What if quantum fields aren't the fundamental fabric of reality, but structured potentials awaiting instantiation? From a relational standpoint, the quantum field isn't a seething ocean of pre-formed entities, but a system of affordances—possibilities for processes to unfold. In this post, we explore how rethinking fields as potential structures helps bridge quantum mechanics and process-based models of meaning.
1. Fields as Systems of Potential
In standard quantum field theory, a field is a continuous entity defined across space and time, with particles treated as local excitations of the field. But this view treats space and time as already given. If we instead adopt a relational ontology in which space and time are instantiated by processes, then fields must also be reconceived: not as ontological substrates but as systems of potential awaiting instantiation.
That is, the field doesn't exist in space; the field is the potential for spatial instantiation. The idea of a particle 'appearing' at a point is not the excitation of an existing thing, but the instantiation of a potential into an actual process constrained by prior relations.
2. The Collapse of the Field?
This reframing sheds new light on the wavefunction and measurement problem. In quantum field theory, collapse is usually discussed in terms of wavefunctions over Fock space. But if fields are systems of potential, then collapse is not a physical change in the field itself. It is the instantiation of one possibility among many—and this instantiation occurs only in relation to an observer's meaning potential.
Just as the wavefunction doesn't collapse until observed, the field doesn't instantiate until a process unfolds. And since every process is defined relationally, the field has no independent status apart from the processes it affords.
3. Entanglement as Relational Constraint
Entangled particles are often described as sharing a quantum state across distance. But in the process-instantiation model, what is shared is not a state but a constraint: a relation in the potential structure that governs how instantiation must unfold. The entangled state is a set of potentialities governed by a shared history, not a mysterious bond through spacetime.
When one part of the system is instantiated (observed), the relational structure constrains how the rest may be instantiated. No 'information' is transmitted; rather, the field of potential has been differently constrained by the first actualisation.
4. Why This Matters
Reconceiving fields as structured potentials dissolves many conceptual puzzles:
It explains why quantum fields don't yield definite particles until observed.
It reorients the question of measurement: not "What collapses?" but "What instantiates?"
It removes the mystery of non-locality by showing that no thing travels between events—only relational constraints unfold.
This doesn't just clarify quantum mechanics. It reframes the very nature of physical theory as a set of meanings we instantiate from structured potential.
Closing Reflection
If fields are not things in space but systems of potential for the unfolding of processes, then the foundations of physics shift from substance to relation. Not a world of objects and excitations, but a world of potential constrained into actuality through meaning-making processes. Perhaps quantum theory is already telling us this—we just haven't yet learned how to read its meanings.
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