Monday, 2 February 2026

Relational Cuts in Modern Physics: Preface

The following miniseries, “Relational Cuts in Modern Physics,” explores the subtle but decisive shifts in contemporary theoretical practice. It traces a trajectory from theories that generate possible instances without phenomena, through the disciplined exception of quantum mechanics, to the rise of mathematics as surrogate intuition and the eventual disappearance of the perspectival cut that links theory to actuality.

This series is written from the perspective of relational ontology, a framework that distinguishes clearly between:

  • Systems: structured spaces of potential.

  • Possible instances: configurations articulated within those spaces.

  • Phenomena: first-order meaning, actualised through a perspectival cut.

By attending to these distinctions, the series illuminates how modern physics sometimes moves seamlessly from mathematical possibility to implicit claims about existence, and how this drift can be disciplined without curtailing theoretical ambition.

Each post builds on the previous, gradually revealing the conceptual architecture that allows us to navigate the frontier between possibility and actuality. The series is intended not as a critique of physics, but as a framework for thinking clearly about what it means for a theory to be ontologically responsible.

Readers are invited to move sequentially through the series, keeping in mind the central question that animates the discussion:

How can physics explore the frontier of possibility while remaining rigorously answerable to the phenomena that constitute reality?

The posts are:

  1. Theory Without Phenomena

  2. The Quantum Exception

  3. From Anomaly to Ontology

  4. Mathematics as Surrogate Intuition

  5. The Missing Cut

Together, they form a coherent investigation into the relational architecture of theoretical physics, offering a lens through which the distinction between potentiality and actuality, expectation and existence, may be carefully maintained.

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