The Weight of Substance: Why Physics Struggles with Ontology

As our series unfolds, a recurrent theme emerges: many paradoxes and conceptual dead-ends in physics stem not from faulty equations, but from ontological inertia—specifically, the deep entrenchment of substance metaphysics.

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1. What is Substance Metaphysics?

Substance metaphysics assumes:

• Reality consists of individuated entities (particles, fields, objects).

• These entities possess intrinsic properties and persist independently of relations.

• Change is something that happens to things, rather than within a relational matrix.

This worldview dominated classical mechanics and persists—often implicitly—within modern physics, even when equations no longer support it.

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2. Where It Breaks Down

Substance metaphysics becomes a liability when:

• Quantum mechanics undermines the separability and individuality of particles (e.g. entanglement, superposition).

• General relativity shows that spacetime itself is not a fixed backdrop but responds to mass–energy distribution.

• Quantum field theory introduces vacuums teeming with virtual particles—blurring the boundary between presence and absence.

• Cosmology confronts us with questions of origin where no pre-existing substance could anchor explanation.

In each case, the phenomena outpace the ontology.

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3. Why the Grip Is Hard to Break

• Substance metaphysics is cognitively intuitive: we experience the world as full of discrete things.

• It offers apparent clarity in modelling: clear boundaries, definite properties, deterministic laws.

• Many mathematical formalisms—especially in older theories—are constructed around the assumption of individuated systems evolving over time.

Even when physicists admit the limitations of this view, it often survives in interpretation and metaphor.

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4. Relational Ontology as Liberation

Letting go of substance metaphysics:

• Frees us to reframe phenomena not as entities behaving strangely, but as relational fields undergoing transformation.

• Dissolves artificial dualisms (wave/particle, local/nonlocal, object/field).

• Opens space for a unified understanding of emergence, coherence, and systemic change across scales and domains.

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Closing

The difficulty of unifying physics may lie not in the theories themselves but in the ontological scaffolding we’ve inherited. If we persist in asking “What is the particle doing?” or “Where is the object located?”, we may be blocking access to the deeper relational dynamics that structure reality.

In the next post, we will explore historical and philosophical precedents for relational thinking—from Leibniz to Whitehead—and how they anticipated some of the challenges modern physics now faces.