Space as Temporal Relational Possibility: A Non Substantival Model of Cosmological Expansion
Space as Temporal Relational Possibility: A Non‑Substantival Model of Cosmological Expansion develops a foundational reinterpretation of cosmological geometry. Instead of treating space as a substance that expands, the paper argues that space is the temporal structure of possible separations between physical events. Spatial relations arise from temporal propagation behavior, making time the fundamental metric from which spatial representation is derived. Cosmological expansion is therefore not the growth of a medium but the increase of relational possibility encoded in the evolving metric. The paper shows why expansion is observable only at cosmological scales, why bound systems remain stable, and why recession velocities can exceed the speed of light without implying motion through space. Motion and expansion are reframed as frame‑dependent descriptions of the same underlying relational geometry, dissolving longstanding paradoxes in standard cosmology. The result is a coherent, non‑substantival ontology of spacetime grounded in relational structure and temporal evolution.
Authors
- Denis Bailey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9228-1285)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Published
- 2026-09-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22967146
- Primary Topic
- Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
- Type
- preprint