Having made persistence visible as the real problem, we can now dismantle one of the most stubborn intuitions in the history of physics: that rest and motion name fundamentally different states of the world.
They do not.
From a relational ontology, rest and uniform motion are the same mistake, repeated with different imagery.
The privilege of rest
Classical thought begins by privileging rest.
An object at rest is taken to be doing nothing, requiring no explanation. Motion, by contrast, demands a cause: something must have happened for the object to begin moving.
Even when later frameworks reject absolute rest, they rarely abandon the underlying grammar. Rest is replaced by inertial frames, but the idea of a default state survives.
Something, somewhere, is still treated as naturally at rest.
The equal privilege of motion
Modern physics prides itself on rejecting rest in favour of motion.
Uniform motion, not rest, is declared natural. Objects continue moving in straight lines unless acted upon.
But this merely inverts the privilege without questioning it.
Rest and uniform motion are now treated as equivalent — but only relative to a background frame that quietly does the real work. A straight line still has to be defined. A frame still has to be fixed. A geometry still has to be assumed.
The mistake remains intact.
What both positions assume
Whether rest or motion is privileged, both assume:
a background space in which positions or trajectories are defined,
a time in which states persist or change,
entities that occupy successive locations within that structure.
These assumptions are not innocent. They smuggle in containers, objects, and endurance — all of which have already been refused.
Once those supports are removed, neither rest nor motion survives as a basic category.
Persistence without states
From a relational perspective, there are no states to be at rest or in motion.
There are only successive cuts resolving compatibly.
A pattern persists when:
each new cut remains compatible with prior ones,
dependency orderings remain open,
incompatibility does not accumulate.
Calling such a pattern “rest” or “motion” adds imagery without explanation.
Why straight lines feel special
If rest and motion are both mistakes, why does straight-line motion feel so fundamental?
Because straightness is not geometric. It is relational.
A straight line is the phenomenal trace of minimal reconfiguration of constraint.
Where relational constraints are stable and symmetric:
re-cuts repeat without distortion,
no new incompatibilities are introduced,
coherence reproduces itself cheaply.
We later describe this as uniform motion, but nothing is actually moving.
Frames as retrospective conveniences
Reference frames do not ground motion. They summarise it.
A frame is a retrospective stabilisation of a successful pattern of re-cutting — a way of saying “things kept resolving like this for a while.”
Frames are not ontological scaffolding. They are bookkeeping devices.
Treating them as fundamental is what gives rest and motion their illusory solidity.
The collapse of opposition
Once background structures are removed, the opposition between rest and motion collapses.
Both are names for the same phenomenon:
persistence under stable relational constraint.
Neither deserves explanatory priority. Neither requires a cause.
What requires explanation is deviation — the emergence of asymmetry, gradient, or resistance in the architecture of re-actualisation.
Clearing the path forward
With rest and motion dissolved together, inertia can finally be approached positively.
Inertia will not be resistance to change, nor loyalty to a state.
It will be shown to be the economy of persistence — the tendency of coherence to reproduce itself where constraint is flat.
That task belongs to the next post.
Post 3 — Inertia as Minimal Re-Cutting Cost.
For now, the central claim stands:
Rest and motion are not opposites.They are the same mistake, made relative to different backgrounds.