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 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.