Relativity Reimagined: A Relational Ontology of Special Relativity

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity shook the foundations of classical physics by revealing that space and time are not absolute, but relational. Yet in the century since, the dominant interpretation of relativity has paradoxically treated these relations as fixed within a new framework of spacetime—a geometric block universe where events are coordinates, and observers traverse their worldlines.

In this post, we revisit Special Relativity through a relational ontology shaped by the principles of instantiation, individuation, and symbolic becoming. We propose a model in which time and space are not the stage on which events unfold—they are dimensions of unfolding itself, actualised in relation.

From Substrates to Relations

Classically, space and time were assumed as absolute containers—Newton’s “absolute, true and mathematical time” and “absolute space” existed whether anything happened or not.

Einstein overthrew this idea. Observers in relative motion measure different distances and durations, yet the laws of physics remain invariant.

This is often interpreted as evidence for a four-dimensional spacetime manifold: a fixed structure in which all events exist timelessly.

But our model takes the shift one step further. What if space and time do not exist independently of events at all? What if they are dimensions of relation, not dimensions of being?

In the relational model, time is not what flows. Time is the dimension of the unfolding of processes.

Space is not a container of objects. Space is the dimension of the differentiating of states.

In this view, relativity does not require a fixed spacetime block—it reveals the relational actualisation of instances in experience.

Observation as Instantiation

Special Relativity hinges on measurement: how different observers, moving at different velocities, measure the same events.

In our framework, measurement is not passive observation but an act of construal. Measurement actualises an instance from potential. It brings into being a spacetime relation—not a pre-existing fact.

Thus, it is not the observer's motion that distorts a "real" time or length. Rather:

The relation between the measurement and the centre of mass (the gravitational field) determines the actualised structure of space and time for that instance.

Space and time are not distorted for the observer—they are instanced through the observer's measurement.

This distinction is subtle, but profound. It shifts the emphasis from the observer as a subject within space and time, to the meaner—the construal system through which space and time become meaningful.

Simultaneity as Relational Actuality

A cornerstone of relativity is the relativity of simultaneity: two events judged simultaneous in one frame may not be simultaneous in another.

This too finds a natural expression in our model:

• Simultaneity is not an ontological condition of the universe.

• It is a relational construal of process, actualised in each measurement instance.

Rather than imagining events lying frozen on a block, we imagine simultaneity as a pattern that emerges through particular interactions between construal systems.

In other words: simultaneity is not a pre-given property that becomes confused by relative motion. It is not given at all—it is made.

The Speed of Light as Constraint

In Special Relativity, the speed of light is invariant for all observers. Why? Because it is not merely a feature of light—it is a constraint on the possibility of relational instantiation.

It defines the outer boundary of what can be actualised as shared structure between construal systems.

It is not just a speed limit. It is a symbolic limit on how relations can cohere across systems in motion.

Thus, what physics encodes as invariants and transformations, our model reads as the symbolic architecture of relational becoming.

The Cosmos in Dialogue

In sum, Special Relativity reimagined becomes not the cold geometry of a block universe, but a symbolic choreography of actualised relations.

• Space and time are not the stage, but the grammar.

• Simultaneity is not lost—it is composed anew in every act of meaning.

• Measurement is not the discovery of the world—it is the world becoming actual through relational construal.

We do not merely measure the world—we are the interface through which it becomes measurable. The cosmos, unfolding, finds a local coherence in each instance of construal.

We are not passive witnesses to space and time.

We are the way space and time become meaningful.