In quantum field theory (QFT), the basic ontology shifts from particles to fields. Particles are treated as excitations — quanta — of underlying fields that pervade space. On this view, the electron field exists everywhere; an electron is a localised ripple. Similarly for photons, quarks, and so on.
This is often presented as a step forward from particle metaphysics — a move from discrete “things” to continuous “stuff.” But even this field-based picture typically retains certain classical assumptions:
-
That the field is a substance extended in space,
-
That it exists independently of observation or interaction,
-
And that particles are events within that field — as if the field were a stage, and quanta were actors.
In a relational ontology, this picture must be rethought entirely. The field is not a background substance. It is the space of potential coherence, structured by constraints and relational affordances. It does not underlie reality — it is reality, as construed through relational dynamics.
1. Fields as Topologies of Potential
-
A quantum field is not “something that fills space.” It is a relational topology: a system of possible transitions, entangled with constraints,
-
What we describe as a “field” is really a space of affordances: a set of possible actualisations shaped by symmetries, boundary conditions, and interactions,
-
The so-called “vacuum state” is not empty, but the lowest-energy configuration of the field’s relational potential.
2. Particles as Localised Construals
-
In QFT, a particle is a quantised excitation of the field. But even this presumes an observer who selects a mode, a basis, a perspective,
-
In relational terms, a particle is not in the field. It is a punctualisation: a localised construal of coherence,
-
There is no substrate with “something happening in it.” There is only the happening itself, structured by relation.
3. No Background, No Foreground — Only Structure
-
The idea of a field as a continuous background still assumes an object-based world: the field as stuff, and the particle as event,
-
But in a relational ontology, the background/foreground distinction dissolves. What exists is structure: a mesh of interdependence, modulated by constraint,
-
The field is not a container. It is the mode of coherence from which all resolution — including space, time, energy, and identity — emerges.
4. Quantum Fields as Systems of Constraint
-
What defines a field is not its materiality but its constraint structure: symmetries, conservation laws, and transformation rules,
-
Gauge fields, for example, are fields of permissible transformations — structured freedoms that define what counts as a coherent evolution,
-
In this light, a quantum field is not an entity, but a theory: a system of potentialities that constrains how the world can locally resolve.
5. Observables as Construal Events
-
In quantum theory, observables are operators on field states. But what does this mean, ontologically?
-
From a relational standpoint, an observable is not a property of a system, but a cut in potential: a way of selectively constraining the field into a measurable resolution,
-
What is “measured” is not what is “there,” but what the system affords when constrained this way.
Closing
A quantum field is not a substance or a medium. It is a theory of relation: a formal expression of what configurations are possible under given constraints. When a field “produces” a particle, nothing has been created. Rather, a coherence has resolved — a momentary actualisation of potential across a structured system.
This shift — from field-as-substance to field-as-potential — reorients our metaphysics from things to relations, from stuff to structure, from being to becoming. It invites us to see not a world of “quantum things,” but a world unfolding — moment by moment, through the ongoing construal of constraint.
In the next post, we’ll explore how this relational view of fields helps to reframe quantum interactions, not as collisions or exchanges, but as mutual adjustments in relational potential — a coordination of cuts within a shared topology of becoming.
No comments:
Post a Comment