Imagine a planet tracing its orbit around a star. In conventional language, we would say it follows a geodesic through curved spacetime. From a relational perspective, the story is different — and cleaner.
1. The System of Potential
The star and its mass-energy define a system of potential pathways. These potentials are relational: they constrain what sequences of events — the positions of the planet at each moment — are possible relative to the star and to the planet’s own prior motion.
At this stage, nothing is moving yet. There is no space bending, no river of spacetime. There is simply a structured set of possibilities — a map of what could be actualised.
2. The First Actualised Step
The planet takes its first step along the pathway. This event is an instance: an actualised point within the system of potential. It satisfies the constraints imposed by the star’s mass-energy.
Already, the pattern of the system begins to emerge: the planet’s instance informs the next potential step, subtly shaping the horizon of possibilities. Each actualisation is both constrained by prior potentials and constraining future ones.
3. Sub-Potentials and Local Shaping
Close to the star, the local constraints are stronger. The system has sub-potentials: regions where certain trajectories are more tightly constrained.
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Some paths are forbidden; others are more likely to be realised.
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These sub-potentials explain the familiar elliptical shape of orbits, the precession of perihelion, and the clustering of trajectories, without ever invoking curved spacetime.
The planet is navigating not a bent arena, but a relational landscape of potentialities.
4. The Horizon of Possibility
With each new position, the planet’s horizon of potential next events shifts:
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The horizon is the set of possible locations the planet could occupy next, given prior positions and constraints.
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It is relational, dynamic, and non-teleological.
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Phenomena like light deflection or orbital perturbations emerge naturally as features of evolving horizons: constraints shaping the pathways of multiple interacting instances.
Novelty is explicit, not mysterious. The orbit bends, the horizon adapts, but there is no container bending along with it.
5. Historical Accretion
Over time, the planet’s sequence of instances forms a recognisable orbit — the accumulated trace of relational actualisations.
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Each instance is intelligible only within the relational system defined by the star’s mass-energy and the history of previous positions.
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The familiar orbit is a second-order construal, a pattern across first-order instances, not a pre-existing curve in a substrate.
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No instance is privileged; the orbit emerges entirely through relational shaping.
6. Relational Gravity Without Curvature
Gravity, in this framing, is not a force pulling through space or curvature of a medium. It is the pattern of constraints on potential pathways:
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The planet moves along trajectories that satisfy the relational system.
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The apparent “force” and “curvature” are shorthand for how potential is structured and instances are actualised.
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Subtle phenomena — precession, lensing, tidal effects — are all consequences of relational shaping over sequences of events.
7. The Relational Summary
From start to finish:
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Potential: the system of pathways constrained by mass-energy.
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Instance: each realised position of the planet along the orbit.
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Sub-potential: local constraints that tighten the space of possible trajectories.
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Horizon: the evolving set of potential next positions, informed by past instances.
The planet’s orbit is fully intelligible as the emergent pattern of actualised events, shaped by relational potential. Nothing bends, nothing curves — the system is entirely relational.
Epilogue: Continuity Across Ontologies
Just as the wavefunction and the two-slit experiment illustrate relational potential and instance in quantum mechanics, the planet’s orbit illustrates the same principles in general relativity.
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Systems constrain potential.
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Instances actualise pathways.
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Patterns emerge relationally, historically, and perspectivally.
Curvature, geodesics, or gravitational fields are shorthand for relational patterns, not ontological substances. The story of the planet is the story of relational potential unfolding through instance, horizon, and sub-potential — a narrative that unites quantum and gravitational phenomena under the same ontological lens.
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