What does it mean to be someone—or something—before anyone observes you? In quantum physics, this isn’t just a philosophical riddle. Superposition is a physical phenomenon in which a quantum system exists in multiple potential states simultaneously… until one of those potentials is instantiated.
If that sounds like a metaphor for the fluidity of identity, it’s because it is.
The Myth of Pre-Formed Identity
In classical thought, an entity has properties—position, momentum, even character—whether or not anyone’s looking. But quantum mechanics reveals something stranger: before observed measurement, particles don’t simply have properties. They have potentialities. The actualised state—the particle’s position, for example—is brought into being through interaction.
In our relational cosmology, this isn’t weird. It’s expected. Nothing exists “as it is” outside of its construal.
Identity, then, is not the pre-determined outcome of some essence lying in wait. It is a process of construal—a becoming, not a being.
Meaners in Superposition
Consider the quantum meaner. Before acting, before making meaning, what is their identity?
Just as a particle exists in superposed potential states, a meaner holds multiple meaning potentials—shaped by culture, memory, mood, and context. They do not express all of these at once. But they carry them. The act of meaning-making is a kind of collapse—a realisation of one thread of potential within a particular unfolding of process.
You are not the same meaner from moment to moment. You are a locus of potential, whose identity unfolds through the construal of experience.
The Collapse of the Self
This has profound implications. When we act, when we speak, when we mean—we are not expressing some stable, inner self. We are instantiating identity from potential, within a specific context, toward a specific end.
The self is not stored. It is composed anew.
And just as different measurements can produce different outcomes, different contexts can elicit different identities. This is not inconsistency. This is quantum relational coherence.
Are We All Schrödinger’s Cat?
Sort of.
Until we interact with a context, we are a multiplicity of potentials. When we do interact, we instantiate a particular configuration of meaning. But crucially, this doesn’t mean the other potentials vanish forever. They remain latent—available for future actualisation.
In a sense, identity is not what you are. It’s what you have done—and what you might yet do.
Closing Reflection
Quantum superposition challenges the metaphysics of fixed identity. But it makes perfect sense in a cosmos where reality unfolds through the construal of experience.
You are not a pre-written script. You are a field of possibility.
And every act of meaning you make is a step in the poem of your becoming.
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