This paper examines the ontological consequences of achieving a constraint-level closure of the Mott problem in quantum theory. The classical Mott problem concerns the tension between rotationally symmetric quantum preparations and the emergence of asymmetric, localized, track-like outcomes without appealing to observer dependence or treating wavefunction collapse as a primitive axiom. Recent developments show that such outcomes can arise as admissible, stable regimes once the relevant constraint architecture is made explicit, without committing to any particular constructive dynamics. Taking this closure as established, the present work addresses a strictly ontological question: what must physical reality be like if localisation, asymmetry, and track formation are real features of the world in the absence of primitive collapse? No new interpretation is proposed, and no hidden variables, microphysical mechanisms, or additional dynamical laws are introduced. The analysis indicates that physical reality is more accurately described as regime-bounded rather than globally constrained. Within sufficiently stabilized regimes, conservation principles operate as reliable accounting rules, but they should not be elevated to universal ontological commitments that must hold everywhere and always. Ordering is therefore not assumed to arise from time-translation symmetry, and global conservation is not presumed. Instead, what becomes physically real is determined by which configurations are admissible and stable under the constraint structure, rather than by presupposed global symmetry requirements. The scope of this paper is deliberately narrow. It develops only the minimal ontological consequences implied by the logical closure of the Mott problem, leaving constructive realizations, technical implementations, and proprietary dynamical structures to companion work.
This paper examines the ontological consequences of achieving a constraint-level closure of the Mott problem in quantum theory. The classical Mott problem concerns the tension between rotationally symmetric quantum preparations and the emergence of asymmetric, localized, track-like outcomes without appealing to observer dependence or treating wavefunction collapse as a primitive axiom. Recent developments show that such outcomes can arise as admissible, stable regimes once the relevant constraint architecture is made explicit, without committing to any particular constructive dynamics. Taking this closure as established, the present work addresses a strictly ontological question: what must physical reality be like if localisation, asymmetry, and track formation are real features of the world in the absence of primitive collapse? No new interpretation is proposed, and no hidden variables, microphysical mechanisms, or additional dynamical laws are introduced. The analysis indicates that physical reality is more accurately described as regime-bounded rather than globally constrained. Within sufficiently stabilized regimes, conservation principles operate as reliable accounting rules, but they should not be elevated to universal ontological commitments that must hold everywhere and always. Ordering is therefore not assumed to arise from time-translation symmetry, and global conservation is not presumed. Instead, what becomes physically real is determined by which configurations are admissible and stable under the constraint structure, rather than by presupposed global symmetry requirements. The scope of this paper is deliberately narrow. It develops only the minimal ontological consequences implied by the logical closure of the Mott problem, leaving constructive realizations, technical implementations, and proprietary dynamical structures to companion work.
Quantum mechanics is empirically extraordinarily successful yet continues to admit a wide range of competing interpretations. While the formalism constrains probabilistic relations between preparation procedures, measurements, and outcomes, it does not uniquely determine the ontology that realises those relations. Interpretations such as Everettian quantum mechanics, Bohmian mechanics, objective collapse theories, relational quantum mechanics, and QBist approaches preserve the predictive structure of the theory while diverging sharply in their metaphysical commitments. At the same time, developments within quantum theory itself weaken the classical ontology of independently existing objects with intrinsic properties. Entanglement, violations of Bell inequalities, and decoherence theory collectively support the view that physical description is fundamentally relational. Structural realism therefore provides a natural interpretive framework, treating the mathematical structure of physical theory as ontologically primary. However, structural realism alone leaves open the question of instantiation: how relational organisation becomes concrete as a determinate world.This paper develops Experiential Structural Ontology (ESO) as a non-interventionist interpretation of quantum mechanics that addresses this problem. ESO retains the relational ontology suggested by quantum theory while proposing that relational constraint organisation is enacted as manifestation within a fundamental experiential field. On this interpretation, the wavefunction represents relational constraint architecture governing transitions within this field, measurement corresponds to the stabilisation of particular regimes within that structure, and decoherence explains the emergence of classical stability without invoking collapse dynamics or ontological branching.
This paper introduces Axiom 0, a minimal foundational principle for physical reality: the impossibility of any globally closed description of the total correlational structure. Rather than postulating space, time, dynamics, locality, or physical laws as primitive, the framework assumes only: (i) the existence of a correlational structure, (ii) the structural impossibility of complete self-closure, and (iii) consistency under partial comparison. From these ingredients, the paper shows how: physical laws emerge as stabilizing regularities of incomplete descriptions, time, dynamics, and geometry arise as effective, regime-dependent structures, irreversibility follows from projection and information loss, and why no description can be both exact and globally complete. Non-closure is treated as an ontological constraint, not as epistemic ignorance or observer dependence. Physical reality exists precisely because complete closure is impossible, independently of observation or modeling. The paper does not attempt to replace existing physical theories or derive numerical constants. Instead, it provides a structural foundation within which effective physical theories (quantum, classical, relativistic, and open-system regimes) can be consistently understood as emergent and domain-limited. This work is intended as a conceptual and structural foundation for correlational and relational approaches to fundamental physics, clarifying the origin of laws, dynamics, and physical regularity without invoking additional ontological postulates.
