Physics has long been bifurcated: quantum theory handles the microscopic; relativity, the cosmic. Their treatments of time seem irreconcilable — indeterminacy vs. determinism, becoming vs. being, observer-dependence vs. geometric invariance.
But from a relational ontology, this split reflects not nature itself, but a misreading of theory as reality. If we instead begin with the construal of systems in relation, a new coherence emerges — and with it, a new ontology of time.
1. Not a Synthesis, but a Shift
Attempts to “reconcile” quantum theory and relativity often aim to merge formalisms: find a quantum gravity, a common geometry, a hybrid model.
The relational move is different:
We do not synthesise competing models. We resituate them as complementary construals — each a perspectival cut through a deeper potential.
This means we do not treat quantum and relativistic time as two incompatible things to be fused, but as two aspects of the same relational temporality, seen from different cuts.
2. Local Cuts, Global Fields
Quantum theory foregrounds the local, situated system — the entangled agent, the act of measurement, the perspectival distinction between potential and actual.
Relativity foregrounds the global field — the invariance of structure under transformation, the relational coordination of frames, the geometric constraints on influence.
But both are relational:
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Quantum theory: a cut through potential that yields an event.
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Relativity: a field of coordinated cuts that defines what a cut could be.
So instead of choosing between them, we see them as orthogonal operations on the same ontology:
| Quantum View | Relativistic View |
|---|---|
| Actualisation of potential | Coordination of constraints |
| Situated system | Global structure |
| Enacted distinction | Invariant relation |
| Temporal asymmetry | Spacetime symmetry |
They are not inconsistent — they are mutually conditioning perspectives on what it means to enact a temporality.
3. Temporality without Time
This leads us to a striking conclusion:
Time is not what either quantum theory or relativity describes.Time is what emerges when a relational cut enacts both actualisation and coordination.
In other words:
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There is no time “in” the system.
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There is no time “in” the field.
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There is only temporality as construed distinction, born of a cut in potential, from within a field of relational conditioning.
This temporality is neither a flowing now nor a frozen block — it is the ongoing enaction of meaning as systems distinguish and coordinate within a structured potential.
4. Reframing the “Problem of Time”
In physics, the so-called “problem of time” arises when:
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General relativity gives us a timeless universe (no global time parameter),
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Quantum theory requires a time variable (to evolve systems),
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And quantum gravity offers neither a clear solution nor a shared ontology.
But from a relational view, this is no paradox:
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Of course global time is missing — it was never real.
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Of course systems need perspectival time — that’s how meaning happens.
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The problem dissolves when we stop treating time as an entity and start treating it as an effect of construal.
The “problem of time” is not an ontological problem — it is a category error born of forgetting that models are not the world.
5. What Time Is, Now
From this reframed vantage, we can propose:
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Time is not a dimension, but a relational asymmetry enacted by a cut.
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It is not measured by clocks, but constituted by perspective.
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It is not the container of events, but the form in which construal becomes event.
Quantum theory shows us how actuality is cut from potential; relativity shows us how such cuts are coordinated. Time is not a bridge between them — it is the name we give to the cut itself.
Closing
There is no fundamental opposition between quantum time and relativistic time. What appears as contradiction is only the illusion of objectivised perspectives. Once we return to relational ontology — to the idea that systems are always construed from within potential — time reappears not as a property of the world, but as the form of perspective itself.
In the next post, we’ll turn to a question long left hanging: What becomes of causality in this relational ontology? If time is a construal, not a continuum, then what does it mean for one thing to cause another?
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