In classical physics, the observer is a neutral witness: detached from the system, merely registering what already exists. This conception assumes a sharp boundary between subject and object, knower and known, observer and observed. But in quantum physics, this boundary begins to blur. Measurement does not simply reveal a pre-existing state — it contributes to its actualisation. Observation is not passive; it is an intervention, and its role cannot be eliminated.
In this post, we examine how a relational ontology reconceives the observer — not as an outsider looking in, but as an embedded participant in a field of unfolding coherence.
1. The Observer Effect in Quantum Mechanics
Quantum systems behave differently depending on how they are measured:
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The choice of what to measure (e.g. position or momentum) determines what can be known,
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Outcomes are probabilistic, not determined in advance,
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In some interpretations, nothing definite happens until observed.
This disrupts the classical image of the observer as a neutral mirror of reality. Instead, observation becomes a relational event — an intra-action, not an interaction.
2. Relational Observation
From a relational perspective:
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Observation is not about “reading off” properties, but about actualising potential within a shared system of constraints,
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The observer is not outside the system; they are part of the configuration that enables certain transitions,
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What is observed depends on the entangled structure of relation between the system and the apparatus — and by extension, the observing subject.
This means that knowledge is perspectival, not in the sense of being merely subjective, but in being contextually situated within a network of possibilities.
3. The Collapse as Participation
In standard quantum mechanics, measurement “collapses” the wavefunction. But this is a metaphor that hides more than it reveals.
In relational terms:
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Collapse is not an event in spacetime, but a reconfiguration of the field of potential,
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The observer does not cause this reconfiguration unilaterally, but participates in a process of mutual selection,
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Observation is a structural tension resolving itself — the system resolves into a new coherence in response to contextual affordances.
The observer is part of the context, not its transcendent frame.
4. Knowing Without Control
In this model:
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Observation yields knowledge not by controlling variables, but by attuning to affordances,
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The observer is not a master of the system, but a co-emergent element within it,
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Knowing becomes a matter of coherence-tracking — registering how fields of potential transform under constraint.
This leads to a post-Cartesian epistemology: no longer “I think, therefore I am,” but rather “I participate, therefore something becomes.”
5. Implications for Science and Subjectivity
Reimagining the observer has deep consequences:
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Scientific method becomes less about detachment and more about disciplined participation,
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Objectivity is redefined as intersubjective coherence — the reproducibility of relational configurations, not the elimination of perspective,
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Subjectivity is not a flaw in measurement, but a necessary axis of emergence.
In a relational ontology, to observe is to enter into relation, and what becomes real is co-constituted through that relation.
Closing
The observer is not a passive spectator of an objective world, but a participant in its becoming. Observation is not an interruption of reality, but a moment of relational tension resolving into coherence. To observe, in this sense, is to help the world take shape — not by imposing form, but by providing a condition of articulation.
In the next post, we’ll explore how these insights affect the concept of measurement itself — not as a way of accessing hidden properties, but as a punctuation of potential within a system of constraints.
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