“Cause is never a line; it is a lattice.”
Everyday realism treats causality as linear and intrinsic. One thing causes another; effects propagate from self-contained sources through empty space. Relation is secondary — a conduit, not a principle.
Relational ontology reveals that this picture cannot hold. If relation is fundamental, causality cannot be intrinsic. Cause and effect emerge as patterns of relational co-actualisation, not as pre-existing links between autonomous entities.
1. Causality as Patterned Co-Actualisation
Events do not occur because isolated objects collide or transmit force. They occur because relational networks structure possibilities:
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A tree falls because gravity, the ground, the trunk’s structure, and the surrounding environment converge relationally.
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A conversation arises because speakers, language, social norms, and context co-actualise communicative possibilities.
Causality is not a single-direction arrow. It is a lattice of co-activated relational constraints.
2. Necessity and Contingency Reframed
Relational primacy transforms traditional metaphysical categories:
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Necessity is not intrinsic to a “thing.” It is the inevitability of relational patterning under given constraints.
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Contingency is not arbitrary freedom. It is the potential for alternative relational actualisations.
Causality becomes structured possibility actualised, rather than a mechanistic chain.
3. Surplus and Novelty as Drivers
Novelty, which everyday realism struggles to accommodate, finds its place naturally:
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Surplus is relational potential that has not yet been actualised.
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Emergence is the unfolding of patterns that could exist but are not yet stabilised.
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Causality is inseparable from this interplay: it is the activation of constraints and possibilities that yields effect.
In other words, what “happens” is always relationally conditioned, but never exhaustively determined.
4. The Relational Turn
Once relation is fundamental:
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Objects, identity, and causality are all effects of relational fields.
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Linear chains of cause-and-effect are replaced by patterned networks of co-actualisation.
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Predictive, mechanistic models become approximations of relational dynamics, not mirrors of a fixed, independent reality.
Causality, like objects and identity, is emergent. Its apparent necessity is the visible trace of deeper relational consistency.
Aphorism:“Nothing acts alone. Cause and effect are patterns, not possessions.”
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