Rethinking Gravity and Space-Time: A Relational Framework

The Reconception of Space-Time as Relational

The conventional interpretation of general relativity treats space-time as a fabric that can bend and stretch in response to mass and energy. However, if space and time are merely relations between instances—rather than a pre-existing background—then our understanding of relativity requires a fundamental overhaul. Instead of warping a fabric, gravitational effects become constraints on how meaning-instances can instantiate. This reconception resolves deep paradoxes and suggests a more unified framework encompassing both relativity and quantum mechanics.

Key Consequences of the Relational Framework

1. The Problem of Singularities Disappears

In standard relativity, singularities represent points where space-time curvature becomes infinite, creating breakdowns in the theory. However, in a relational model, singularities are not actual things but rather the limits of possible instantiations. A black hole singularity is not a point of infinite density but a region where relational constraints prevent further instantiations from an external perspective. This eliminates the need for “infinities” in physics and offers a conceptual resolution to the singularity problem.

2. Quantum Superposition and General Relativity Can Coexist

One of the deepest conflicts in physics is the apparent incompatibility between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Quantum mechanics describes reality in terms of probabilities and superpositions, while relativity describes a deterministic space-time continuum. But if space-time is not a fabric but a relational structure, this contradiction dissolves. Quantum mechanics describes how potential meaning-instances unfold probabilistically, while relativity describes how those instances are constrained by mass-energy relations. The two are not in conflict but represent different levels of relational constraint.

3. Gravity as a Probability Constraint

If space-time is not a fabric but a relational construct, then gravity is not a force that “warps” space-time but rather a constraint on how potential meaning-instances can instantiate. The stronger the gravitational field, the more constrained the instantiation of space and time relations becomes. This naturally accounts for time dilation and length contraction, which are not distortions of a pre-existing metric but adjustments in the unfolding of relational instances under gravitational influence.

4. No Need for a Background Space in Quantum Gravity

A major problem in current quantum gravity theories is whether space-time itself should be quantised. However, if space-time is fundamentally relational, then it does not exist as a quantisable entity. Instead, what appears as “quantised space-time” is simply the way relational instances instantiate under extreme constraints. Quantum fluctuations are not fluctuations of a physical space-time fabric but rather shifts in the probabilistic constraints governing relational actualisation.

5. The Observer’s Role in Relativity

Quantum mechanics makes the observer fundamental—wavefunctions collapse upon measurement. But in this relational model, observation plays a similar role in relativity. The act of measurement is not passive but actively determines which relational instances can instantiate. Time dilation, length contraction, and gravitational effects are not pre-existing distortions but are observer-dependent constraints on relational potential. This suggests that relativity, like quantum mechanics, is not independent of observation but deeply intertwined with it.

Towards a Unified Relational Physics

This framework has profound implications. It eliminates singularities, dissolves the contradiction between quantum mechanics and relativity, and provides a new way of understanding gravity as a constraint rather than a force. More than that, it reshapes our understanding of space and time themselves—not as fundamental entities but as emergent relations constrained by meaning-instances.

If physics has long struggled to unify relativity and quantum mechanics, this reconception may offer a way forward—not by quantising space-time, but by abandoning the notion that space-time ever existed as a thing to be quantised in the first place.