Few concepts in quantum theory have generated more confusion — or more metaphorical baggage — than superposition. Famously illustrated by Schrödinger’s cat (simultaneously alive and dead), the notion of a system being in multiple states at once has often been described as paradoxical, absurd, or deeply mysterious.
Standard interpretations struggle with the idea: is the system really in both states until we look? Does the act of measurement collapse it into one? Or are there many worlds branching off with different outcomes?
All these responses presume an entity-based metaphysics. They treat the system as a thing that must be in some definite state — or else in several states "at once." But this confuses the nature of potential with that of actuality.
From a relational perspective, superposition is not a mystery. It is simply what structured potential looks like prior to its constraint into coherence. It is not a blend of outcomes, but an unresolved topology of affordance.
1. Superposition Is Not Multiplicity
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The wavefunction’s apparent “overlap” of states does not imply that multiple realities are present simultaneously,
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Superposition expresses a coherent but unresolved configuration of potential — not many actualities, but one structure awaiting resolution under constraint.
2. The Schrödinger’s Cat Confusion
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The thought experiment misleads by projecting quantum structure into macroscopic ontology,
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The cat is neither alive nor dead because there is no actual cat yet — there is only a system whose relational structure affords mutually incompatible outcomes,
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The moment of “collapse” is not an update to the cat’s condition, but a cut in the field — a resolution of potential into a particular configuration.
3. Measurement as Constraint, Not Revelation
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In standard accounts, measurement selects one outcome from a set of superposed possibilities,
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But in relational terms, measurement is a restructuring of potential, enacted through systemic constraint,
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Superposition ends not because reality chooses, but because the system reorganises — coherence is resolved through a shift in affordance.
4. Superposition and Coherence
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Superposition is not noise, confusion, or ambiguity. It is the condition of coherence prior to resolution,
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It reflects the entangled structure of possibility, where different outcomes are not separate paths, but different cuts through the same potential,
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The “interference” seen in double-slit experiments is not caused by a particle splitting in two, but by a field of potential negotiating multiple constraints simultaneously.
5. No Collapse, No Branching — Just Resolution
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Collapse theories and many-worlds interpretations both presume that actuality must multiply to match potential,
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A relational view rejects this: there is no need to multiply worlds or postulate mysterious transitions,
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There is only structured potential undergoing perspectival cut — a system resolving its tensions through reconfiguration, not selection.
Closing
Superposition is not a ghostly overlap of incompatible states. It is a single system in a state of unresolved coherence, constrained but not yet resolved. What seems paradoxical from an entity-based view becomes natural in a relational one: potential is not actual, but it is structured — and that structure governs what can become actual when coherence is sought.
In the next post, we will turn to the observer — and reframe observation not as the action of a subject upon an object, but as a situated construal of potential within a shared relational field.
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