>How Interpretive Slides Accumulate in Physics Culture
How Interpretive Slides Accumulate in Physics Culture
Interpretive slides rarely originate in error, speculation, or bad faith. They accumulate through success, repetition, and cultural compression.
1. Slides Do Not Begin as Claims — They Begin as Shorthand
In technical work, precision is mandatory. In communication, compression is inevitable.
A careful statement such as:
“A time parameter can be defined from a statistical state”
becomes, in seminars or summaries:
“Time emerges statistically”
and then, in popular retelling or cross-disciplinary citation:
“Time comes from thermodynamics”
At no point did anyone explicitly assert an ontological thesis — yet one has quietly formed.
Interpretive slides begin not with bold metaphysical claims, but with the erosion of qualifiers.
2. Success Is the Primary Driver of Ontological Drift
When a model works extraordinarily well, it invites loyalty. When it explains a difficult problem elegantly, it invites extension. When it solves multiple problems, it invites elevation.
What begins as:
- a useful parameter,
- a clever reformulation, or
- a powerful analogy
is gradually treated as:
- fundamental,
- inevitable, or
- ontologically privileged.
This is not irrational. It is a natural human response to explanatory success.
RST’s intervention point is here: success licenses trust in prediction — not automatic authority in ontology.
3. Cross-Disciplinary Translation Amplifies Slides
Most interpretive slides accelerate when ideas cross disciplinary boundaries.
A physicist may say “information,” meaning a precisely defined functional quantity. A philosopher hears “information” and recognizes a metaphysical primitive. A technologist hears “information” and thinks computation. A popular audience hears “information” and imagines agency or intent.
Each translation is reasonable in its own context. The slide occurs when these contexts are conflated without renegotiation of constraints.
RST treats every cross-disciplinary move as a pressure point where interpretive discipline must be reasserted.
4. The Role of Elegant Language
Physics values elegance — rightly. But elegance is linguistically dangerous.
Phrases like:
- “time emerges,”
- “the universe computes,”
- “information is fundamental,”
- “the vacuum knows,”
are often introduced as metaphors or compressed descriptions. Over time, they shed their metaphor status and begin to function as literal claims.
Once literalized, they resist challenge — not because they are proven, but because they feel explanatory.
RST does not ban metaphor. It forbids forgetting when metaphor has been introduced.
5. Why Peer Review Rarely Stops the Slide
Peer review evaluates:
- technical correctness,
- novelty,
- consistency with existing literature.
It rarely evaluates interpretive accumulation across decades of discourse.
An individual paper may be careful. The field-level narrative, assembled from hundreds of careful papers, may not be.
RST operates precisely at this field level. It asks not, “Is this paper wrong?” but:
“What unexamined assumptions does this language add to the shared conceptual background?”
6. Why This Matters Now
As physics increasingly interfaces with:
- information theory,
- computer science,
- cognitive science,
- cosmology at extreme scales,
interpretive slides accelerate.
The danger is not error. The danger is silent ontology — commitments no one remembers choosing, but everyone is expected to accept.
Reactive Substrate Theory exists to make those commitments visible again.
7. The Cultural Function of RST
RST is not a competing worldview. It is a cultural corrective.
It restores a question that physics culture routinely drops:
“What exactly are we claiming exists, and what assumptions are required to make that claim physically meaningful?”
By reintroducing this question at points of rhetorical compression, RST prevents interpretive slides from quietly becoming metaphysical facts.
Closing Thought
Interpretive slides do not arise because physicists are careless. They arise because physics is successful, elegant, and shared across communities. RST exists to ensure that success does not outrun physical admissibility.
