Introduction
1. The Context: From Epistemology to Ontology
Mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics often treat probability as a form of epistemic uncertainty — a measure of what an observer does or doesn’t know about an otherwise determinate physical system.
By contrast, the relational ontology rejects the assumption of an unconstrued world “behind” observation. In this model:
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The universe is not made of fixed things, but of structured potential — systems understood as theories of possible instances.
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Every instance of meaning is a perspectival cut from potential into event.
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Crucially, meaning is always ideational, interpersonal, and textual. This applies not just to language but to all instances of semiosis — including quantum measurement.
2. Measurement as Construal
In this view, measurement is not the revelation of a hidden state, but the enactment of a particular construal within a system of potential. It is:
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An instantiative act: a perspectival shift from system to instance
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A semiotic process: not the acquisition of information, but the actualisation of one possibility among many
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A relational event: constituted by the mutual construal of systems, not the asymmetrical action of an observer on an object
There is no "collapse" in any physical sense — only the resolution of structured potential into actualisation.
3. The Role of Interpersonal Meaning
Traditionally, interpersonal meaning is thought to reside in social interactions — speech, dialogue, persuasion. But in SFL, interpersonal meaning is a dimension of all meaning-making.
In this framework:
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Modality expresses a speaker’s stance toward potentiality (e.g. might, must)
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Polarity resolves that potential into affirmation or denial (e.g. is, is not)
Crucially:
🔵 In quantum measurement, modality corresponds to the field of probability amplitudes — a cline of potential.🔴 Polarity corresponds to the event of measurement — the commitment to a particular construal.
This reframes probability not as uncertainty, but as structured stance within a field of modal meaning.
4. Instantiation and the Cline of Modality
Modality in SFL is the cline between positive and negative polarity — the zone of might, should, probably, must. Within the relational model:
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Potential lives on this cline — it is modally structured
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Instance resolves the cline into one side of the polarity: yes (this) or no (not those)
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Measurement, then, is the resolution of modal tension into polarity
This shift is not epistemic. It is ontological: a construal event that enacts meaning, not discovers it.
5. The Ergative Structure of Instantiation
Halliday’s ergative model provides a functional way to model this relation. In an ergative clause:
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The Process is the instantiation relation
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The Medium is the instance (polarity)
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The Range is the potential (modality)
This allows us to say:
The potential (system) functions as the Range of instantiation: it enacts modality.The instance functions as the Medium: it enacts polarity.
This positions modality and polarity as ergative participants in the process of meaning — not just linguistic embellishments, but semiotic roles in the structure of being.
6. Synthesis: A Unified Semiotic Ontology
This relational account avoids:
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Epistemic representationalism
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Observer-system asymmetry
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Ontologies that treat meaning as secondary to matter
And it shows:
Meaning, in every domain, emerges as a stance toward potential — resolved through relational construal, and instantiated as polarity within the ergative structure of being.
Closing Thought
From modality to polarity, from system to instance, from quantum field to measurement — all construal is relational. And all reality, construed.
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