Temporal Entanglements: Rethinking Simultaneity Through Process Instantiation

In conventional physics, simultaneity is famously slippery. Einstein’s special relativity taught us that two events judged simultaneous in one frame of reference may not be so in another. The concept of a universal "now" was displaced by a plurality of observer-dependent timelines. Time became local. But what if the slipperiness of simultaneity is not just an issue of measurement or frame of reference—but of instantiation itself?

In the relational model we’ve been developing, time is not an absolute backdrop, nor a container through which events flow. It is the dimension along which processes unfold, and it only comes into being through instantiation. Time is not the river—it is the act of flowing.

So what, then, is simultaneity? It is not a matter of when things happen in some universal chronology. It is a matter of when processes are instantiated relative to one another. It is not the coordination of timestamps, but the coordination of unfolding.

This model casts new light on phenomena like quantum entanglement. When two particles are entangled, a measurement on one instantly affects the other—no matter how far apart they are in space. In the traditional framework, this seems to imply some kind of non-local signal, or even a violation of relativity. But from the standpoint of process instantiation, there is no mystery. There is no need for a signal to travel between entangled particles. Instead, the observed measurement instantiates a relational constraint that already governs how the pair may instantiate further meaning. The seeming simultaneity of the effect is not a signal moving through spacetime, but a single, coordinated unfolding across a shared relational field.

This allows us to see simultaneity not as a synchrony of clocks, but as the coherence of meaning. Two events are simultaneous when they are interdependent instances of a single meaning potential being realised—when their instantiation is entangled not just in their outcomes, but in the very logic of their emergence.

Even in the relativistic domain, this has resonance. The relativity of simultaneity in Einstein’s theory does not deny that things co-occur. It simply denies that there is an observer-independent order of occurrence. The relational model accepts this, and adds: the unfolding of a process is always already situated in a network of instantiations. Time is not global, but local to the process—and processes are always relational.

This has implications not just for physics but for how we think about cognition, language, and consciousness. Consider the human experience of "now": it is not a dimensionless point on a timeline, but an active construal of multiple processes as presently unfolding. Our sense of simultaneity is not built from synchronised clocks, but from the coherence of meaning across sensory, bodily, and imaginative modalities.

In this view, simultaneity is not a datum but an achievement—a harmony of instantiations drawn from a shared potential. And like all harmonies, it does not occur in space or time, but through them.

Closing Reflection

In rethinking simultaneity through process instantiation, we exchange the metaphors of coordination and signal for those of resonance and unfolding. The strange synchrony of entangled particles no longer requires spooky action at a distance—only a coherent actualisation of meaning across relational constraints. Simultaneity is not a fixed moment shared across perspectives, but the mutual flowering of potential into being. The moment is not one; it is shared.