Ontological Evasions in Physics: Series Conclusion From Evasion to Relational Insight

Across eight instalments, we have traced a consistent pattern in modern physics: when confronted with paradox, anomaly, or limitation, physics often chooses not to rethink its ontology, but to evade it. Superdeterminism collapses possibility into predestination. The block universe freezes time. Wavefunction collapse smuggles mind into matter. Many Worlds multiplies reality to infinity. The simulation hypothesis outsources actuality to an external programmer. QBism retreats into the observer’s beliefs. The string landscape proliferates possibilities without selection. Dark matter and dark energy stand in as invisible placeholders.

These evasions share a common logic: preserve formalism, secure predictive apparatus, and avoid confronting the question of relation—how actuality, possibility, and perspectival alignment are instantiated in the world. In doing so, physics repeatedly sacrifices ontological coherence for technical convenience.

The cost of evasion

Each manoeuvre carries epistemic consequences. Experiment becomes tautological, observation collapses into belief, infinity replaces relational actualisation, and unexplained placeholders dominate explanatory structures. Even when formal success is achieved, understanding suffers: we no longer apprehend how reality unfolds, only that it conforms to equations.

The theological undertones recur across these cases. Whether framed as pre-scripted determinism, divine authorship in Many Worlds, simulation programmers, or invisible cosmic agents, physics repeatedly imports the structure of omnipotence in order to rescue its formalisms. What is presented as rigorous reasoning is often an implicit metaphysics in disguise.

Relational insight

Relational ontology offers a coherent alternative. It foregrounds relation itself: actuality is perspectival, possibility emerges through interaction, and constraints are not external impositions but features of relational alignment. Measurement, temporal unfolding, and emergent structure are intelligible not because of hidden authors, infinite worlds, or invisible matter, but because relation operates collectively across scales.

This framework dissolves paradoxes without mutilating ontology. Superdeterminism’s fatalism is replaced by emergent possibility; the block universe’s frozen time by perspectival becoming; wavefunction collapse by actualisation across relational construals; Many Worlds’ plenitude by selective emergent outcomes; simulation and QBism by relational alignment rather than external or subjective authorship; string landscape by structured, emergent possibility; dark matter and dark energy by large-scale relational interactions.

The lesson

The pattern is clear: physics often chooses evasion over reflection, sacrificing ontological clarity for technical expedience. Recognising these evasions is the first step toward a more coherent understanding of reality. By privileging relation over abstraction, emergence over pre-scripted determinism, and perspectival actualisation over infinite speculation, we reclaim both intelligibility and explanatory power.

Ontological evasion is avoidable. Relational insight is unavoidable.

Ontological Evasions in Physics, Part 8 Dark Matter and Dark Energy: The Convenient Invisibility of the Unseen Majority

Cosmology confronts us with a stark mismatch between observation and theory. Galaxies rotate too quickly, the universe’s expansion accelerates, and visible matter accounts for only a fraction of cosmic mass-energy. To reconcile these anomalies, physics posits dark matter and dark energy: unseen substances that make up roughly 95% of the universe.

At first glance, this is an empirical success: equations are balanced, predictions match large-scale structure, and anomalies are “explained.” Yet these are also classic ontological placeholders—conceptual stand-ins that paper over gaps in understanding without addressing the underlying relational structure.

The evasive manoeuvre

Dark matter and dark energy are defined by what they do, not by what they are. They are inferred from their effects, yet their ontological status remains mysterious. Instead of reconceiving gravity, inertia, or large-scale relational dynamics, physics posits invisible substances to absorb inconsistency.

This manoeuvre preserves the formal apparatus of cosmology while evading the deeper question: how does relational actualisation operate at cosmic scales? The universe is not fully understood; it is “patched” with placeholders.

The ontological cost

By relying on dark matter and dark energy as explanatory crutches, physics suspends the need for relational coherence. Most of the cosmos becomes an unknowable reservoir: mass-energy that acts but cannot be directly individuated, related, or construed.

Relation is reduced to observable interaction. Possibility and alignment are subordinated to the necessity of filling the gaps in equations. Actuality is incomplete: the universe is mostly ghostly, inferred rather than relationally grounded.

The epistemic collapse

If 95% of reality is unknown in principle, then predictive and explanatory power is undermined. Models are constrained by observation, yet most of what matters remains invisible. Explanations risk becoming tautological: “We cannot see it, but it must exist to make the equations work.” Science teeters between empirical rigor and speculative bookkeeping.

The theological return

Once more, what appears as scientific problem-solving echoes theological structures. Dark matter and dark energy function as invisible agents ensuring cosmic order. They guarantee consistency where relational understanding is incomplete, much like a divine hand maintaining harmony in a partially inscrutable cosmos.

