The Reality of Potential: Rethinking the Quantum Field

Quantum mechanics invites a profound reimagining of what it means for something to be real. In classical physics, reality is composed of actual things—objects with definite properties, existing in determinate states. Quantum theory, however, opens the door to a subtler ontology: a world constituted not only by what is, but by what can be.

In this post, we examine the ontological status of quantum potentiality and its centrality to a relational understanding of the physical world.

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1. Classical Actuality vs. Quantum Potentiality

In classical physics:

• Reality = actuality: what is definitively present, localised, and measurable,

• Possibility is epistemic: a reflection of ignorance about a determinate but unknown state.

In quantum physics:

• The wavefunction encodes a superposition of possibilities,

• Outcomes are not merely unknown—they are not yet determined,

• Measurement does not reveal a pre-existing state; it actualises one among many potentialities.

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2. The Ontological Challenge

Is the wavefunction “real”? And if so, what kind of reality does it possess?

• Instrumentalist views treat it as a computational tool,

• Realist interpretations (e.g. many-worlds, Bohmian mechanics) try to restore object-based metaphysics,

• But a relational ontology offers a different path: one in which potential is ontologically primary, and actuality emerges through contextual constraint and interaction.

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3. Potential as Relational Tension

In this view:

• The wavefunction is not a hidden substance but a configuration of relational tensions,

• It describes a field of constrained possibility—a structured ensemble of what could become,

• Actualisation is not the resolution of uncertainty but the punctuation of potential within a field of affordances.

This echoes process philosophy and certain strands of continental metaphysics, but it is grounded here in the material practices of quantum experiment.

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4. Measurement as Selection, Not Revelation

Measurement does not uncover an objective state, but:

• Triggers a phase transition in the relational field,

• Selects a particular configuration out of a range of coherent possibilities,

• Reshapes the potential field for future actualisations.

This requires rethinking causality, prediction, and knowledge: we are always operating within a co-evolving field of potentials, not a static landscape of facts.

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5. The Ethics of Potential

If potential is real, then:

• Systems and entities carry more than what is visible—they carry a field of possible becoming,

• Our actions and interventions shape not only what is, but what can be,

• Responsibility must be extended beyond outcomes to include the modulation of the possible.

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Closing

Quantum mechanics invites us to treat potential not as a shadow of the actual, but as a real, generative force—the ontological substrate from which the world continuously emerges. A relational ontology takes this seriously: it situates the real not in fixed particles or trajectories, but in the structured tension between possibility and constraint, becoming and resolution.

In the next post, we’ll explore how this potentiality-driven worldview transforms our understanding of space—not as a neutral container, but as a relational field shaped by interaction.