Mind-body, culture-nature, and res cogitans-res extensa—this set of Cartesian dualisms forms the foundation of the Modern Constitution. It separates the world into two domains: nature, governed by objective physical laws (res extensa), and culture, driven by human thought and societal acts (res cogitans). The modern notion of space is closely tied to the Scientific framework of res extensa which forces nature into blackboxing. This process obscures the ways in which things sustain themselves, making it difficult to distinguish between the world’s inherent attributes and how we come to understand them.

The Latin etymology of res extensa suggests infinite extensibility, a pervasive spatial concept visualized through technical drawings, maps, and models. This obscurity arises because these processive tools—methods by which we comprehend, measure and simulate—are often mistaken for the essence of the world itself, reducing it to something static, inert, and subject to human demands. Yet, the world resists such simplification, filled with dynamic agencies and forces beyond human comprehension.

To detect where the world resides, the choice is not between dualities—nature or culture, res cogitans or res extensa. It is between two entirely different spatial distributions: one where there is an expansive, infinite outside in which life forms are constrained and unable to thrive; and another that is limited and contested, yet undergoes continuous composition from within, allowing life forms to act and react in multiplicity.