Bohmian Mechanics Reframed: From Pilot Waves to Potential Meaning

David Bohm proposed a deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics: a universe in which particles follow definite paths, each one guided by a mysterious, nonlocal “pilot wave.” This wave, in his model, is not merely a probabilistic abstraction but a real, physical entity. It encodes all the quantum possibilities, shaping the trajectory of each particle within a hidden but definite order.

In our relational cosmology, we reinterpret this ontological machinery. Instead of treating the wave function as a physical force guiding matter, we see it as a systemic field of potential meaning. The cosmos is not governed by hidden determinism but unfolds through relational actualisation. Particles, in this framework, are not tiny objects moving through space but events in the unfolding of meaning.

The pilot wave thus becomes a metaphor for the structured field of meaning potential. It is not a wave that pushes particles into place, but a topology of relevance within which construal occurs. There is no single path until a relation is instantiated. Actualisation is not the outcome of a mechanistic process but the emergence of meaning in context.

What Bohm describes as a deterministic trajectory, we understand as a coherent construal. The apparent inevitability of a particle’s path arises not from a hidden cause, but from systemic resonance. Meaning appears stable when it is repeatedly actualised within similar contexts, giving the illusion of determinism.

In this reframing:

• The pilot wave becomes the landscape of systemic potential.

• The implicate order becomes the interdependence of all potential actualisations.

• The particle’s trajectory becomes the unfolding of a relational process.

Bohm sought to recover a clockwork beneath quantum indeterminacy. But in doing so, he may have missed the deeper lesson of quantum theory: that potential is not subordinate to actuality; rather, actuality emerges through the construal of potential. Meaning precedes matter—or more precisely, matter is a construal of meaning.

In place of secret mechanics, we offer semiotic unfolding. The universe is not a machine with hidden gears but a fabric of relations through which potential becomes actual, instance by instance.

There is no need to reintroduce determinism in disguise. The quantum world is not telling us to look harder for causes. It is inviting us to reconsider what it means for something to be real.