The figure of “the observer” haunts modern physics. In quantum theory especially, observation is said to “collapse” the wavefunction, raising unsettling questions: what counts as an observer? Is consciousness required? Can a measuring device alone collapse a quantum state?
Attempts to answer these questions often rest on an implicit separation between the system and the observer, inherited from classical metaphysics. But from a relational perspective, this separation is illusory.
There is no detached observer. There is only participation in constraint — and the “observer” is a relational role in the process of actualisation.
1. From Detachment to Participation
-
In classical models, the observer is presumed external: able to view a system without disturbing it,
-
In quantum theory, observation disturbs — but the notion of an “observer” remains ambiguously external,
-
Relational ontology dissolves the boundary: the observer is not outside the system, but a locus within it — a participant in the field of transformation.
2. Observation as Constraint, Not Perception
-
Observation is not a matter of looking; it is a structural constraint on the system’s potential,
-
To observe is to configure — to introduce a set of affordances that delimit which actualisations are possible,
-
The observer shapes what can happen, not because of subjectivity, but because observation is a mode of relation.
3. No Privileged Frame
-
The observer is not a metaphysical special case; it is any subsystem whose relations constrain others,
-
A measuring device “observes” by providing a stabilising structure within which transitions occur,
-
Consciousness may play a role, but only as a particular configuration of systemic participation — not as a magical ingredient.
4. The Observer Effect Reframed
-
In this view, the so-called “observer effect” is not about causing change, but about being inseparable from it,
-
Measurement does not collapse a wavefunction because of observation; it collapses possibility through relational reconfiguration,
-
The observer is a node in the field, not a privileged knower above it.
5. Knowing as Construal
-
Knowledge is not the accumulation of facts about an external world,
-
It is the construal of coherence within a field of affordance — the organisation of constraints that make experience intelligible,
-
To know is not to look at what is there, but to enact a resolution of potential.
Closing
The observer is not outside the system. The observer is a system-event — a dynamic locus of constraint through which the field coheres. Observation is not a window onto the real, but a contribution to its unfolding.
In the next post, we’ll explore how this relational understanding of the observer leads to a rethinking of objectivity — not as detachment, but as patterned participation under stable conditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment