Here we want to take one more step. What does relativity look like through the lens of relational ontology — and how does the event horizon sharpen its implications?
Relativity as Systemic Potential
Relativity tells us that space and time are not absolute but perspectival. What is construed depends on the observer’s relative position, velocity, and gravitational context.
In relational-ontological terms, relativity belongs to the system: it is the theory of possible construals. It specifies how perspectives can differ while still being valid instances of the same structured potential.
Phenomenon vs. Metaphenomenon
This distinction becomes crucial here.
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Phenomena: construed experiences, first-order meanings. For me, “this clock ticks once per second.”
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Metaphenomena: reflexive construals of relations between phenomena. For me comparing with you: “your clock ticks more slowly than mine, even though both are valid in their frames.”
Relativity, lived in one perspective, is phenomenal. Relativity, reflected across perspectives, is metaphenomenal.
Horizons as Asymmetrical Cuts
Event horizons intensify this structure.
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Inside the horizon: space and time remain phenomena. Observers construe their clocks, their trajectories, their relations, and they can align those construals with each other. Relativity is lived.
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Outside the horizon: the inside is inconstruable as phenomenon. Time and space beyond the horizon appear only as projections, models, thought experiments. Relativity here is not lived but theorised: a metaphenomenal construct.
The asymmetry is stark: what is phenomenal for one observer is only metaphenomenal for another.
The Metaphenomenal Cut
Thus the event horizon creates a special kind of metaphenomenal cut:
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It forces relativity itself to be construed differently depending on position.
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Inside, relativity remains a lived structuring of phenomena.
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Outside, relativity becomes exclusively a theorised relation, since the phenomena themselves cannot circulate.
In this way, the horizon shows us something important: relativity does not dissolve into abstraction. It remains phenomenal when lived, but becomes metaphenomenal when construed across an inaccessible boundary.
Closing Thought
From the standpoint of relational ontology, relativity is not an abstract property of spacetime, but a structured potential for construal. Horizons expose its reflexive structure: they show us how quickly phenomena slide into metaphenomena when perspective is severed.
The event horizon is thus not just a boundary of physics, but a limit-case of reflexivity — a place where the relation between phenomena and metaphenomena is itself restructured by the cut of perspective.
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