Where Meaning Ends: Black Holes and the Edges of Instantiation

In the relational model of space and time, black holes do not merely warp geometry; they deform the very conditions under which meaning is instantiated. Within this framework, what matters is not a universal spacetime manifold but the relation between a meaning maker and the gravitational field in which they are embedded. Time unfolds as a dimension of process; space unfolds as a relation of presence. And at the heart of a black hole, both relations break down—not absolutely, but relative to the meaning maker themselves.

This has profound implications for how we understand singularities, event horizons, and even the so-called “information paradox.”

First, consider the singularity. Traditional physics treats it as a physical point of infinite density. But in our model, it is better understood as a collapse of spatial intervals so severe that no process can unfold—no action can be taken, no relation construed. It becomes uninstantiable potential. Nothing can mean anything there because nothing can happen there. And if no meaning maker can exist or observe or imagine it, then it is not a place at all. It is the limit of instantiation—a hole not only in space, but in experience. If the universe says “Here be dragons,” the singularity is that phrase written in braille and cast into the abyss, unreadable by any hand.

Second, the event horizon is no longer just a threshold beyond which light cannot escape—it becomes a boundary condition for meaning itself. Outside the event horizon, a distant observer can still relate to the falling object, even if their observations are redshifted into eternity. But once the horizon is crossed, the relation breaks. Not in principle, but in fact: no signals escape, no interaction is possible, no meaning can be made between inside and outside. It is a relational boundary beyond which worlds no longer touch.

This opens a provocative possibility: are there subjective event horizons of other kinds? Limits not imposed by physics, but by perspective—worldviews, ideologies, traumas, faiths. Perhaps each of us carries a little horizon beyond which alternative construals can’t be instantiated. If so, then crossing it—willingly or not—might feel like being pulled into a singularity of the self: a collapse of coherence, or perhaps, a rebirth on the other side.

Finally, consider the meaning maker themselves, falling in. They don’t simply descend—they take their world with them. Their system of construal—their way of carving up the potential of the universe into actual instances—continues all the way down. As space contracts in the direction of the singularity, they don’t merely observe the end of the universe; they construe one last instantiation of it, collapsing a unique slice of meaning from the potential still available. In this view, even the fall into a black hole is a kind of final authorship—a last act of poetic physics.

Together, these ideas dissolve the usual paradoxes surrounding black holes. The information paradox, for instance, presumes a universal, observer-independent “ledger” of what exists. But if meaning is only instantiated in relation to meaning makers, then information doesn’t “leak” or “escape”—it either is instantiated, or it is not. Once the meaning maker is lost to the singularity, their world vanishes with them. Not deleted, not stored—just uninstantiable.

The metaphysical mischief of black holes lies in this: they force us to ask what it means for something to exist when nothing can mean it.