Entanglement is often portrayed as one of quantum physics’ most baffling features. Two particles interact, become “entangled,” and remain mysteriously linked no matter how far apart they travel. A measurement on one instantaneously affects the other — as if information is transmitted faster than light.
This framing has generated decades of metaphysical discomfort: Are hidden variables at play? Is reality nonlocal? Has causality broken down? Yet all of these questions rest on the assumption that particles are entities with separate identities, persisting in time and space, exchanging information across a causal bridge.
From a relational perspective, however, entanglement is not a link between things. It is a coherence within a shared structure of potential — a configuration of constraint that cannot be factorised into independent parts.
1. Entanglement Is Not a Connection
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Standard interpretations treat entanglement as a bond between already-existing entities — a mysterious channel of influence,
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But in relational terms, there are no pre-existing “particles” to be linked,
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What exists is a relational configuration — a field of potential structured across constraints, some of which span what we call space.
2. Non-Separability Without Action-at-a-Distance
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Entangled systems cannot be described by separate state functions. This is not because one affects the other, but because they are not separate to begin with,
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The apparent nonlocality arises only when we try to assign independent identities to components of a unified system,
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No “signal” passes between parts. The parts are cuts within a relational whole, not causally coupled objects.
3. Measurement as Reconfiguration of the Field
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When we “measure” one part of an entangled system, we do not send information. We constrain the system — we enact a perspectival cut,
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The outcome at the other site reflects not influence, but compatibility with the newly constrained configuration,
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The whole system reorganises — not in time, but in structure — to maintain coherence.
4. Entanglement as Systemic Coherence
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In relational terms, entanglement is a non-factorisable coherence — a structured whole whose subconfigurations cannot be independently resolved,
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This is not surprising. It is the natural consequence of a system whose parts derive their meaning and actuality from their role in the whole,
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Such coherence is a hallmark of relational ontology, not a violation of common sense.
5. Beyond Causal Explanation
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Attempts to “explain” entanglement causally — either via hidden variables or retrocausality — assume that the world is made of localised substances interacting through time,
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A relational approach replaces causal chains with constraint networks: patterns of mutual determination within a system of potential,
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Entanglement is thus not a mystery, but a signature of ontological holism — a sign that our fundamental units are not things, but relations.
Closing
Entanglement does not demand faster-than-light influence, nor does it imply spooky connections between distant objects. It demands that we let go of the assumption that the world is made of separable parts.
In a relational ontology, entanglement is simply what coherence looks like when it exceeds the boundaries of our preferred cuts — when what appears to be many is in fact one structured field, briefly glimpsed from different perspectives.
In the next post, we will turn to wavefunction realism — asking what it means to treat the quantum state as real, and how that notion transforms within a relational frame.
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