Energy as the Signature of Process: A Case for Energetic Process Monism
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Contemporary process ontology rejects the demand for a bearer beneath process: dynamics need not be the dynamics of some underlying thing. This article accepts that rejection and asks a further question. Do the dynamics that process ontology describes share a single measurable signature? I argue that they do, and that the signature is energy. To make the claim precise I distinguish two senses of the term: E-quantity, the frame-dependent, locally conserved magnitude defined in physics, and E-activity, the actualization of a capacity to change, which E-quantity measures. On this basis I state six axioms of Energetic Process Monism and examine how far contemporary physics supports them: the conjugate pairing of time and energy, the rest energy of mass, the Wheeler-DeWitt problem of time, the Page-Wootters mechanism, the thermal time hypothesis, entanglement-based accounts of emergent space, Jacobson's derivation of the Einstein equation as an equation of state, and the absence of a global energy conservation law in general relativity. I then relate the axioms to the physics of self-organization and to observed cycles of accumulation and release in ecosystems and societies, keeping these separate from a cosmic-scale hypothesis. Six objections are considered, including the charge that naming process dynamics "energy" adds nothing. I conclude that the signature thesis is defensible as a metaphysical proposal, that the stronger thesis of energy as an ontological primitive remains an argument and not a proof, and that the empirical layer can be exposed to refutation through seven stated predictions. The record contains the English article and a Turkish version (Sürecin İmzası Olarak Enerji: Enerjetik Süreç Monizmi İçin Bir Savunu). The full monograph is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24076023.
Author: Akgunlugil, Erhan
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225660739
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