Energy is often treated as the ultimate invariant in physics — a kind of metaphysical currency that underwrites every process. It appears in myriad forms: kinetic, potential, thermal, chemical, quantum. And yet despite its centrality, energy is notoriously hard to define outside of mathematical formalism.
In classical mechanics, energy is what allows objects to do work. In quantum theory, it’s the eigenvalue of the Hamiltonian. In thermodynamics, it’s the capacity to change the state of a system.
But across these paradigms, a common assumption holds: energy is a property possessed by things. In a relational ontology, this assumption collapses.
1. No Substance, No Store
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Traditional accounts treat energy as something stored, transferred, or transformed,
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These metaphors depend on entity-based thinking — energy is in the spring, in the particle, in the field,
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But if there are no self-contained entities, then there is no container to store anything.
From a relational standpoint:
Energy is not a thing. It is a measure of systemic tension across a constrained field.
It indexes how the system is poised to transform, not what it possesses.
2. Energy as Degree of Disequilibrium
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Systems in equilibrium exhibit minimal energetic behaviour,
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Energetic states correspond to degrees of internal tension — gradients in the structure of the field,
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The higher the energy, the greater the pressure to reconfigure.
Thus:
Energy quantifies the system’s deviation from coherence — a measure of potential transformation.
Not an object’s property, but the field’s configuration.
3. Kinetic and Potential Energy Reframed
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In classical physics:
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Kinetic energy is associated with motion,
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Potential energy with position in a force field,
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In relational terms:
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Kinetic energy becomes the intensity of coherence change across the system,
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Potential energy becomes the readiness of a constrained configuration to transform.
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There is no distinction between them beyond the pattern of relational tension.
4. Conservation Without Substances
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Energy conservation is a foundational principle — total energy is constant in a closed system,
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But what is being conserved, if not a thing?
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In relational terms:
Conservation reflects the continuity of constraint — not the persistence of substance, but the coherence of transformation.
It is not that “energy remains the same”, but that the system evolves without violating its internal structure.
5. Quantum Energy: Frequency as Constraint
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In quantum mechanics, energy is quantised: each system has discrete energy levels,
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These levels correspond to modes of coherence that the system can sustain under given constraints,
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Energy, in this sense, indexes how tightly structured the system’s potential is — how constrained the field is to particular transformations.
The higher the energy, the more densely configured the system’s potential pathways.
Relational Definition
We might say:
Energy is a scalar measure of systemic tension within a field of relational potential — a reflection of how strongly the system is structured toward transformation.
It is not a fluid, not a force, not a thing — but a symptom of constraint.
Closing
When we strip energy of its object-based metaphors, it begins to look less like a cosmic fuel and more like a shadow cast by the system’s internal tensions. Energy doesn’t cause change; it is change — quantified in its possibility.
To reimagine reality is to let go of conserved substances and embrace a world in which only fields of relation transform — tension to tension, coherence to coherence.
In the next post, we’ll take up mass — long assumed to be the root of inertia and gravity — and ask what it becomes when not treated as a property of a particle, but a relational intensity of constraint.
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