In classical mechanics, things move when you leave them alone. In quantum mechanics, they do the opposite. The more you observe a process, the more it freezes. This is the paradox known as the Quantum Zeno Effect.
But what happens when we reframe this effect within our relational cosmology—where reality is actualised through meaning-making, and observation is just one way a meaner construes experience?
Repetition as Arrested Becoming
The Quantum Zeno Effect arises when a quantum system is repeatedly observed to see if it has changed. Ironically, the more frequently you check, the less it changes. It’s as if the act of checking pins it in place.
In our relational model, this makes perfect sense:
Each observation is an act of instantiation. It brings one particular meaning into being, out of a field of structured potential.
If that act is repeated continuously—instantiating the same meaning over and over—then no new actualisation can take place.
The process is not free to unfold. The potential remains, but the path through it is locked.
So it’s not that potential itself is frozen. Rather:
The unfolding of process is arrested because no new construal is permitted.
The Zeno Trap
This effect is a beautiful expression of our core idea: reality is an unfolding of construals.
To continually instantiate the same construal is to deny process. To continually seek certainty is to foreclose becoming.
The Zeno Effect is not just a physical curiosity. It’s a relational parable:
When we fix meaning too tightly, we prevent the emergence of the new.
The frozen quantum system is like a culture stuck in orthodoxy, or a person caught in obsessive thought. It is the same process, construal after construal, refusing to open to a different path through potential.
A Meaner’s Role in Change
This brings us to a crucial insight:
Potential does not unfold. It is not a process. It is the structured horizon of what could be.
Unfolding happens only through actualisation. It is the process by which the meaner brings meaning into being, one construal at a time.
So when a system is frozen by repeated observation, it is not that potential is “stuck.” It is that no new construal is made.
The universe does not move forward unless we do.
Closing Thought
In our relational cosmology, time is not a background dimension through which we travel. It is the dimension of unfolding actualisation.
The Quantum Zeno Effect shows us what happens when the meaner insists on sameness. When change is feared, and observation becomes fixation, becoming is denied.
And in that denial, even quantum systems wait—for a new construal. For a new meaning to make its way into being.
Or to put it more playfully:
The cosmos won’t dance if you keep staring at its feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment