units from which material complexity arises, we treat them as cuts within a deeper topology of potential—specific ways in which horizons, metabolisms, and ecologies articulate structured becoming.
In this post, we trace the movement from the most elementary relational articulations to the formation of molecules. At each stage, the key question is not “what is this thing made of?” but “what pattern of relational constraint is actualised here, and how does it scaffold the next?”
1. Fundamental Modes of Relational Articulation
The previous post classified fundamental particles into three relational modes:
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Ecological modes: pathways of inclination (photons, gluons, W/Z bosons, hypothetical gravitons).
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Metabolic modes: stabilised readiness (electrons, quarks, neutrinos).
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Horizon modes: structured potentials that condition what stabilisations are possible (Higgs, nucleons as emergent horizons).
These three modes are not categories of substance but orientations of cut. They tell us how a relational system construes and sustains itself, not what it “is made of.”
Matter, in this view, is not built from particles; it emerges from the iterative coordination of these relational orientations.
2. Quarks: Fragmented Metabolisms Seeking Complementarity
Quarks do not stabilise on their own. Their metabolic readiness is incomplete, directional but insufficiently integrated. Each quark instantiates a partial internal orientation—an asymmetrical readiness that can only persist when matched with complementary orientations.
The gluon ecology enforces this complementarity. Gluons transmit binding inclination, insisting on a relational configuration in which the quark metabolisms mutually complete one another. Confinement, therefore, is not a mechanical force but a relational prohibition: partial metabolisms cannot actualise as isolated wholes.
This is the first substantial relational lesson of matter:
wholeness emerges only when fragmented metabolic potentials find a compatible horizon of mutual stabilisation.
3. Nucleons: Emergent Metabolic-Horizons
When quarks combine into protons and neutrons, a new relational articulation appears: a metabolic-horizon.
A proton is not merely a container of quarks. It is a stabilised construal of internal metabolic exchange that projects outward as a structured potential. Its interior is metabolic—dynamic circulations of quark readiness mediated by gluonic ecologies. Its exterior is horizon-like—it sets constraints for what kinds of ecological pathways and metabolic attachments (e.g., electrons) can stabilise in relation to it.
Protons and neutrons thus function as:
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internal metabolisms (coordinated quark orientation)
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external horizons (conditioning what atomic structure can be)
This dual orientation is the essential relational grammar of nuclei.
Neutrons extend this grammar by providing massed horizon without charge orientation. They allow multiple protons to co-stabilise without mutually disrupting their readiness profiles. In relational terms, the neutron loosens the horizon tension, allowing larger nuclei to actualise.
4. Electrons: Peripheral Metabolism as Coordinating Readiness
Electrons, introduced earlier as archetypal metabolic stabilisers, now orient themselves to the nucleon horizon.
Unlike photons, electrons do not simply carry inclination; they maintain a persistent readiness-profile that can enter into structured exchange. Unlike quarks, they stabilise as individuals without needing complementarity. And unlike protons, they do not generate extensive horizon structures; they align themselves to existing ones.
Around a nucleon horizon, the electron’s metabolic orientation falls into discrete relational stabilities—not “energy levels” in a mechanistic sense, but stable patterns of perspectival consistency between:
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the electron’s internal orientation,
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the nucleon’s horizon constraints, and
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the ecological pathways mediating their interaction.
What atomic models call “shells” or “orbitals” are, in relational terms, formats of mutual readiness—the minimal cuts in which electron metabolisms and nucleon horizons maintain coherent co-orientation.
The atom, therefore, is not a composite object but a tripartite structure:
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A metabolic-horizon (nucleus),
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surrounded by stabilised metabolisms (electrons),
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coordinated through ecological pathways (photonic inclination).
This triad recurs at every scale of material evolution.
5. Atoms as Higher-Order Horizons
An atom projects a horizon much more stable and externally expressive than a bare proton. It is a second-order horizon—a horizon of horizons.
The nucleon horizon encodes constraints on internal metabolic exchange; the atomic horizon encodes constraints on inter-atomic coordination.
These external constraints—the atom’s “valency profile”—are not intrinsic features but patterns of outward-facing readiness:
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some configurations stabilise as closed horizons (noble-gas-like forms),
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others stabilise as open horizons seeking metabolic complementarity (reactive atoms),
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others manifest hybrid modes where partial openness is balanced by internal structure (transition metals).
The important relational principle is this:
As horizons stabilise, they reorient metabolisms. As metabolisms stabilise, they reshape horizons.
Material complexity emerges from the recursive alternation of these two moves.
6. Molecules: Inter-Horizon Metabolism
Molecules arise when atoms find compatible external readiness profiles such that:
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their horizons can interlock, and
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their metabolic orientations can align through shared ecological pathways.
Covalent Bonds
A covalent bond is not a “shared electron” but a shared metabolic horizon. Two (or more) atoms co-actualise a region where electron metabolisms stabilise between them rather than around just one. This produces a new relational structure: a collective horizon whose interior space contains oriented metabolisms belonging to the whole rather than the parts.
Ionic Bonds
An ionic bond emerges when asymmetric readiness profiles lead one atomic horizon to stabilise electron metabolism preferentially, leaving the other with a complementary horizon orientation. The bond is not a transfer of substance but a redistribution of horizon asymmetry, stabilised by ecological inclination across the pair.
Molecular Shape
Molecular geometry is the metabolic choreography of electron readiness under the constraints of a shared horizon. The angles and shapes are not spatial events but relational equilibria.
7. The Emergent Grammar of Material Becoming
From quarks to molecules, matter evolves through recursive coordination of the same three orientations:
Ecological transmission
Metabolic stabilisation
Horizon formation
Every new level of material articulation is produced by:
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metabolisms stabilising within horizons, and
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those stabilised forms projecting new horizons,
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which then scaffold further metabolic differentiation,
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coordinated by ecological pathways of inclination.
The universe, through this lens, is not a hierarchy of objects but a cascade of relational cuts, each shaping the next, each deepening the becoming of possibility.
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