This chapter depicts the spectrum between reality and potentiality, generally by providing diagrams, graphs, and variables along with their corresponding details and explanations. Hilbert spaces here are remarked with different values to represent what will actually happen or to reach the “satisfaction” — realization of the anticipated outcome — that was mentioned in the previous chapter. Aside from the spaces, there are also vectors which stand for the characteristics of the portrayed person, group, object, etc. Coefficients of the variables define the level of possibility that the alternative outputs will occur. The appearance of the outcome states is dependent on our expectations, which are anchored to objective reality. Of course, there are inevitable, uncontrollable outside forces than can come into the picture, and these externalities are termed “trace-over.” Also, the three advantages of the ontological interpretation of quantum formalism are universality of the scope of the interpretation of quantum mechanics, permissiveness to locate the paradox of quantum nonlocality, and its interposition between the altercations in physics.
This chapter depicts the spectrum between reality and potentiality, generally by providing diagrams, graphs, and variables along with their corresponding details and explanations. Hilbert spaces here are remarked with different values to represent what will actually happen or to reach the “satisfaction” — realization of the anticipated outcome — that was mentioned in the previous chapter. Aside from the spaces, there are also vectors which stand for the characteristics of the portrayed person, group, object, etc. Coefficients of the variables define the level of possibility that the alternative outputs will occur. The appearance of the outcome states is dependent on our expectations, which are anchored to objective reality. Of course, there are inevitable, uncontrollable outside forces than can come into the picture, and these externalities are termed “trace-over.” Also, the three advantages of the ontological interpretation of quantum formalism are universality of the scope of the interpretation of quantum mechanics, permissiveness to locate the paradox of quantum nonlocality, and its interposition between the altercations in physics.
Quantum are objective probability measures. Because their dependence on a time is not time dependence of an evolving state, they are neither of Nature nor states of knowledge. There is no such thing as an evolving state. This disposes of problem posed by apparent existence of two modes of evolution. What essentially stands in way of a consistent ontological interpretation of quantum theory is our habit of projecting into quantum world detached, intrinsically differentiated spatiotemporal background of classical physics, for this is what entails existence of an evolving state. An objective probability measure is formal expression of an objective indefiniteness, such as positional indefiniteness that contributes to fluff out matter. An objective indefiniteness entails that values of certain observables are extrinsic (possessed because they are indicated) rather than intrinsic (indicated because they are possessed). This dependence on value-indicating facts is not a dependence on anything external to quantum world. The latter constitutes a free-standing reality that owes nothing to observers, information, or our interventions into the course of Nature.
Amid the wide variety of interpretations of quantum mechanics, the notion of a fully coherent ontological interpretation has seen a promising evolution over the last few decades. Despite this progress, however, the old dualistic categorical constraints of subjectivity and objectivity, correlate with the metrically restricted definition of local and global, have remained largely in place – a reflection of the broader, persistent inheritance of these comfortable strictures throughout the evolution of modern science. If one traces this inheritance back to its ancient roots in Plato and Aristotle, it is clear that the coherence, scientific utility, and historical durability of the various natural philosophies that followed have been directly proportional to their commitment, tacit or explicit, to object-oriented realism. As Simondon might put it, it is a commitment to the primacy of individuated substance over the process of individuation. For Whitehead, it is the misplaced assimilation of becoming to being, of potentiality to actuality. Quantum mechanics has challenged this commitment with a combined breadth and depth of force that far exceeds any other theory in the history of science. The theory’s objectively demonstrable empirical application is manifest only by way of a fundamentally subjective, context-dependent mechanism of measurement. More compelling still, actual system states are always actualizations of locally contextualized yet globally conditioned potential system states, such that “globally objective” reality is no longer merely the object of local measurement, but also its product. Thus, any coherent, ontological interpretation of quantum theory must include a conceptual framework by which objectivity and subjectivity, actuality and potentiality, global and local, being and becoming, individuated fact and process of individuation, are no longer understood as merely epistemic, mutually exclusive category pairs descriptive of an already extant, closed reality – but rather as mutually implicative ontological categories explicative of an ontogenetic, open reality-in-process.
