The usual story runs like this:
-
General relativity governs the large.
-
Quantum mechanics governs the small.
-
Therefore, at sufficiently extreme scales — the very large and very small simultaneously — the two must be unified.
This seems obvious. Natural. Almost trivial.
But this narrative smuggles in a decisive assumption:
that scale is an ontological ladder along which reality is arranged.
Let us examine that assumption.
1. The Ontology of “Small” and “Large”
When physicists say quantum mechanics applies at small scales and general relativity at large ones, they are not merely describing measurement ranges.
They are implying that reality itself is stratified by size.
That there exists:
-
a microscopic layer of particles or fields,
-
a macroscopic layer of spacetime geometry,
-
and a continuous ontological hierarchy connecting them.
But this hierarchy is never observed as such.
It is inferred from theoretical extrapolation.
The claim that “quantum effects dominate at small scales” already presupposes that the “small scale” exists as a domain of being prior to the construal.
Relationally, this is backwards.
2. Scale as Construal Constraint
Scale is not an ontological depth.
It is a constraint on construal.
When we describe a phenomenon as “microscopic,” we are not accessing a deeper layer of reality. We are adopting a particular operational cut — one that stabilises certain regularities and renders others negligible.
Likewise, “macroscopic” descriptions are not higher ontological tiers. They are different stabilisations of patterned possibility.
From this perspective:
-
Quantum field theory is not the description of “what reality is made of.”
-
General relativity is not the description of “what reality becomes when aggregated.”
They are distinct regimes of relational coherence, actualised under different constraints.
The small does not underlie the large.
The large does not emerge from the small.
Both are perspectival.
3. The Myth of Ontological Reduction
The belief that smaller scales are more fundamental is an inheritance from mechanistic ontology.
It is the intuition that:
to understand something, we must break it into smaller parts.
But “part” is already a relational category. It presupposes a whole relative to which something counts as a part.
There is no absolute decomposition.
Every division is a cut.
Neither cut reveals the “true layer.”
Each stabilises a different pattern of possibility.
4. Where the Crisis Appears
The crisis of quantum gravity is typically located at the Planck scale — where gravitational curvature becomes significant at quantum dimensions.
But notice what this means.
It assumes that:
-
scale is a continuous ontological parameter,
-
quantum and gravitational descriptions occupy different regions of that parameter,
-
and at some boundary they must overlap.
The overlap is treated as a collision between ontological domains.
Relationally, however, there are no domains.
There are only different regimes of actualisation.
The “incompatibility” signals not ontological breakdown, but perspectival interference.
5. Coordination Without Depth
If scale is construal-relative rather than ontologically stratified, then the demand for unification changes form.
We no longer ask:
What is the deeper layer beneath both relativity and quantum mechanics?
We ask:
Under what constraints do these two modes of stabilising patterned possibility cease to coordinate?
The task becomes mapping the limits of relational coherence.
Not digging downward.
6. A More Radical Possibility
What if there is no single scale at which “everything becomes one”?
What if the dream of quantum gravity is the last echo of a depth ontology — the belief that reality must converge at some foundational level?
General relativity and quantum field theory are not stacked vertically.
They are aligned laterally.
Closing Tension
If scale is perspectival, then the phrase “unifying the very small and the very large” is already a metaphysical overreach.
The real question is no longer:
What happens when we shrink spacetime to quantum size?
But:
What happens when two incompatible stabilisations of relational coherence are forced into the same construal?
That question is subtler.
And far more dangerous.
No comments:
Post a Comment