It is commonly said that modern physics faces a crisis.
On one side stands general relativity, the geometric theory of gravitation developed by Albert Einstein. On the other stands quantum mechanics and its extension, quantum field theory—the probabilistic framework governing matter and radiation at small scales. Each is spectacularly successful in its own domain. Yet when one attempts to describe regimes where both are relevant—black holes, the early universe, Planck-scale phenomena—their formalisms refuse to cohere.
From this tension arises the now-canonical demand: we require a theory of quantum gravity. A unified framework. A deeper description of reality that reconciles the two.
But before accepting the necessity of this demand, we must ask a prior question:
Why must they be reconciled at all?
1. The Hidden Assumption: A Single Ontological Substrate
The standard narrative presupposes that both relativity and quantum theory describe the same underlying world—an observer-independent ontological substrate that exists prior to and independent of description.
If two theories describe one world, and if their descriptions conflict, then one (or both) must be incomplete. The logic appears irresistible.
But notice what is being assumed:
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That “the world” is a singular, fully determinate entity.
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That spacetime geometry and quantum states are features of this same ontological layer.
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That consistency across all scales is a metaphysical requirement.
The crisis emerges only if this ontology is granted in advance.
2. The Relational Reversal
Relational ontology begins elsewhere.
Under this lens, general relativity and quantum field theory are not rival descriptions of a common object. They are distinct construals of structured potential. Each actualises a different regime of relational coherence.
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General relativity construes gravitational phenomena in terms of continuous spacetime curvature.
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Quantum field theory construes interactions in terms of quantised excitations of fields.
The contradiction appears only when we collapse these construals into a single absolute frame and demand that they map onto the same ontological furniture.
But relationally, there is no such furniture.
There are only patterned possibilities actualised under particular cuts.
3. Incompatibility as Category Error
When infinities arise in attempts to quantise gravity, or when spacetime loses smoothness at quantum scales, these are typically read as signals that our theories are incomplete.
Relationally, they may instead indicate that we are forcing two distinct instance-regimes into a single, mis-specified perspective.
It is akin to demanding that the grammar of a language be directly reducible to its acoustic waveform, and declaring crisis when the mapping fails.
The failure is not empirical.
It is ontological.
4. The “Need” for Unification
The drive toward a “theory of everything” is therefore not a neutral scientific imperative. It is the consequence of an ontological commitment:
that reality must be singular, fully integrated, and describable within one total framework.
But if phenomena are always already perspectival actualisations, then the task shifts.
We no longer seek a deeper object beneath relativity and quantum theory.
We seek a higher-order account of how different construals coordinate.
Unification becomes meta-theoretical rather than ontological.
The question is no longer:
What is the underlying thing both theories describe?
It becomes:
How are these different relational cuts systematically related?
5. Toward Relational Coordination
This does not trivialise the technical difficulties of quantum gravity research.
It reframes them.
A relational account would instead investigate:
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the constraints that stabilise relativistic coherence,
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the constraints that stabilise quantum coherence,
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and the conditions under which these constraints intersect or fail to coordinate.
The project becomes one of mapping perspectival compatibility — not excavating a metaphysical substrate.
Closing Provocation
Perhaps the “quantum–relativity problem” is not a problem in physics at all.
Perhaps it is the final reflex of a representational ontology that cannot tolerate plurality in its own descriptions.
If so, the path forward is not a new equation.
It is an ontological reorientation.
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