Decohering Cosmology: The Myth of a Measurement-Free Universe

Decohering Cosmology: The Myth of a Measurement-Free Universe

In traditional quantum mechanics, decoherence is often treated as the bridge between the quantum and classical realms. It's the process by which quantum superpositions seem to “collapse” into definite outcomes through entanglement with an environment. In popular accounts, this is usually invoked to explain how the weirdness of quantum possibility “fades away” into classical certainty—without needing an observer.

But in our relational cosmology, this framing misses the point entirely.

The Decoherence Story: A World Without Witness

Here’s the standard tale:

• A quantum system interacts with its environment.

• Due to this interaction, the system becomes entangled with the environment.

• The quantum coherence (the neat interference between possible states) appears to vanish.

• The system “decoheres” into what looks like a classical state.

This is often said to explain why we see definite outcomes without invoking a conscious observer. Measurement, it is claimed, is just another kind of environmental entanglement. No need for meaners here. The world measures itself.

But from our perspective, this is a conjuring trick. The observer has not been removed—they’ve simply been concealed behind the curtain of “environment.”

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Environment as Proxy Observer?

If observation is defined merely as interaction, then every dust grain is a meaner, and every molecule is making meaning. But this renders the term meaningless. Not every interaction is an act of construal. Not every coupling is an act of semiosis.

In our model, decoherence does not instantiate reality. It only restructures potential.

Without a meaner to collapse the entangled state into an instance of meaning, the decohered system remains a cloud of possibility—a reshaped wavefunction, not a resolved one. The branching of paths is only actualised when a meaning-maker construes a path as having been taken.

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Rescuing Decoherence as Restructuring

So what role can decoherence play in a relational cosmos?

Decoherence can be understood as a transformation of meaning potential. It reconfigures the relational field in which meaning might be made. It is akin to the way cultural history shapes the semantic potential of a community—offering certain meanings more readily than others.

• Decoherence changes the configuration of potential.

• Observation (by a meaner) actualises a meaning instance within that reconfigured field.

• The classical world does not emerge before the observer—it emerges with the observer.

In this light, decoherence does not solve the measurement problem. It merely reshapes the context in which the problem appears.

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No Measurement Without Meaning

There is no such thing as a measurement that is not observed—not in any meaningful sense. A Geiger counter does not instantiate a particle path by clicking. It does so when the click is construed by a meaner as evidence of a past interaction. The construal is what instantiates the meaning instance.

So too with decoherence: the environment does not measure. It modulates potential. Only a meaner can instantiate that potential as actual experience.

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The Universe as Dreaming Environment

Here’s a closing provocation:

• If decoherence is what gives coherence to our dreams of the classical world,

• and if the universe is a vast field of relational potential awaiting construal,

• then the “environment” is not measuring—it is whispering possibilities.

The meaner does not emerge into a ready-made world. The world emerges with the meaner—decohered, contextualised, and instantiated.

So let us not be distracted by the illusion of measurement without meaning. Even a universe that decoheres must still be dreamed into actuality.