1. The lure of ultimate explanation
Humans have always sought reasons: why things happen, why patterns persist, why invariants hold. In physics, this habit often shows up as the question: why does the universe obey these laws? or why is c the speed it is?
Even after releasing substance metaphysics, and even after distinguishing constraints from commands, this habit quietly persists. The universe appears to demand explanation beyond the system itself.
2. The category error of ultimate reason
From a relational ontology perspective, asking why the universe must behave this way is a category error. It assumes that systems are agents with intentions, that invariants are edicts, and that phenomena occur for a reason independent of the cuts under which they are observed.
The mistake is to treat the system as if it exists outside of its own conditions of intelligibility.
3. Reasons as properties of construals
What we call reasons are really features of our construals, not properties of the universe itself. They are the ways phenomena are made intelligible, the articulations that relate multiple perspectives in a single coherent system.
Invariants, conservation laws, causal explanations — all are forms of structured potential actualised under particular cuts. They do not exist as ultimate explanations; they exist as the rules of engagement for coherent description.
4. Why the universe does not need reasons
The universe is intelligible only insofar as we can instantiate systems under shared constraints. There is no metaphysical overseer ensuring that it behaves; there is only co-individuation of phenomena across perspectives.
Once this is clear, it becomes unnecessary to ask “why” the universe obeys its own constraints: it does not. It simply is structured such that intelligibility is possible. Necessity emerges internally, not externally.
5. Consequences for physics and thought
Explanation is about relational articulation, not metaphysical causation.
Invariants are constraints of coherence, not law-enforcers.
Seeking ultimate reasons projects human intuitions onto systems that operate relationally.
Recognising this frees physics from the demand for metaphysical justification. It frees thought from the illusion that necessity requires enforcement. It frees the imagination to explore phenomena in terms of their structured potential rather than their alleged governance.
6. Closing cut
The universe does not need reasons.
We do not discover why it behaves; we discover how its behaviour can be described coherently across perspectives. That, and only that, is the achievement of physics and the limit of explanation.
Once we let go of the demand for ultimate why, what remains is both clearer and far more generative: a universe intelligible in relation, without metaphysical burden.
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