Constraint, Construal, and Actualisation: A Relational Ontology — Chapter 6: Why Transmission Fails

6.1 Revisiting the Transmission Model

Recall from Chapter 5:

• Classical causation assumes entities carry intrinsic properties.

• Properties are transmitted between entities through external interactions.

• Time serves as a container that orders these transfers.

Transmission relies entirely on independence. Without independent entities, there can be:

1. No sources of properties

2. No sinks for properties

3. No external framework to mediate interactions

This is the vulnerability we now exploit.

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6.2 External Relations Collapse

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6.3 Collapse Without Container-Time

Transmission also presumes a pre-existing temporal framework:

• Events occur in a neutral temporal order

• Cause precedes effect independently of the entities involved

Without independence:

• Temporal sequence cannot be defined externally

• There is no “before” and “after” outside the relational structure of entities

• Causation as transfer is therefore conceptually empty

The classical arrow of time is thus a projection dependent on the very concept that has been structurally nullified.

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6.4 The Requirement of Determinate Relata

Transmission presumes well-defined relata:

• To transmit a property, the source and target must be determinate and individuated

• Each must retain identity during the transfer

But from Chapters 3–4:

• Independence cannot be specified

• Entities cannot exist with determinate intrinsic properties

• Relata for transfer are therefore non-existent in principle

Every “classical cause” now has no ground on which to act or be acted upon.

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6.5 Formal Statement of Failure

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6.6 Consequences for Classical Mechanics

This collapse touches every layer of classical physics:

• Newtonian forces: no independent masses to act upon

• Electromagnetic fields: no self-contained sources or receivers

• Conservation laws: rely on entities with independent properties

All are exposed as dependent on the incoherent assumption of independence.

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6.7 The Conceptual Pivot

At this stage, the reader must recognise:

• The classical picture of reality — objects, properties, forces, transmission — is untenable.

• Every familiar notion of causation presupposes independence, which is incoherent.

• The familiar world is a structural projection, not an ontologically guaranteed substrate.

Chapter 7 will now pivot toward physics, where these ideas are demonstrated with actual formal structures: quantum contextuality, forces, and spacetime, showing that the incoherence of independence is not just philosophical, but directly reflected in the physics we observe.

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6.8 Tight Summary

1. Transmission presumes independent entities, determinate properties, and external relations.

2. All three presuppositions fail structurally once independence is incoherent.

3. Classical causation cannot occur, even conceptually.

4. The collapse of transmission sets the stage for a relational reconstruction of causation and the world.