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 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 4 Many Worlds: Infinity as a Get-Out Clause

Quantum mechanics confronts physics with stubborn contradictions. The wavefunction can evolve deterministically, yet measurement produces definite outcomes. One response to this paradox is the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI): every possible outcome of a quantum event is realised, each in its own separate branch of the cosmos.

At first glance, MWI appears audacious, even elegant: no collapse is required, the equations are preserved, and determinism is restored. But this is precisely where physics’ ontological evasion comes into focus.

The evasive manoeuvre

MWI resolves the problem of quantum indeterminacy not by confronting relation or possibility, but by multiplying reality ad infinitum. Instead of asking how a single world actualises from potential, physics declares: all worlds are actualised somewhere. The universe is no longer a single unfolding process; it is an infinite tree of eternally branching, non-interacting realities.

This manoeuvre preserves formalism at all costs. It allows equations to remain untouched, but it does so by evacuating the question of how relation operates in a single, coherent cosmos.

The ontological cost

Infinity becomes a crutch. Actuality is diluted: every possible outcome exists, but nowhere in particular. Individuation is meaningless if every branch actualises every variation. Relation is flattened: each branch is self-contained, severing the very notion of perspectival alignment that gives events significance.

In effect, MWI trades a problem of indeterminacy for a problem of ontological inflation. Possibility is no longer emergent; it is exhaustively realised across a proliferation of worlds that we can never access or interact with. Reality becomes a metaphysical forest with infinite trees, none of which can be said to matter more than any other.

The epistemic collapse

MWI also undermines the practice of science. If every outcome occurs somewhere, what does it mean to perform an experiment? Predictive power loses its bite: certainty is replaced by certainty somewhere, but not here. Evidence can no longer confirm or disconfirm a theory in any meaningful sense, because all possibilities are realised. Science risks turning into an exercise in cataloguing infinite alternatives rather than understanding a coherent, actual world.

The theological return

The infinite proliferation of worlds carries an implicit theological echo. The cosmos becomes a plenitude of realities, reminiscent of divine omnipotence: everything that can happen does happen. Once again, physics substitutes an ontological miracle for relational coherence, presenting infinity as the solution to its own conceptual impasse.

A relational reframing

From a relational perspective, the paradox dissolves without recourse to infinite branching. Possibility is emergent, not pre-packaged; it actualises through perspectival and collective alignment. Only some outcomes are realised in relation to specific construals; others remain potential, constrained by the context of actualisation.

Many Worlds mistakes the indeterminacy of relation for an absence of determinacy. A relational ontology restores both coherence and openness: actuality is real, possibility is meaningful, and infinity is no longer required to save equations.

Conclusion

The Many Worlds Interpretation is an elegant evasion: infinity substitutes for relational insight. By multiplying universes, physics preserves formalism while abandoning the task of understanding how possibility unfolds in relation. The more fruitful path is not proliferation, but relational alignment: actualisation without the need for cosmic overreach.