One of the most persistent assumptions in quantum theory is the idea of a boundary between the quantum and the classical — a metaphysical divide that separates the strange, indeterminate world of superposition and entanglement from the familiar world of definite outcomes and everyday experience.
This boundary is often treated as ontologically fundamental, even when its precise location remains undefined. But from a relational perspective, this distinction dissolves. There is no line to draw — because there were never two worlds to begin with.
1. The Standard View: Two Realms
In conventional interpretations:
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The quantum realm is governed by unitary, reversible evolution — coherent, probabilistic, and nonlocal.
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The classical realm emerges through measurement, decoherence, or environmental entanglement — yielding definite, localised, and stable outcomes.
But this division leaves many questions unresolved:
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Where, exactly, does the transition occur?
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What qualifies as a measuring apparatus?
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How can a classical observer emerge from quantum constituents?
The “quantum–classical boundary” functions as an explanatory placeholder — not a resolved ontological feature.
2. The Relational Reframe: No Realm but Relation
In a relational ontology, what’s called “quantum” and “classical” are not distinct ontological zones, but perspectival regimes — patterns of potential actualisation under different constraints.
There is no fundamental transition from one realm to another.There are only shifts in the topology of relational affordance.
What appears “classical” is a configuration in which:
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Certain relational interdependencies are stabilised,
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Coherence is sufficiently delocalised to prevent interference,
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Constraints favour persistent, local actualisations.
What appears “quantum” is a configuration where:
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Affordances are less stabilised,
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Interdependencies remain globally sensitive,
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Constraints allow phase-relational potentials to persist.
These are not different substances or realities — just different structural conditions.
3. The Observer Is Not Outside
In classical metaphysics, the observer stands outside the system, untouched and uninvolved.
But in both quantum theory and relational ontology:
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The observer is a participant in the unfolding of events,
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The distinction between “system” and “measurement apparatus” is a cut made within the relational field,
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No cut is ontologically absolute — each is just one construal among many.
4. Quantum and Classical as Epistemic Strategies
The terms “quantum” and “classical” are best understood as epistemic strategies — ways of construing and organising experience under different conditions:
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The quantum frame is attuned to relational openness, coherence, and constraint-sensitivity.
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The classical frame privileges local stability, isolable behaviour, and persistent identities.
Neither is “more real” — but each emerges as more viable depending on the scale, stability, and perspective of the observer-participant.
This reframing reveals the quantum–classical “boundary” as a projection of our own modelling practices — not a division in nature.
5. A Reorientation
Rather than trying to locate a transition from quantum to classical, we might ask:
What shifts in constraint and perspective make one construal more viable than another?
And more fundamentally:
How do different modes of actualisation emerge from a unified field of potential under evolving conditions?
Closing
The boundary between quantum and classical is not a place in the world — it is a habit of thought, born of ontological dualism.
In reimagining reality as relational from the start, we find that no such boundary needs to be drawn —only different ways of orienting within the same unfolding field.
In the next post, we’ll explore how this perspective reshapes our understanding of particles themselves — and ask: if there are no “things” that persist across time and space, what exactly is a particle?
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