Attempts to resolve this paradox have given rise to competing interpretations — Copenhagen, many-worlds, Bohmian mechanics — each grappling with how and why a superposition becomes a single observed result.
A relational ontology reframes the issue from the ground up. It begins not with particles in uncertain states, but with fields of potential undergoing constraint. Superposition is not a mystery to be solved, but a feature of potential before actualisation. Measurement is not a collapse, but a punctuation of constraint — a systemic reorganisation that stabilises a particular configuration of relation.
1. Superposition as Modal Potential
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In the standard account, a system in superposition is said to exist in multiple possible states simultaneously,
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But this presupposes a substrate — an entity that “has” these possibilities,
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In a relational framework, there is no underlying entity prior to actualisation — there is only a configuration of relational potential modulated by systemic constraint,
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Superposition is the field’s unresolved structure of potential coherence — not a paradox, but a phase of indeterminate constraint.
2. Measurement as Constraint Resolution
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Measurement is often described as an external observer “collapsing” the wavefunction,
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But this reintroduces the subject–object dualism that quantum theory disrupts,
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From a relational view, measurement is not imposed from outside — it is a systemically conditioned transition, where a configuration reaches sufficient constraint to stabilise an outcome,
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It is not a collapse but a coalescence — a reconfiguration within the field that yields a coherent local actualisation.
3. Indeterminacy Is Not Ignorance
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Indeterminacy in quantum mechanics is often framed epistemologically: we just don't know the value until we measure,
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But this misses the point. In a relational system, indeterminacy is ontological — prior to actualisation, there is no “value” to be known,
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The field supports multiple potential construals, each modulated by the surrounding relational tensions,
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Actuality emerges not by selection among existing options, but by the resolution of tensions in a field of structured possibility.
4. Why One Outcome?
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The question “why this outcome and not another?” assumes a backdrop of equal alternatives,
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But in relational terms, outcomes are not selected from a list — they are shaped into being by specific constraints,
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The context — including the so-called “measuring apparatus” — is not separate from the system, but part of the relational field shaping what can actualise.
5. No External Observer
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The idea of an external observer measuring an independent system breaks down in quantum experiments,
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The “observer” is always part of the field, co-constituted with the phenomena that emerge,
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Measurement is thus a relational event — a moment when systemic constraint crystallises one of the field’s potential configurations into actuality.
Closing
In a relational ontology, superposition is not a particle in many states, nor is measurement a magical collapse. Together, they are phases in the field’s dynamic modulation — a movement from unresolved relational potential to locally stabilised coherence. The mystery dissolves when we give up the fiction of independent entities and embrace the ontology of relation, constraint, and transformation.
In the next post, we will turn to entanglement, and examine how nonlocality can be rethought as the systemic coherence of potential across distributed fields — not spooky action, but patterned interdependence.