Maurice Blanchot and Albert Einstein: Creativity, Relativity, the Impossible, and Non-Absolute Reality

I recently attended a lecture by Adam Potts at the Gloucestershire Philosophical Society called:  “An Impossible Project - Thinking through the meaning of impossibility in the work of Maurice  Blanchot ”. Dr Adam Potts is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University, UK. He specialises in the philosophy of Maurice Blanchot and Georges Bataille, as well as aesthetics,  specifically the philosophy of music, sound, and noise, subjects in which I have a special interest.

Concurrent with this I have continued my interest in Albert Einstein’s theories of Relativity which,  on the surface seems to be a quite unconnected subject. As an amateur astrophotographer I am naturally awed by the majesty of the Universe. When a photon hits the back of my astro-cam I am struck the fact that it might have taken 1 or 2,000 light years to arrive rather conveniently in my back garden. So along with the imagery, “Mastering Chaos: Musician’s Guide To Navigating Complexity”, my book on Chaos and how humans tend to respond to it, triggered a few thoughts about both Einstein’s ideas and those of Blanchot.

Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003) was a French philosopher, literary theorist, and writer whose  work radically challenged traditional humanist assumptions about agency, authorship, and  meaning. Key tenets of his thought include that the writer or creator does not exercise sovereign  control over the work. Instead, in the act of creation, the individual ego steps aside, entering a  state of passivity or anonymity. As I work on my compositions there eventually comes a point of  abandonment; is it finished or is it not? And after it's finished where is it, and where am I in relation to it? Once published it just goes to other parts of the world...

Rather than treating reality as a collection of stable, present objects, Blanchot focuses on  absence, silence, and the "neutral"—a space where binary opposites (presence/absence,  subject/object) dissolve. A work of art is never truly finished or closed; it remains un-finishable,  fundamentally open-ended, and ultimately abandoned by its creator to exist in its own essential  solitude. The ultimate horizon or boundary where human mastery, language, and conceptual  grasp break down exemplified by mortality, pure passivity, and the ungraspable origin of art.

Albert Einstein’s Special (1905) and General (1915) Theories of Relativity overturned Newtonian  physics by dismantling the concept of an absolute, static universe. He established that the laws of  physics are the same for all observers in uniform motion and that the speed of light in a vacuum  is constant regardless of the motion of the light source or observer. This led to the realisation that space and time are intertwined into a dynamic four-dimensional continuum: space-time.  As  an object with mass approaches light speed, its relativistic mass approaches infinity, and time  dilation approaches a standstill, making light speed an impassable physical limit for matter. 

There is no universal "now." Two events occurring at the same time for one observer may occur  at different times for an observer in a different frame of reference. What we think we see, what  we understand, what we think it all means are all context-dependent.

General Relativity replaced the Newtonian view of gravity as a force pulling objects across  distance. Instead, mass and energy warp the geometry of space-time itself; objects moving under gravity are simply following the natural curved contours (geodesics) of this warped  space-time.

This got me thinking as to how might Blanchot have reacted to Einstein's Relativity Theories,  especially concerning the fact that both time and space are not absolute? We all tend to think that "according to common sense, the distance between any two points in space is such an invariant quantity, and in pre-Einstein time it was. But ... it is no such thing. Remember: Common sense is not always re-liable. Similarly, the passage of time has become a subjective thing but (in reality) it varies depending on how fast clocks are moving relative to each other. Einstein has upset the order of things, and we cannot even rely on distance and time to build a reliable picture of the universe." ("Why does E=mc2?, p.64) In some way  Blanchot's ideas of the impossible seem to have a degree of connection with the new science that emerged from Einstein. When I listen to my own music now I wonder where is the 'me' that might have been present in it before?

Blanchot, Einstein, and the Non-Absolute Reality

It’s possible to see that Maurice Blanchot's philosophical framework engages deeply with the  exact crisis Einstein introduced: the dismantling of absolute, objective baselines in favour of  relational, non-Euclidean reality.

For Blanchot, Einstein’s relativity would not merely be a physics breakthrough; it would be a  profound confirmation that the fixed, centralised human observer is an illusion. In my book I  refer to the grounded space as being created by Chaos. This broad space is ‘the best place to be’ for any human hoping to live a meaningful life but it isn’t absolute. Humans move across all  dimensions of this reality of chaos. Beyond “ The Musician’s Way”  grounded space lies toxicity in  all its forms. Some humans inhabit these spaces.

The intersection of Blanchot’s concept of "the impossible" ( l'impossible ) and Einsteinian relativity  reveals a compelling alignment across several dimensions.

The Death of Absolute Space-Time and Blanchot’s "Neutral" (Le Neutre)

Before Einstein, Newtonian physics operated on an assumed, static backdrop: absolute space  and absolute time, an objective stage upon which human agency occurred. Blanchot spent his  life dismantling the literary and philosophical equivalent of this Newtonian worldview—the idea  that language or existence has a fixed, central, objective grounding.

