Entanglement is often cited as the strangest feature of quantum mechanics. When two particles are entangled, a measurement performed on one seems to determine the state of the other — even if they are separated by vast distances. Einstein famously called this “spooky action at a distance,” and many physicists still struggle to interpret entanglement without invoking some kind of nonlocal influence or hidden variable.
But what if the strangeness is not in the phenomenon itself, but in the assumptions we bring to it?
From a relational-ontological standpoint, entanglement does not imply mysterious causal influence across space. It reflects the incompleteness of treating parts in isolation. Entangled systems are not made of discrete entities with hidden connections — they are non-separable actualisations of a shared field of potential. The correlations we observe are not the result of influences propagating between objects, but of constraints that span across the cuts we use to construe the system.
1. No Part Without the Whole
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In classical metaphysics, the world is composed of distinct, independent entities, each with its own properties,
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In relational ontology, this assumption fails: what appears as a “part” is only coherent in the context of the system it construes,
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Entangled phenomena show us that properties attributed to individual elements are not locally grounded, but systemically distributed.
2. Entanglement as Joint Actualisation
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An entangled state is not a pair of particles with hidden instructions. It is a single construal that includes both elements in a coherent configuration of potential,
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What we observe as “correlated outcomes” are the result of resolving the field under one construal, which precludes incompatible resolutions elsewhere,
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No signal needs to pass between A and B. Their measured relation is a function of how the field resolves under shared constraint.
3. Nonlocality as Misframed Coherence
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Bell’s theorem rules out local hidden variables, leading many to conclude that entanglement is nonlocal in nature,
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But in relational terms, there is no "locality" in the object-based sense to begin with. Locality is a construal-dependent notion, not a metaphysical primitive,
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The apparent nonlocality is not causal action at a distance, but a misreading of field-level coherence through a lens that assumes separability.
4. Collapse Reinterpreted
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In conventional interpretations, measuring one entangled particle causes the wavefunction of the pair to “collapse,” instantaneously affecting the other,
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Relationally, there is no collapse. There is a perspectival cut that reorganises coherence in the field, such that one actualisation excludes others,
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The correlations emerge because the construal that produces one result is already incompatible with alternative outcomes elsewhere — not because one outcome caused another.
5. Entanglement as Epistemological Error?
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What makes entanglement seem mysterious is the expectation that reality should be factored — that we can assign properties to elements independently,
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But this expectation is a projection of classical intuitions. Entangled systems violate it not because they are broken, but because our construal is misaligned with the system’s coherence,
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The paradox vanishes when we stop asking how one particle “knows” what the other is doing, and begin asking how construals of separate particles fail to account for the coherence of the field.
Closing
Entanglement is not spooky. It is a lesson in humility — a reminder that our most basic categories of identity, property, and separability are not ontologically given, but perspectival conveniences that sometimes break down.
From a relational perspective, entanglement reveals not a breakdown of causality or an invasion of metaphysics, but a deeper coherence: the systemic integrity of a field in which our cuts never fully isolate.
When we observe one element of an entangled pair, we are not “influencing” the other. We are simply actualising a coherence that cannot be parsed into parts without loss. The world is not made of things that relate; it is made of relation, and what we take as things are resolutions within that relation.
In the next post, we’ll take a closer look at identity and individuation in quantum systems — and how the notion of a “particle” obscures more than it reveals.
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