Ontology in Action: Technology, Society, and the Physics of the Real

Physics does not merely describe the world—it shapes it. The ontological assumptions embedded in quantum mechanics and relativity have been silently translated into technologies, infrastructures, and institutions that define the conditions of modern life. In this post, we explore how the metaphysical commitments of physics—often implicit—have informed our tools, systems, and imaginaries, and how a relational ontology might open the door to more reflexive, sustainable, and humane alternatives.

---

1. Technologies as Ontological Realisations

Technologies are not neutral. They:

• Materialise conceptual frameworks, often drawn from dominant scientific models,

• Encode assumptions about space, time, causality, and agency,

• Serve as vectors of ontology, spreading implicit metaphysics into everyday life.

Examples:

• GPS relies on relativistic spacetime to synchronise clocks across Earth’s surface and orbit,

• Quantum encryption rests on nonlocal entanglement and indeterminacy,

• Classical computing is built on a binary logic of discrete states, echoing Newtonian atomism.

---

2. The Social Consequences of Physical Ontologies

Physics has underwritten more than machines:

• Industrial time discipline derives from Newtonian uniform time,

• Economic modelling often assumes linear, mechanistic causality,

• Military targeting systems draw on object-based tracking and prediction.

Such systems promote a worldview of:

• Discreteness over relation,

• Control over emergence,

• Prediction over participation.

This worldview reinforces institutional logics of extraction, surveillance, and rationalisation.

---

3. Relational Alternatives: Designing with Ontology in Mind

A relational ontology suggests different principles:

• Technologies as relational interfaces, not command systems,

• Systems designed for responsiveness, coherence, and distributed agency,

• Models that acknowledge context-dependence, uncertainty, and feedback.

This shift is not merely theoretical. It would affect:

• Urban planning (e.g. treating cities as metabolic systems, not machine grids),

• Data infrastructure (e.g. foregrounding context and consent in information flows),

• Scientific instruments (e.g. embracing entanglement and indeterminacy as generative rather than noisy).

---

4. Toward Ontological Reflexivity

A key task is to become reflexive about the ontologies we enact:

• Not simply applying physics but asking: what metaphysical commitments are we embedding in our systems?

• Moving from “can we build this?” to “what does this presuppose, and what does it reproduce?”

• Understanding reality not as a passive substrate but as a co-evolving relational field—technologies included.

---

Closing

The metaphysics of physics matter. They flow outward into technologies and institutions that shape how we live, think, and relate. Reimagining reality means reimagining not only the theories we teach and the equations we write—but the systems we build and the worlds they sustain.

In the next post, we will return to the ontological core of quantum theory, asking: what does it mean to say that potential is real?