The concept of a particle is one of the most persistent — and problematic — notions in quantum theory.
In everyday language, a particle is a thing: a small, bounded, persistent object that moves through space and endures through time. This intuitive picture survives in many scientific metaphors, despite being at odds with the behaviour of so-called quantum particles.
From a relational standpoint, the very idea of a “particle” as a substance is already a misstep. It presupposes the ontology of entities and properties that the relational view replaces with fields and coherence.
So if there are no little things flying through space, what is a particle?
1. From Substance to Event
Relational ontology begins not with enduring substances but with actualisations of potential under constraint.
In this view, a “particle” is not a persistent object, but a localised event — a temporary coherence in a wider field of relation.
A particle is not what is there, but what happens under the right conditions.
The same relational field can give rise to many such events, none of which are ontologically separable from the conditions that afford them.
2. Emergence Through Constraint
What we call a particle arises when:
-
Certain affordances align within a relational field,
-
A localised pattern of coherence is momentarily stabilised,
-
That pattern resists dispersion long enough to participate in interactions.
Such events are highly constrained and recurrent — and so appear to us as if they were things.
But their apparent discreteness is a function of our perspective, not a feature of an underlying substrate.
3. The Myth of Intrinsic Identity
In classical metaphysics, particles are individuals — distinguishable, persisting, property-bearing things.
In quantum mechanics, however:
-
Indistinguishability is the norm — particles lack individual identity;
-
Entanglement undermines the notion of separable existence;
-
Measurement outcomes do not reflect pre-existing states, but perspectival cuts in the system.
From a relational perspective, identity is not a property a particle has, but a construal imposed by a system of interpretation.
Particles don’t have identities — they acquire them temporarily through patterns of relation.
4. Particle-Like Behaviour Without Particles
Why, then, does particle-like behaviour appear so robust?
Because certain configurations of constraint — e.g., those we use in detectors and accelerators — favour punctualisations in the relational field.
These punctualisations:
-
Are statistically recurrent,
-
Appear localised in time and space,
-
Behave predictably under experimental manipulations.
This does not make them substances — it makes them persistent modes of actualisation under specific systemic constraints.
5. Replacing the Particle Concept
Rather than speak of particles, we might speak of:
-
Phase-localised events in a relational field,
-
Punctualised transitions in systems of constraint,
-
Coherences that emerge, interact, and dissolve.
These formulations emphasise process, topology, and potential — not objecthood.
They also align with quantum field theory’s more abstract treatment of particles as excitations of fields — a move already gesturing toward relationality, though often without abandoning reified metaphors.
Closing
To ask “What is a particle?” in a relational ontology is not to seek a thing behind appearances. It is to recognise that what we call particles are not building blocks of reality, but articulations of constraint within a field of relation.
In this view, a particle is a gesture the system makes when it momentarily resolves a tension —not a pebble dropped into the void.
In the next post, we’ll extend this logic to the concept of fields themselves, and ask: if particles dissolve into events, what is the field they emerge from?
No comments:
Post a Comment