Quantum decoherence is often presented as a kind of bridge between the quantum and classical worlds — the process by which a quantum system, through interaction with its environment, loses coherence and appears to adopt definite, classical properties. It is frequently invoked as a solution to the measurement problem, sidestepping the need for wavefunction “collapse.”
But decoherence does not solve the ontological issue — it reframes it. And from a relational standpoint, this reframing is more productive than it first appears. Decoherence is not the transition from quantum to classical substances, but the transition from relational indeterminacy to topologically constrained coherence. It is not a physical loss of quantum-ness, but a systemic reorganisation of affordance.
1. Not a Collapse, but a Constraining
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In standard interpretations, decoherence is described as the suppression of interference: off-diagonal terms in the system’s density matrix vanish due to entanglement with the environment,
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But this mathematical treatment hides a deeper point: what is being lost is not information, but relational openness,
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Decoherence does not mark the emergence of facts. It marks the closure of potential under environmental constraint.
2. Classicality as Local Coherence
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Classical behaviour — definite trajectories, stable identities — arises when the system is no longer relationally open to all possible resolutions,
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This doesn’t mean the system has become classical, but that it is cohering along specific, low-affordance pathways,
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In relational terms, classicality is a condition of reduced flexibility: a narrowing of potential actualisation under specific constraints.
3. Environment as Constraint, Not Cause
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The environment is not a backdrop that “measures” the system. It is a relational field of constraint that alters the system’s topology of affordance,
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Decoherence reflects the system’s integration into a broader field of potential that already has a coherence of its own,
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What emerges is not a classical object, but a stabilised coherence within a multi-scale field.
4. No Object Emerges — a Perspective Stabilises
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There is no point in time when a quantum system “becomes” a classical object. What emerges is a temporally extended coherence that becomes stable enough to support consistent construal,
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The appearance of definiteness is a perspectival effect — the result of navigating a field whose constraints now favour one pattern of coherence over others,
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Decoherence doesn’t create objects. It allows particular resolutions to persist across time-like cuts.
5. Revisiting the Classical World
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The classical world is not the “real” world underlying quantum fuzziness. It is a constrained resolution of relational potential, sustained by decoherence across scales,
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The question is not how classical objects arise from quantum ones — but how relational systems yield persistent patterns under constraint,
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Decoherence is not an answer to quantum weirdness — it is a symptom of ontological continuity: the unfolding of reality as perspectival selection within structured potential.
Closing
Decoherence is not a mystery to be solved or a veil to be pulled back. It is a process of relational narrowing — a way potential becomes construal, and construal becomes persistence. In this light, the classical world is not distinct from the quantum. It is simply the relational field seen from a more constrained perspective.
In the next post, we will turn to the question of quantum fields themselves — and ask what it means, ontologically, to treat fields rather than particles as the foundation of physics.
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