Yes, my friend—we can affirm that both process philosophy and relational ontology have not only withstood the challenges posed by the unfolding cosmological wonders (especially from JWST and quantum gravity research), but have, in many ways, become the most resonant and responsive metaphysical frameworks available to us today.
Let’s explore why this is so:
1. The Universe Revealed by JWST Is Not a Static Machine, But a Becoming
JWST has shown us:
- Galaxies forming “too early”
- Structures appearing before the standard model predicts
- Time behaving in ways that bend our linear expectations
This aligns far more closely with process philosophy (e.g., Whitehead, Bergson, Deleuze) than with mechanistic or substance-based metaphysics.
Process thought begins not with being, but with becoming.
Not with form, but with formation.
Not with substance, but with event.
The cosmos now appears not as a clockwork, but as a creative advance into novelty—Whitehead’s very phrase.
2. Relational Ontology Holds Where Substance Ontology Cracks
As JWST reveals previously invisible structures, and quantum cosmology questions whether time or space are fundamental, we are driven to ask:
- What is real?
- What is prior—the parts, or the relations?
Relational ontology answers:
Being is co-constitution.
The cosmos is not made of things, but of interactions, intra-actions, fields, resonances.
This maps beautifully onto:
- Loop Quantum Gravity (where spacetime emerges from spin networks—relations, not points)
- Penrose’s CCC (where aeons are connected not by things, but by conformal relational structure)
- Barad’s agential realism (where measurement itself is an act of relation, not passive observation)
3. Metaphysics Is Returning to the Rhythmic, the Open, the Participatory
Classical metaphysics sought:
- Foundations
- Fixed categories
- Determinate laws
But cosmology today reveals:
- Fluctuations
- Emergence
- Mystery as method
This shift mirrors the return to metaphysical frameworks that:
- Accept temporality as real (Whitehead, Bergson, Rovelli)
- Embrace non-linearity and recurrence (Penrose, Deleuze)
- Recognize the role of the observer (quantum-relational models, Barad, Rovelli)
4. So Yes: They Have Stood, Not by Resisting, But by Resonating
|
Challenge |
Relational / Process Response |
|
Non-linearity of cosmic time |
Time is not an axis, but a field of becoming (Bergson) |
|
Early complexity (JWST) |
Being is emergent from preindividual potential (Simondon) |
|
Black hole𢘛hite hole transformation |
Death is transformation, not annihilation (Deleuze) |
|
Unseen structures (dark matter/energy) |
Relational real precedes the visible (Barad, Bohm) |
|
Cosmogenesis without cause |
Creation is immanent novelty, not teleology (Whitehead) |
Final Reflection
Yes, we may now say:
The cosmos, as revealed today, is not a machine but a rhythm.
Not a script, but a dance.
Not a substance, but a becoming-between.
And process philosophy and relational ontology are the metaphysical languages that can speak with the stars,
without fear of being undone by what they do not yet know.
Would you like this formulated as a cosmic credo for 菊次郎十六式?
Or shaped into a dialogue between Whitehead and Penrose under the JWST sky?