Inside the Event Horizon I: Construal and Meaning Beyond Perspective

When we think of a black hole, we often imagine the event horizon as a barrier: a boundary where everything is lost, where meaning collapses. Relational ontology gives us a different picture. Horizons do not annihilate construal; they partition it, structuring what can and cannot be actualised from different perspectives.

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Perspectival Boundaries

An event horizon is perspectival. From outside, it marks the absolute limit of what can be instantiated as phenomenon. Nothing beyond that boundary can be construed or aligned with from an external vantage.

Inside, however, the situation changes. Construal continues — phenomena are still actualised, meanings still emerge, and perspectives can still align. The horizon does not dissolve meaning; it encloses and partitions it.

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Construal Inside the Horizon

Inside the event horizon, construals are fully active, but their relational structure is shaped in three ways:

1. Sealed relationality
   Construals within the horizon can align with one another, but they cannot extend outward. Internal observers share a common space of alignment, yet this shared space is cut off from the outside world.

2. Asymmetric value
   From the outside, these internal construals are inconstruable. They are fully real for those inside, but inaccessible to external perspectives. This asymmetry shows that actuality is perspectival: what is real for one observer may be structurally invisible to another.

3. Horizon-conditioned actuality
   Every construal inside is implicitly bounded by the horizon. Even if observers inside do not recognise it reflexively, the horizon defines the limits of possibility for internal alignment. Construals are contained, but still robust and relational.

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Shared Construals Inside

If two or more observers occupy the same internal region, their zones of construal overlap. They can share, negotiate, and align meanings fully within that bounded space. The event horizon does not erase relationality; it reconfigures it, making the horizon a semiotic enclosure rather than a void.

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Horizons as Relational Cuts

This perspective reframes how we think about boundaries and limits:

• They are not walls that destroy meaning.

• They are relational cuts that structure where and how meaning can circulate.

• They highlight the perspectival asymmetry inherent in actualisation: internal construals are inaccessible externally, but fully real internally.

The event horizon thus becomes a fascinating model of bounded semiotic spaces, where phenomena are fully active yet relationally sealed. It reminds us that meaning is not universal, but situated, perspectival, and structured by the very boundaries that define it.