1. Space and Time as Instantiable Relations

Relativity Reconsidered—An SFL-Informed Ontology of Space and Time

Post 1: Space and Time as Instantiable Relations

In the dominant interpretation of Einstein’s theories of relativity, space and time are usually taken as objective, observer-independent dimensions of a four-dimensional manifold. Events are located in this manifold with fixed coordinates, and physical laws govern how they unfold within it. But this view rests on metaphysical assumptions that are seldom questioned—assumptions that have more to do with inherited philosophical habits than with what relativity itself requires.

In this post, I want to begin rethinking space and time from the ground up—starting not with a background container into which events are placed, but with a semiotic ontology informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). From this perspective, space and time are not pre-given dimensions; they are relations between instances. They are not waiting to be filled by events; they emerge as actualised dimensions of experience through acts of meaning.

Beyond the Manifold: From Background Container to Relational Dimension

Traditional metaphysics treats space and time as absolute or relativised containers—either as fixed frameworks (as in Newtonian physics) or as malleable geometric structures (as in general relativity). But either way, they are assumed to exist independently of the instances they contain.

In contrast, the ontology I’m proposing takes instances as primary. An instance, in this context, is not merely an event or a particle, but a semiotically actualised relation. There is no background framework for space or time that exists apart from these relations. Rather:

Space is the dimension of relations between co-present instances.

Time is the dimension of relations between successive instances in a process.

This is a fundamentally different starting point. Rather than positing a container and populating it with instances, we begin with relations of co-presence and succession, and only then derive the semiotic constructs we call “space” and “time.”

Time as the Dimension of Processual Unfolding

In physics, time is often modelled as a variable—$t$—which parametrises change. But this abstracts time from its lived, material unfolding. From an SFL-informed perspective, we can treat time as the dimension along which meaning unfolds—just as a clause unfolds in a text, or a musical phrase unfolds in performance.

This is not metaphor. It is a commitment to a different metaphysical grammar. A process is not something that happens in time; rather, time is the dimension of the unfolding of process. A process instantiates its own temporal order. The flow of time is not something we are in; it is something we enact in the actualisation of experience.

This reconstrual aligns with relativity’s emphasis on the relativity of simultaneity and the interdependence of space and time—but it challenges the idea that these relations must be grounded in an independent four-dimensional continuum. Instead, the relational structure of space and time is grounded in the semiotic processes that actualise them.

Space as Relational Co-Presence

Similarly, space is not a pre-existing set of coordinates. It is the construal of relation between co-actualised instances. When we say that two entities are “in the same place,” we are not describing a location that exists apart from them; we are describing a relation of spatial co-instantiation.

This idea is closer than it might seem to some formulations in relativity—such as the idea that spatial intervals are observer-dependent. But rather than anchoring these variations in geometry, we anchor them in meaning: what counts as “here” and “there” depends on the semiotic structure of the instance, and on its relation to the systems in which it is actualised.

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What This Changes

This reconstrual leads us to rethink some of the fundamental premises of relativity, without undermining its mathematical formulation. The equations stay the same—but what they mean shifts dramatically:

• Space and time are not dimensions of a background reality; they are instantiable relations between phenomena.

• Simultaneity is not an illusion; it is a relation of co-instantiation, meaningful within a given semiotic field.

• Temporal succession is not embedded in a fourth dimension; it is enacted in the actualisation of processes.

This metaphysical shift may help resolve some of the conceptual tensions between relativity and quantum mechanics—tensions that are not necessarily problems of physics, but of metaphysics.

In the next post, we will turn to the question of gravity. Can we make sense of gravitational effects—such as time dilation—without appealing to a curved spacetime? What happens if we construe gravity as a function of relational instantiation rather than geometric deformation?