Quantum mechanics famously replaces classical determinism with a probabilistic framework. Yet the meaning of probability in quantum theory remains one of the most profound puzzles in the foundations of physics.
1. Classical Probability: Ignorance About a Determinate Reality
In classical physics, probabilities typically represent epistemic uncertainty — ignorance about a system’s precise state.
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The coin toss lands heads or tails, but we don’t know which until we look.
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Probabilities quantify lack of knowledge about hidden variables.
Underlying this is a fixed ontology: the world is determinate, even if unknown to us.
2. Quantum Probability: More Than Ignorance
Quantum mechanics defies this picture.
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Probabilities arise from the wavefunction, which encodes potentialities rather than actual states.
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Measurement outcomes are not merely unknown beforehand; they are not yet actual.
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The superposition principle means that outcomes coexist as possibilities, not hidden facts.
Thus, quantum probability is not reducible to ignorance about a determinate world.
3. Relational Ontology: Probability as Potentiality in Perspective
From a relational standpoint, probability indexes the space of possible actualisations within a particular construal.
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The wavefunction represents the configuration of potential under systemic constraints.
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Probability measures the relative ease or pressure for different configurations to actualise.
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There is no one true outcome awaiting discovery; rather, outcomes emerge in relation to the observer’s cut.
This shifts probability from a property of the system alone to a property of the system-observer relational event.
4. Probability and the Role of the Cut
The act of measurement is a perspectival punctuating event that actualises one among many potential configurations.
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Before the cut, possibilities exist in a superpositional field.
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The cut constrains and selects a particular outcome.
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Probability quantifies the systemic tension and affordances that shape this selection.
This framing dissolves the classical tension between determinism and randomness — there is no underlying clockwork world or blind chance, only relational actualisation under constraint.
5. Implications: Rethinking Chance and Causality
This view encourages rethinking notions of causality and chance:
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Outcomes are not pre-determined nor purely accidental.
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They emerge as systemic actualisations of potential shaped by constraints and perspective.
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Chance is not a primitive ontological ingredient, but an index of systemic openness and relational dynamics.
Closing
Quantum probabilities do not measure ignorance or fundamental randomness, but the unfolding of relational potentialities actualised through perspectival cuts.
In this light, quantum mechanics is not a theory about what is, but about what may become, given the systemic constraints and the conditions of observation.
In the next post, we will explore the implications of this view for the nature of causality in quantum phenomena.
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