Relationalists deny that space is ontologically prior to matter and seek to ground all claims about the structure of space in facts about actual and possible configurations of matter.
In other words, a black hole of a given mass, angular momentum and electric charge, could have been formed by the collapse of any one of a large number of different configurations of matter.
Solutions of the GTR field equations for arbitrary realistic configurations of matter (e.g., a rocket ship ejecting a stream of particles to push itself forward) are hard to come by, and in fact a realistic two-body exact solution has yet to be discovered.
That is there are a limited number of configurations of matter that are fairly stable and lasting, the intermediate ones being volatile.
This latter question is itself circumscribed by the questions that define the background of biological inquiry: the 'what' refers to physical conditions, the configuration of the matter at that location.
On the one hand, the physical reality is constructed out of an established configuration of elements, matter in space, that can be considered more or less static in a contained timeframe.
Studies of human craniosynostosis [22], [23] and immature head banding [23] suggest that the development of brain shape and size is closely interrelated to the configuration of dura matter as well as the co-developing cranial vault.
Throughout the entirety of the merger, these gravitational waves are being generated by the changes in curved space itself, and the energy for those waves comes from the changing configuration of the matter-and-energy distribution of the fabric of space.
By contrast, the a priori reasoning of the mechanical philosophers, involving the hypothetical postulation of a hidden configuration of properties of tiny parts of matter and their powers demonstratively necessitating its effects, does not follow such natural operations.
Several previous reports also documented the cortical F-actin cap near the branch tips of elongating trichomes, but its configuration remains a matter of debate because of the technical challenges of live-cell imaging of trichome tips.