Quantum "states" are objective probability measures. Because their dependence on a time is not the time dependence of an evolving state, they are neither states of Nature nor "states of knowledge." There is no such thing as an evolving state. This disposes of the problem posed by the apparent existence of two modes of evolution. What essentially stands in the way of a consistent ontological interpretation of the quantum theory is our habit of projecting into the quantum world the detached, intrinsically differentiated spatiotemporal background of classical physics, for this is what entails the existence of an evolving state. An objective probability measure is the formal expression of an objective indefiniteness, such as the positional indefiniteness that contributes to "fluff out" matter. An objective indefiniteness entails that the values of certain observables are extrinsic (possessed because they are indicated) rather than intrinsic (indicated because they are possessed). This dependence on value-indicating facts is not a dependence on anything external to the quantum world. The latter constitutes a free-standing reality that owes nothing to observers, "information," or our interventions into "the course of Nature."
IF, AS HEISENBERG SUGGESTED, potentia indeed constitute an ontologically fundamental species of reality, then the mathematical representation of the quantum mechanical evolution of the matrix of potentia to the matrix of probabilities-that is, the valuation of potentia as probabilities between zero and one-ought to be heuristically useful in understanding the ontological implications of this evolution.The mathematical representation should prove helpful in visualizing not only the process described by quantum mechanics but also, as we shall see in the following chapters, the process described by Whitehead.The basic formalism introduced and explored in this chapter is intended to be comprehensible to readers unfamiliar with mathematics.Some familiarity with the Pythagorean theorem and the addition of vectors will be useful, but not necessary.
What does it mean to say that an event is physically possible?One might say, in the spirit of everyday usage, that an event is physically possible if its occurrence is consistent with the laws of physics.But which laws of physics, starting from when?Here things get tricky.In a Laplacian universe governed by the fully-deterministic laws of classical electrodynamics and mechanics, exactly one future is consistent with any complete and precise specification of initial conditions.Given an incomplete, imprecise specification -the best that human observers can achieve, even in principle -many futures may appear to be physically possible, but only one of them actually is.In this kind of universe, our intuitive notion that many different outcomes of an experiment, for example, are physically possible is just an ignorancedriven delusion.Philosopher of physics Ruth Kastner's new book, The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, subtitled The Reality of Possibility, takes on this question of the meaning of physical possibility in the theoretical context defined by relativistic quantum field theory.Lest this seem daunting, be assured that this is a philosophical book; aside from Chapters 5 and 6 dealing with technical objections, it emphasizes ontological questions and employs the physics -all of which is clearly presented for the non-expert -as a way to raise them.The ontological questions that it raises, not just 'what is possibility?' but also 'what is actuality?' and 'what are space and time?' underlie not just physics but any theory of action.The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is, therefore, not just about the interpretation of quantum mechanics; it is about how 'nature makes its choice' in any circumstance, and how 'the actual arises from the potential' (205) as a result.After briefly introducing quantum theory and its various interpretations in Chapter 1, Kastner addresses, in Chapter 2, the essential preliminary question of what is to count as an acceptable scientific explanation.The divide between realists and instrumentalists about quantum theory -or between 'ontic ' and 'non-ontic' approaches
The Copenhagen interpretation's "wave function collapse" postulate has resisted unified physical explanation for over a century. This article proposes an alternative ontological framework: measurement outcomes do not result from instantaneous collapse, but from realization—the emergence of actuality from potentiality through capacity-dependent thresholds. We posit that consciousness constitutes the fundamental source of potentiality, while observer capacity (quantified via mutual information, distinguishability, or decoherence rates) determines whether potentiality actualizes into observable reality. This framework is formalized via soft-threshold sigmoid activation operators R(C,T) = 1/(1+exp(-k(C-T))), projection operators on Hilbert space, and organizational-level resonance. We address three critical objections: (1) panpsychism is avoided through organization-dependent ontological realism; (2) decoherence is reinterpreted as resonance between organizational levels rather than passive information leakage; (3) six falsifiable experimental predictions are presented, spanning double-slit variable-capacity detection, quantum erasers, Stern-Gerlach weakening, infant neural dimensionality growth, sensory threshold development, and REM sleep correlation with learning. Mathematical consistency with Born rule and Hilbert space formalism is established via normalization conditions and unitary operation proofs. The model reconciles quantum mechanics, consciousness studies, developmental neuroscience, and sleep physiology within a single ontological framework, offering testable alternatives to Copenhagen, many-worlds, pilot-wave, and objective-collapse interpretations.