This paper develops a unified ontological framework in which quantum indeterminacy, classical determinism, and gravitational structure are interpreted not as manifestations of distinct fundamental laws, but as regime-dependent consequences of a single physical constraint: finite propagation at the invariant speed c. We argue that the transition from reversible physical possibility to irreversible physical fact is regulated by the finite rate at which interaction outcomes can propagate, accumulate, and stabilize. Irreversibility is tied explicitly to entropy-producing interactions subject to causal delay, grounding the framework in nonequilibrium thermodynamics rather than measurement postulates. We introduce a phenomenological order parameter, commitment density (ρcommit), defined as the locally accumulated history of irreversible constraint formation under finite propagation. Distinct physical regimes arise when this quantity crosses a critical percolation threshold (ρc), yielding three ontological domains: quantum under-representation (ρcommit ≪ ρc, insufficient closure), classical balance (ρcommit~ρc, writable yet stable), and cosmological over-representation (ρcommit ≫ ρc, saturated and non-writable). Key terms are defined in the main text. This regime structure provides a unified reinterpretation of quantum measurement, classical determinism, and horizon formation. Event horizons are generalized as the observational signature of causal saturation, appearing wherever accumulated closure renders regions non-writable. Time emerges from cyclic but asymmetric closure processes whose accumulated bias produces temporal direction. The framework makes specific falsifiable predictions: commitment should be gradual and resolvable in time-resolved decoherence experiments; gravitational-wave memory should be detectable as permanent relational displacement; and the quantum-classical boundary should depend on commitment density rather than mass or scale alone. Four explicit conditions that would falsify the framework are specified in Appendix A.
This preprint presents a foundations-level analysis of physical description based on structural dependency rather than dynamical construction. Quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, and relativistic spacetime are treated as effective regimes arising under different structural conditions, rather than as competing ontologies. The analysis identifies persistence under interaction, irreversible constraint accumulation, stable relational structure, and interaction as minimal requirements for physical behaviour. Collapse is characterised as irreversible loss of compatibility between alternative continuations, without appeal to observers, stochastic dynamics, or additional postulates. Time is treated as structural ordering induced by exclusion, rather than as a primitive background parameter. No new dynamics are proposed and no empirically successful theories are modified. The aim is to clarify explanatory dependencies that underlie familiar physical regimes and to dissolve persistent foundational problems that arise when regime-level descriptions are misidentified as foundations.
The quantum-to-classical transition — the disappearance of quantum superposition, interference, and entanglement at macroscopic scales — is standardly explained through decoherence: environmental entanglement suppresses interference terms, making macroscopic superpositions effectively unobservable. Decoherence is mathematically rigorous and empirically well-confirmed, but it faces a persistent philosophical limitation: it explains the appearance of classicality without fully accounting for its ontology. The measurement problem survives decoherence because decoherence does not explain why quantum systems produce definite outcomes, why the pointer basis is selected, or what it means for a macroscopic object to have a determinate state rather than merely appearing to have one. This paper argues that Constraint Theory (CT) — the thesis, established by transcendental argument, that constraint is the ontological primitive constitutive of determinate existence as such — provides the ontological grounding that decoherence theory presupposes but does not supply. On the CT account, quantum superposition is open constraint configuration: the genuine ontological openness of a possibility space that has not been closed by the system’s constraint profile or its environmental interactions. Macroscopic determinacy is closed constraint configuration: the progressive closure of macroscopic possibility spaces by the cumulative propagation of environmental constraint into the system’s profile at a rate that overwhelms quantum coherence. Decoherence is the process by which environmental constraint propagation closes possibility spaces; CT explains why this closure has the ontological consequences it does rather than merely the epistemic consequences that the standard account describes. The pointer basis selection problem receives a principled CT resolution: the pointer basis is the constraint-stable basis, the set of states whose constraint pro files are robust under the specific pattern of environmental constraint propagation. The measurement problem is reframed as the question of which branch of an open constraint configuration is closed by a measurement interaction, a question that CT narrows to its irreducible residual without dissolving prematurely. The mesoscopic regime — where quantum behaviour persists at scales larger than individual particles — is explained as the regime of partial constraint closure: systems whose environmental coupling is sufficient to close some but not all dimensions of their possibility space. The paper engages the principal interpretations of quantum mechanics and the philosophical literature on decoherence, situating the CT account as an ontological foundation compatible with multiple interpretive positions.
This paper characterizes quantum mechanics as a closed redescription regime governed by constraint-generated admissibility, rather than as an ontic theory of physical entities or processes. The analysis is eliminative: it shows that once standing preservation, admissibility, and redescription stability are enforced, quantum mechanical structure emerges as a bookkeeping system that exhausts all admissible local redescriptions without leaving residual degrees of freedom. Quantum states, operators, and measurement constructs are treated as representational artifacts licensed by closure, not as primitive elements of reality. The paper demonstrates that attempts to extend, reinterpret, or operationalize quantum mechanics beyond this closed redescription role introduce illicit scope transport, deferred admissibility, or duplication of enforcement, all of which violate standing conservation. No primitives, mechanisms, algorithms, or procedural sequences are introduced. The contribution is boundary-setting: it clarifies why quantum mechanics must be understood as a CG-closed redescription framework, and why treating it as incomplete, extendable, or ontically explanatory is structurally inadmissible rather than an open interpretive choice.