Following our discussion of c as an architectural constraint, we now examine time and space. In a relational ontology, neither is a container, a pre-existing axis, or a dimension within which phenomena occur. Instead, they are dual orderings that emerge from the same relational architecture.
Time as ordering of dependency
Time is commonly treated as a flow or a linear axis along which events occur. In relational terms, this is misleading. Time is not something that passes; it is the ordering of cuts by dependency.
Each cut actualises certain distinctions.
Some distinctions depend on the prior actualisation of others.
Time is thus the ordering that preserves coherent dependency between distinctions across perspectives.
Put differently, temporal ordering is emergent from the relational structure of the system: it tells us which cuts must precede others to maintain identity and coherence.
Time dilates or contracts not because it is elastic, but because the dependency structure is perceived differently from different perspectives.
Space as ordering of incompatibility
If time orders dependency, space orders mutual exclusivity.
Space measures which distinctions cannot be co-actualised simultaneously without generating conflict or incoherence.
Distance is not a metric in a container but a measure of resistance to simultaneous actualisation.
Phenomena that appear “far apart” are not distant in some absolute sense; they are relationally incompatible, and any co-actualisation must respect that incompatibility. Space is thus a relational metric: it is structural, not substantial.
The duality and the role of c
Time and space are dual projections of the same underlying constraint system:
Time orders what must come before what (dependency).
Space orders what cannot come together (incompatibility).
c fixes the ratio between them: it sets the maximum rate at which dependencies can be actualised without violating incompatibility constraints. In other words, c is the invariant that preserves coherence across the dual ordering of time and space.
Implications for relational ontology
Neither time nor space exist independently; both are features of relational constraint architectures.
Changes in temporal or spatial measures reflect altered perspectives on dependency and incompatibility, not absolute flows or distances.
The familiar spacetime metrics of physics are emergent codifications of these relational orderings, not fundamental entities.
In the next post, we will extend this framework to mass and energy, showing how they emerge as measures of resistance to reconstrual and intensity of potential actualisation within this relational scaffolding.
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