Characters:
Professor Quillibrace – dry, subtly humorous, master of relational architecture.
Mr Blottisham – confident, impatient, prone to oversimplification.
Miss Elowen Stray – curious, reflective, attuned to nuance.
Setting: A sunlit study with books lining the walls. Tea steams in delicate china cups. The topic of conversation: When Possibility Ends and the block universe.
Professor Quillibrace: “Gentlefolk, we confront today the curious notion of the block universe. It is, superficially, an admirable economy: all events, past, present, and future, equally real. The universe declared complete, as if it had finished its accounting.”
Mr Blottisham: “Accounting? I call it self-evident. The equations dictate all times exist; therefore, they exist. Simple enough.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “But Mr Blottisham, can we truly equate a tenseless equation with existence itself? Aren’t we at risk of mistaking a representation for ontology?”
Mr Blottisham: “Pah. The manifold is the universe. What more proof does one need? If the math says it’s there, it’s there.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Ah, but therein lies the subtle mischief. The manifold is a map, not the territory itself. To declare that all structural points exhaust actuality is to ignore the indispensable work of instantiation — the perspectival cuts that make an event real.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “So, the series’ insistence on ‘keeping possibility open’ refers precisely to this: that actuality requires perspective, that it is never automatic?”
Professor Quillibrace: “Indeed. The block universe attempts to purchase actuality wholesale, yet refuses to pay the cost of perspective. A universe of deferred payment, you might say, rich in structure but empty in being.”
Mr Blottisham: “Perspective, cuts, deferred payment… I am loath to spend much time parsing metaphors. The world does not concern itself with our divisions; it simply is.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “And yet, Mr Blottisham, the difference between what could be and what is depends on those divisions. Without them, possibility collapses into a sterile diagram.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Exactly. Consider instantiation not as a temporal process, but as a perspectival achievement. Each cut through the manifold enacts the actuality of a specific event. Absent the cut, nothing occurs, no phenomenon emerges, no physics is intelligible. The block universe denies this, treating all events as pre-actualised.”
Mr Blottisham: “A fine verbal flourish, Professor. But does relativity not compel this view? With no universal ‘now’, all times must exist equally.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Relativity de-privileges frames; it does not abolish perspective. No cut exhausts reality, true, but that is not an invitation to pretend that a God’s-eye totality exists. The equivocation is subtle: it is one thing to say no perspective is privileged, another entirely to claim that reality is therefore frame-independent in a way that erases actualisation.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “In other words, relativity enforces perspectival discipline rather than license global completion. The block universe confuses the absence of privilege with the absence of perspective.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Precisely. The manifold becomes a surrogate observer: an abstraction that ‘sees all’ without being anywhere. A view from nowhere, masquerading as a total ontology.”
Mr Blottisham: “I confess, this seems to demand more subtlety than I anticipated. Are we then to embrace a universe that refuses completeness?”
Miss Elowen Stray: “Yes. Possibility is never exhausted. Instantiation occurs locally, perspectivally, within cuts. Relativity is not opposed to becoming; it simply denies us the comfort of a single totalising perspective.”
Professor Quillibrace: “And that, dear friends, is the moral of ‘When Possibility Ends’. Becoming is not an add-on to physics, but a condition for events to be actual at all. Perspective is the price we must pay. Structure alone, however elegant, is insufficient.”
Mr Blottisham: (grumbling) “Very well. I shall ponder… but I reserve my right to grumble at this philosophical economy.”
Miss Elowen Stray: (smiling) “And I shall watch, with curiosity, how the economy of possibility continues to unfold.”
Professor Quillibrace: “As one should. For the work of keeping possibility open is never complete, nor ever comfortably finished.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Let us proceed through the series more systematically. Post One diagnoses the block universe: lawful structures misrepresented as completed totalities. The manifold is treated as reality itself rather than a theory of possible events.”
Mr Blottisham: “I follow that. Structures versus reality. But is it not just hair-splitting?”
Miss Elowen Stray: “Not at all. That distinction is precisely where actuality is separated from potential. Without it, everything collapses into pre-determined being, leaving no room for genuine events.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Exactly. Post Two then identifies the hidden cost the block universe refuses to pay: perspective. Instantiation is the act that makes an event actual; ignoring it leaves the manifold populated with points, but devoid of phenomena. Actuality is earned through cuts, not simply assigned.”
Mr Blottisham: “Ah. So the universe is not complete because actuality requires a specific enactment, a cut, a perspective.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “Correct. And Post Three applies this to relativity itself, showing that denying privileged frames does not equate to a God’s-eye view. Perspective is not eliminated; only its false totalisation is.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Relativity thus demands we respect perspectival multiplicity. The block universe ignores that lesson, claiming completion where only structure exists.”
Mr Blottisham: “I must admit, that frames it neatly. The universe resists being fully captured — we cannot impose totality without violating its relational essence.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “And the coda extends this principle beyond physics: into logic, meaning, and agency. Systems do not exhaust their possible instances; structure is never reality, potential is never exhausted, and instantiation remains the irreplaceable condition of actuality.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Precisely. Whether we examine Gödel’s incompleteness, relational ontology, or meaning-making, the principle is uniform: do not mistake the map for the territory, nor the potential for the actual.”
Mr Blottisham: “I shall grumble, of course. But I concede that there is more here than mere mathematics. There is a lesson about what it takes for anything to be.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “And that, perhaps, is the enduring value of this series: it transforms a formal physics debate into a meditation on actuality itself, reminding us that the work of keeping possibility open is never finished.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Exactly, Miss Stray. A universe rich in potential, disciplined by perspective, and refusing totality — that is the only ontology faithful to both physics and the becoming of possibility.”
Mr Blottisham: “I see it now, though I shall continue to grumble.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “And I shall continue to be intrigued, watching possibility unfold, cut by cut.”
Professor Quillibrace: “Then we are agreed, in principle, even if grudgingly, that the block universe is instructive not as ontology but as cautionary tale: the cost of ignoring perspective, the necessity of instantiation, and the irreducible openness of reality itself.”
Mr Blottisham: “Caution noted, Professor. For now, tea.”
Miss Elowen Stray: “And conversation.”
Professor Quillibrace: “And the ever-continuing work of possibility.”
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