Quantum physics complicates this model. Entanglement, contextuality, and indeterminacy all undermine the assumption that systems have parts with independent properties. In its place, a relational ontology offers a different explanatory paradigm—one grounded not in mechanisms, but in patterns of coherence, constraint, and emergence.
1. Classical Explanation: Reduction and Control
The standard model of scientific explanation involves:
-
Reduction: understanding wholes in terms of parts,
-
Mechanism: modelling phenomena as causal interactions governed by laws,
-
Prediction and control: measuring explanatory power by how well outcomes can be forecast or manipulated.
This works well when systems are linear, decomposable, and deterministic. But in the quantum domain, none of these assumptions hold.
2. Quantum Challenges to Classical Explanation
Quantum mechanics resists mechanistic explanation:
-
Entangled systems cannot be decomposed into independently evolving subsystems,
-
Superposition entails that no definite state exists prior to measurement,
-
Context-dependence means that what is observed depends irreducibly on how it is observed.
As a result, many quantum explanations are formal (mathematically predictive) but conceptually unsatisfying—they “work” but don’t make intuitive sense within a classical framework.
3. Toward Relational Explanation
A relational ontology reframes explanation around coherence and affordance rather than mechanism and reduction:
-
To explain a phenomenon is to show how it emerges from a field of constrained potential,
-
Relations, not objects, are primary; what exists is defined by patterns of interdependence,
-
Explanation becomes retrodictive as much as predictive: it clarifies why this coherence holds, not just what comes next.
In this view, science becomes less about controlling outcomes and more about mapping the space of possible becoming.
4. Forms of Relational Explanation
Explanation shifts from “what caused this” to:
-
Constraint-based accounts: What were the limiting conditions under which this outcome could emerge?
-
Topology of possibility: How does this configuration fit within a larger landscape of coherent states?
-
Phase transition models: What tipping points or thresholds made this actualisation possible?
These are not metaphors but ontologically grounded strategies for understanding systems that are not built from parts but shaped by potential.
5. Implications for Science and Understanding
This reconception challenges us to:
-
Let go of the mechanistic compulsion: not all explanation is reductive,
-
Embrace non-decomposable wholes as legitimate units of analysis,
-
Accept that some aspects of reality are only intelligible through their internal dynamics, not external causes.
Explanation becomes participatory: it reflects our embeddedness in a relational field whose structure we co-constitute through observation and interaction.
Closing
When the world is not made of parts, explanation cannot be about how parts work. It must instead concern how coherence arises—how the field of potential resolves under constraint to give rise to the patterns we observe. In quantum physics, as in a relational ontology more broadly, to explain is to illuminate structure, not mechanism; emergence, not assembly.
In the next post, we’ll explore how these ontological and explanatory shifts affect our conception of reality itself—what it means to exist in a world defined not by objects in space and time, but by relations, potentials, and transformations.
No comments:
Post a Comment