A relational reframing

From a relational perspective, the anomalies motivating dark matter and dark energy may signal a misapprehension of large-scale relational dynamics, not the existence of hidden substances. Gravitation, inertia, and cosmological expansion are emergent phenomena arising from collective alignment across scales.

In this view, the unseen majority is not literally invisible matter, but a domain of relational constraints and interactions yet fully mapped. Actualisation is not suspended; it is misinterpreted. Possibility and constraint operate relationally, and the cosmos can be intelligible without invisible placeholders.

Conclusion

Dark matter and dark energy are physics’ most conspicuous ontological placeholders: solutions that maintain equations while evading relational understanding. A relational reframing restores coherence and intelligibility, emphasising that cosmic structure emerges from actualised relations, not from unseen entities conjured to fill gaps.

Ontological Evasions in Physics, Part 7 The String Landscape: Everything, Therefore Nothing

String theory promised a unified framework for fundamental physics. Yet it has faced a profound challenge: the theory allows for an enormous multiplicity of possible vacuum states—so-called string vacua—each corresponding to a different set of physical constants and laws. The result is the string landscape, a staggeringly large collection of potential universes.

At first glance, this seems like a solution: every observed set of constants exists somewhere in the landscape, so there is no need to explain why our universe is “fine-tuned.” But the move is a classic ontological evasion.

The evasive manoeuvre

Faced with the problem of contingency, the string landscape abandons constraint. Instead of asking why this universe, with these relations and actualisations, emerges, physics declares that everything exists somewhere. The vastness of the landscape is invoked as a shield against the need for explanation: if all possibilities are realised, then nothing is truly contingent, and no relational structure requires deeper justification.

This manoeuvre preserves the mathematical framework, but it does so by converting the universe into a multiversal catalogue. Reality becomes a bookkeeping exercise, with actualisation replaced by exhaustive potentiality.

The ontological cost

The string landscape flattens relational actuality. Possibility is no longer perspectival or emergent; it is pre-encoded across an infinite field of vacua. Individuation loses meaning: all configurations exist, so there is no horizon of selection, no perspectival alignment that gives a particular outcome significance.

In effect, the landscape transforms ontology into sheer plenitude. Everything is possible, but nothing is relationally grounded. Actualisation is irrelevant because all potential outcomes coexist somewhere in the multiverse.

The epistemic collapse

Scientific practice relies on the ability to discriminate, to test, to falsify. The string landscape renders these procedures impotent. If every outcome is realised somewhere, then no observation can confirm or disconfirm theory in the conventional sense. Predictive power collapses into the vacuity of “it exists somewhere,” leaving physics stranded in an epistemic fog.

The theological return

Once again, what is dressed as physics mirrors a theological structure. The landscape functions as a cosmic omnipotence: all possibilities exist, as if the universe were a divine archive of potentialities. Fine-tuning is explained not by relational actualisation but by the inevitability of exhaustive plenitude.

A relational reframing

A relational ontology resolves the puzzle without invoking infinity. Possibility emerges perspectivally through actualisation: certain configurations occur because relational alignment permits them. Constraints are real, relational, and context-dependent; they are not pre-encoded across a multiverse.

Actualisation is meaningful precisely because it is selective. The richness of possibility is preserved, but it is never an undifferentiated plenitude. Relational thinking restores coherence: the cosmos is structured, contingent, and intelligible, not merely a catalogued infinity.

Conclusion

The string landscape is physics’ most extravagant ontological evasion yet: an appeal to plenitude substitutes for relational insight. By declaring that everything exists somewhere, it abandons the task of explaining how actuality emerges within relation. A relational reframing restores both intelligibility and empirical efficacy: possibility is emergent, actualisation is selective, and infinity is unnecessary.

Ontological Evasions in Physics, Part 6 Quantum Bayesianism (QBism): Retreat into the Observer

Quantum mechanics repeatedly confronts physics with the tension between formalism and ontology. One response to this tension is Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism, which recasts the quantum state not as a property of a system, but as a reflection of an agent’s personal beliefs about possible outcomes.

At first glance, QBism appears to solve the measurement problem elegantly: collapse is nothing more than the updating of an observer’s probabilities. But beneath this apparent clarity lies a familiar ontological evasion.

The evasive manoeuvre

QBism relocates reality into the mind of the observer. The formalism is preserved, but at the cost of dissolving the system itself into an epistemic shadow. Outcomes are not actualised in the world; they are experiences registered by agents. The world becomes an extension of belief, not a domain of relational actuality.

This manoeuvre allows physicists to sidestep deep questions: What is the ontology of the quantum system? How does possibility actualise? Instead of addressing these issues, QBism effectively says: “Don’t worry about reality; focus on your expectations.”