Space and time are not fixed containers; they are dynamic, flexible, and dependent on speed,  mass, and the position of the observer. Space-time bends, warps, and stretches. This is  Einstein’s  Relational Continuum.  

Blanchot posits that reality at its deepest level is not structured by solid, permanent presence,  but by "the neutral" (l e neutre ), an elusive, shifting space where absolute categories (like  subject/object, present/absent, inside/outside) collapse. This is Blanchot’s  Le Neutre .

Blanchot would probably see Einstein’s warping of space-time as the physical proof that reality  is fundamentally non-absolute. The continuum is not a solid floor beneath our feet, but a flexible,  shifting context—mirroring his view that language and artistic creation take place in an unstable,  non-grounded space.

"The Impossible" (L'Impossible) and the Speed of Light

In Blanchot’s thought, "the impossible " is not simply what cannot happen; it is that which eludes  the grip of human comprehension, mastery, and language. It is the boundary where the ego’s desire to dominate reality breaks down—most notably represented by death, the origin of art,  and pure passivity. In Special Relativity, the speed of light functions as an absolute physical  horizon.

As an object with mass approaches the speed of light, its mass approaches infinity, and time  dilation approaches a standstill. It is a physical horizon that cannot be crossed by ordinary  matter. Einstein’s Universal Speed Limit as " The Impossible" .

Blanchot could well have been fascinated over the speed of light as a literal, physical  incarnation of  l'impossible . It represents a limit where classical logic, everyday human intuition,  and linear causality break down. Just as the ego cannot "experience" its own death because the  self vanishes at the threshold, physical matter cannot travel at lightspeed without transcending  the very definition of localised mass.

The Collapse of Simultaneity and the "Disappearance of the Author"

One of the most radical consequences of relativity is the loss of absolute simultaneity. Two  events that appear simultaneous to one observer in a specific frame of reference occur at  different times for an observer moving at a different velocity. There is no universal "now."  Blanchot’s entire literary theory rests on a strikingly similar collapse of time, arguing that the  time of writing is completely detached from the linear, biographical time of the author. When an author writes, they step out of ordinary, chronological time into an anonymous, non-linear space.  Blanchot refers to this as The Time of the Work  (Le Temps de l'Œuvre).

Just as Einstein showed that time depends entirely on the observer's frame of reference,  Blanchot showed that a text has no single, permanent, historical meaning dictated by the author.  The score or text is re-activated differently within the unique frame of reference of every  performer or reader who encounters it.

Blanchot would view the loss of absolute simultaneity in physics as proof that time itself is not a  single, grand narrative driven by a universal master clock, but a constellation of temporary,  relational encounters.

Gravity as Curved Geometry vs. Désœuvrement (Worklessness)

Newton treated gravity as an invisible, active force pulled between objects. Einstein radically  reframed gravity as geometry. Mass tells space-time how to curve, and space-time tells mass  how to move. Objects in freefall are not being pulled by a force; they are simply following the  natural, unforced contours of a curved continuum.

This aligns beautifully with Blanchot's aesthetics and my own framework of flow and releasing  oneself to the beauty of the Spontaneous State. In Blanchot's concept of désœuvrement  (worklessness), the artist does not forcefully push or pull the medium through sheer ego or  willpower. Instead, they surrender to the inherent curvature of the space—listening to the natural  tensions, silences, and structural contours of the material itself.

Freefall as Passivity: An astronaut in freefall feels weightless because they have ceased fighting  gravity. Blanchot would recognise this weightlessness as the physical analogue to creative passivity: the moment when the performer or creator stops forcing control, relinquishes the  desire to "win," and moves naturally along the curved, spontaneous contours of the moment. As  I say in my book “musician’s don’t play to win, they play to continue playing”.

So - A Physics of Humility?

Had Blanchot been able to explicitly address Einstein's relativity, he might have been able to  use it to confirm a final, decisive blow against classical, anthropocentric hubris. We struggle for  Structure and yet when we get it it either goes too quickly or it becomes too formal or too  oppressive.  To stay truly alive we must face the Chaos, see it for what it is, and let the patterns  emerge to our consciousness.

Einstein proved that space and time are not rigid scaffolds built for human convenience and  Blanchot proved that meaning and art are not static monuments built for ego preservation.

Both reveal that reality is relational, context-dependent, and fundamentally open-ended.

In this light, relativity is not a cold theory of mathematical physics—it is the cosmological proof  that any "grounded" space (such as that of “ The Musician’s Way” ) is explicitly temporary, and  that navigating the universe requires us to abandon absolute certainties in favour of fluid,  spontaneous presence.

References:

Adam Potts: “Maurice Blanchot and the Aesthetics of Hope and Chance” (Bloomsbury  Publishing, 2026)

Andrew Hodges: “Mastering Chaos: A Musician’s Guide To Navigating Complexity” (Amazon,  2025)

Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw: “why does E=mc2  and why should we care?” (Da Capo Press, 2009)