Rethinking Causality: From Chains of Events to Fields of Constraint

Causality has long been regarded as a cornerstone of both physical explanation and philosophical reasoning. In classical models, cause and effect are linked by temporal succession and mechanistic transmission—one event brings about another. But in a relational ontology, this linear model of causality no longer holds. Instead, causality becomes a feature of constraint within a dynamically unfolding field.

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1. Classical and Mechanistic Causality

In Newtonian and even many quantum frameworks, causality is framed as:

• A sequence of events, where one event (the cause) gives rise to another (the effect),

• A local interaction, mediated by forces or particles,

• A function of initial conditions and governing laws.

This picture supports a deterministic or probabilistic mapping from past to future, hinging on identifiable agents of change.

But it presupposes:

• Discrete entities with intrinsic properties,

• A background time to order events,

• An external observer who distinguishes causes from effects.

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2. Relational Ontology: Causality as Constraint Compatibility

Within a relational framework:

• There are no isolated “things” to act upon one another,

• What occurs is not caused by something, but emerges from a configuration of relations,

• Causality becomes the compatibility of actualisations across a field of potential.

“What causes what” is replaced by: what kinds of coherence can emerge under given constraints?

This shifts focus:

• From causal chains to relational topology,

• From temporal succession to coherence gradients,

• From objects doing things to fields resolving tensions.

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3. Causality Without Time

In systems where time is not fundamental (e.g. quantum gravity, pre-spacetime cosmology), causality must be redefined.

Relationally:

• Causality does not depend on temporal order, but on structured possibility—the way some configurations permit or exclude others.

• This is close to how constraint-based models work: outcomes are not caused by inputs, but emerge from compatibility conditions.

Think of musical harmony:

• A chord does not “cause” its resolution.

• Rather, the resolution is a patterned possibility within a structured space of relational tension.

Similarly, in relational physics:

• What unfolds is not driven, but allowed or favoured by the coherence of the system.

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4. Reframing Explanation

This leads to a new notion of scientific explanation:

• Not what caused this? but how does this fit into the dynamic of the system?

• Explanation becomes an account of relational tension and resolution, not a tracing of energetic or mechanistic links.

Causal responsibility is replaced by:

• Constraint propagation,

• Affordance networks,

• Systemic resonance.

Such explanations are common in biology, ecology, and social systems—and increasingly necessary in quantum foundations and complex systems theory.

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Closing

Causality, from a relational perspective, is not a linear linkage of events but an expression of how patterns of constraint shape possibility. To understand why something happens is not to ask what made it happen, but to trace how it coheres with the field of tensions, affordances, and potential transformations around it.

In the next post, we’ll explore how this reframing of causality informs our understanding of measurement in quantum mechanics: What is a “measurement” when there are no absolute properties and no external observers?