Quantum mechanics is famously ambiguous about what constitutes a measurement. The formalism allows for unitary evolution — smooth, deterministic change — until a measurement is made, at which point the system "collapses" into a definite outcome. But what is a measurement? Is it a physical interaction? A mental observation? A decoherence threshold?
In most interpretations, measurement is treated as a kind of probing of the system — a way of revealing properties that existed (or didn’t) prior to observation. But this assumes a dualism of observer and observed, system and apparatus, fact and value.
From a relational standpoint, this dualism dissolves.
Measurement is not a means of accessing pre-existing states — it is a punctuation of potential. It marks a transition within a field of affordances under constraint.
It is not epistemological (what we come to know), but ontological (what becomes possible).
1. Measurement as a Relational Cut
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In traditional accounts, measurement divides a quantum system from its environment or observer,
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In relational terms, this “division” is not a pre-given boundary but:
A perspectival cut across the field of potential — a construal that localises coherence.
It is an act within the system, not an action upon it.
2. From Possibility to Actualisation
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The quantum formalism gives probabilities for measurement outcomes — but probabilities of what?
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Not of hidden variables or unmeasured states, but:
Of potential actualisations — momentary coherences in a field of constrained possibility.
Measurement is the event in which one of these coherences becomes operative within a particular system of relation.
3. The Apparatus as Constraint
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In most models, the measuring apparatus is treated classically, providing determinate outcomes,
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But this presupposes the very dualism the quantum system defies,
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In a relational ontology:
The “apparatus” is simply part of the field — a configuration of constraints that makes particular actualisations possible.
What is measured depends entirely on how the field is structured to permit punctuated transformations.
4. No Observer, No Collapse
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The collapse of the wavefunction has long invited metaphysical confusion: does consciousness cause collapse?
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In relational terms, this is a pseudo-question:
There is no wavefunction collapsing — only a shift from indeterminate potential to determinate relational coherence.
Measurement is not caused by observation. It is the event of construal — the system becoming momentarily legible to itself through constraint.
5. Decoherence and Punctualisation
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Decoherence theory explains why quantum superpositions appear to collapse into classical outcomes,
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But it does so within a framework that still treats systems as separable,
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The relational step is to say:
Decoherence is not a physical process but a systemic limitation — a threshold beyond which certain configurations lose internal coherence.
Measurement is a punctualisation: a moment in which potential reorganises around a dominant constraint — not a collapse but a closure.
Relational Definition
We might say:
Measurement is the local resolution of constrained potential — a punctual construal within a relational field that stabilises one configuration among many.
It is not the revelation of a fact, but the actualisation of a coherence.
Closing
What physics calls “measurement” is often the attempt to square a dualist ontology with relational behaviour. But in a world where nothing exists in itself — only in relation — there is no such thing as measuring something. There is only structuring the field such that it resolves itself in a particular way.
This reframes both epistemology and ontology. It means that meaning is not uncovered by measurement — it is produced in the act of relational construal.
In the next post, we’ll turn to the wavefunction itself — not as a literal entity or physical object, but as a systemic encoding of potential within a network of constraints.
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