The ontological cost

The world is no longer a network of relational events; it is a projection of subjective credences. Possibility and actualisation are flattened into the agent’s updates. Collective alignment, interaction, and emergent structure—the core of relational ontology—vanish from the picture. Reality is now dependent on consciousness, which means relationality is subordinated to belief.

The epistemic collapse

If outcomes exist only in the agent’s experience, then experiment no longer constrains reality; it constrains belief. Science risks becoming an internal bookkeeping exercise: probabilities adjusted in minds, rather than structures revealed in the world. Evidence cannot falsify or confirm theory in any robust sense, because it is inseparable from the observer’s prior expectations.

The theological return

As with other evasions, QBism smuggles in the theological impulse, albeit subtly. By placing the observer at the centre of actualisation, it effectively installs a local, personal “creator” for each measurement event. Each agent becomes a tiny deity, and the universe itself is fragmented into countless subjective realms.

A relational reframing

Relational ontology dissolves the paradox without retreating into subjectivity. Outcomes are actualised not in isolated observers, but through the collective alignment of relational construals. Possibility is not private; it emerges perspectivally across interacting systems. Measurement is a moment of relational actualisation, not the conjuring of reality by an agent’s mind.

By reframing the problem relationally, QBism’s retreat into subjectivity is unnecessary. One can preserve the predictive power of the formalism while keeping ontology intact. Possibility, actuality, and alignment remain real, but they are emergent and collective, not the product of isolated belief.

Conclusion

QBism exemplifies an evasion that preserves formalism by privatising reality. Measurement and collapse are recast as epistemic updates, but in doing so, physics abandons relational ontology. Relational thinking restores coherence: actuality emerges in relation, not in the mind, and science remains a probe into the world rather than a meditation on belief.

Ontological Evasions in Physics, Part 5 The Simulation Hypothesis: Theology in Technological Dress

Physics increasingly confronts questions at the limits of observation: Why does the universe have these particular constants? Why is reality structured in this mathematically elegant way? One popular response is the Simulation Hypothesis: perhaps the universe is not “real” in the usual sense, but a simulation run by advanced intelligences.

At first glance, the idea is futuristic and provocative. It invokes computation instead of divinity, offering the illusion of a hard-headed, technologically grounded hypothesis. Yet the ontological move is strikingly familiar: it is theology in digital clothing.

The evasive manoeuvre

Faced with the puzzle of contingency and fine-tuning, physics and philosophy alike often reach for a deus ex machina. In this case, the “divine author” is replaced by a programmer; the cosmic script is cast as code. The real evasion is that the underlying problem—how reality constrains, actualises, and structures possibility—is left untouched.

Instead of asking how relation and individuation operate within the cosmos, the hypothesis shifts attention to an external agent. All apparent contingency, all emergent structure, is explained away by positing a designer outside the system.

The ontological cost

The simulation hypothesis preserves equations and observations by outsourcing reality to an inaccessible outside. Possibility is not emergent from relation; it is imposed from the outside. Actualisation becomes the execution of a pre-written program.

Relational alignment is irrelevant. No perspectival horizon, no collective construal matters—everything is already coded. Reality becomes a passive substrate, stripped of the relational dynamics that make actuality intelligible.

The epistemic collapse

The simulation hypothesis also collapses the epistemic ground. If we are within a designed simulation, what counts as evidence? Observations may simply reflect the intentions of the programmer rather than relational constraints in the world itself. Inquiry risks becoming a form of guessing the mind of the unseen author rather than understanding actual relational processes.

The theological return

Despite its technological veneer, the hypothesis smuggles in the same structure as the metaphysical evasions that physics has used for centuries: a transcendent author who guarantees coherence and outcome. What appears as scientific speculation is, in effect, a displaced theological narrative: omnipotence is recast as computational power, and predetermination becomes code execution.

A relational reframing

From a relational standpoint, no external author is required. The structure, constraints, and possibilities of reality emerge from the interactions and alignments of relational systems themselves. Possibility is not imposed; it is actualised perspectivally. Fine-tuning is not the signature of a programmer but the product of relational resonance across scales of interaction.

Relational ontology reframes the puzzle: the cosmos is self-structuring, not pre-programmed. The “design” we perceive is the pattern of actualised relations, not a signal from a hidden mind.

Conclusion

The simulation hypothesis exemplifies an evasion by outsourcing the explanation of reality to an inaccessible author. It replaces relational complexity with an external script, sacrificing ontological coherence to preserve conceptual convenience. Relational actualisation offers a cleaner, more rigorous alternative: the world is intelligible because relation itself structures possibility, not because it is executed by a hidden programmer.