Ontological Evasions in Physics, Part 4 Many Worlds: Infinity as a Get-Out Clause

Quantum mechanics confronts physics with stubborn contradictions. The wavefunction can evolve deterministically, yet measurement produces definite outcomes. One response to this paradox is the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI): every possible outcome of a quantum event is realised, each in its own separate branch of the cosmos.

At first glance, MWI appears audacious, even elegant: no collapse is required, the equations are preserved, and determinism is restored. But this is precisely where physics’ ontological evasion comes into focus.

The evasive manoeuvre

MWI resolves the problem of quantum indeterminacy not by confronting relation or possibility, but by multiplying reality ad infinitum. Instead of asking how a single world actualises from potential, physics declares: all worlds are actualised somewhere. The universe is no longer a single unfolding process; it is an infinite tree of eternally branching, non-interacting realities.

This manoeuvre preserves formalism at all costs. It allows equations to remain untouched, but it does so by evacuating the question of how relation operates in a single, coherent cosmos.

The ontological cost

Infinity becomes a crutch. Actuality is diluted: every possible outcome exists, but nowhere in particular. Individuation is meaningless if every branch actualises every variation. Relation is flattened: each branch is self-contained, severing the very notion of perspectival alignment that gives events significance.

In effect, MWI trades a problem of indeterminacy for a problem of ontological inflation. Possibility is no longer emergent; it is exhaustively realised across a proliferation of worlds that we can never access or interact with. Reality becomes a metaphysical forest with infinite trees, none of which can be said to matter more than any other.

The epistemic collapse

MWI also undermines the practice of science. If every outcome occurs somewhere, what does it mean to perform an experiment? Predictive power loses its bite: certainty is replaced by certainty somewhere, but not here. Evidence can no longer confirm or disconfirm a theory in any meaningful sense, because all possibilities are realised. Science risks turning into an exercise in cataloguing infinite alternatives rather than understanding a coherent, actual world.

The theological return

The infinite proliferation of worlds carries an implicit theological echo. The cosmos becomes a plenitude of realities, reminiscent of divine omnipotence: everything that can happen does happen. Once again, physics substitutes an ontological miracle for relational coherence, presenting infinity as the solution to its own conceptual impasse.

A relational reframing

From a relational perspective, the paradox dissolves without recourse to infinite branching. Possibility is emergent, not pre-packaged; it actualises through perspectival and collective alignment. Only some outcomes are realised in relation to specific construals; others remain potential, constrained by the context of actualisation.

Many Worlds mistakes the indeterminacy of relation for an absence of determinacy. A relational ontology restores both coherence and openness: actuality is real, possibility is meaningful, and infinity is no longer required to save equations.

Conclusion

The Many Worlds Interpretation is an elegant evasion: infinity substitutes for relational insight. By multiplying universes, physics preserves formalism while abandoning the task of understanding how possibility unfolds in relation. The more fruitful path is not proliferation, but relational alignment: actualisation without the need for cosmic overreach.

Ontological Evasions in Physics, Part 3 Wavefunction Collapse: Smuggling Mind into Matter

Quantum mechanics introduced the wavefunction: a mathematical object encoding the probabilities of different outcomes. The formalism is clear enough, but the question has always been: what does the wavefunction mean? What is it a description of?

The orthodox answer—the so-called Copenhagen interpretation—deploys one of physics’ most enduring evasions: wavefunction collapse.

The evasive manoeuvre

The story goes like this: the wavefunction evolves deterministically according to Schrödinger’s equation, until a measurement occurs. At that moment, the wavefunction “collapses” into a definite outcome. Before measurement: superposition. After measurement: actuality.

This picture offers physicists a convenient divide. Quantum weirdness on one side, classical certainty on the other. The catch is that the divide rests on a vague and unstable category: “measurement.” What counts as a measurement? Why should the cosmos care whether a device—or a human observer—is watching?

Here the evasion is clear. Instead of reconceiving causation and relation, physics projects the indeterminacy onto the observer, as if mind itself must intervene in order for matter to be real.

The ontological cost

Wavefunction collapse imports consciousness as an unacknowledged deus ex machina. Ontology is split into two domains: one governed by smooth mathematical evolution, the other punctuated by miraculous collapse. Reality is fractured into dual regimes, joined only by the mysterious agency of “measurement.”

This is not an explanation but a deferral: a refusal to confront what possibility and actuality mean in relation. By outsourcing the problem to “mind,” physics preserves its equations at the cost of ontological incoherence.

The epistemic collapse

Science depends on the reproducibility of observation. Yet if reality hinges on “measurement” in some undefined sense, the ground of scientific practice is eroded. Collapse theory implies that experimenters are not probing reality, but actively conjuring it into existence by their acts of observation. Inquiry then loses its neutrality and becomes an act of ontological magic.

The theological return

Again, the supposed hard-headed stance conceals theological traces. The collapse postulate reinstates a metaphysics of miracle: smooth order interrupted by sudden intervention. The observer becomes a priestly figure, mediating between potential and actual, a stand-in for divine agency.

A relational reframing

From a relational perspective, the puzzle dissolves. The wavefunction is not a ghostly object waiting for collapse, but a construal of perspectival potential. Measurement is not an ontological rupture but a perspectival alignment: the actualisation of relation between system and context. Possibility does not end in collapse; it unfolds into new individuations.

The real lesson of quantum mechanics is not that mind conjures matter, but that actuality is always perspectival: emergent from relational construal, not from a hidden dualism.

Conclusion

Wavefunction collapse is physics’ way of smuggling mind into matter while pretending to keep ontology clean. By placing the burden on “measurement,” it evades the deeper question of how possibility actualises within relation.

The alternative is to abandon the collapse story altogether: not mind intervening in matter, but relation unfolding into actuality without need for miracles or evasions.

Ontological Evasions in Physics, Part 2 The Block Universe: Freezing Time to Save Equations

Relativity revolutionised physics by dissolving the absolute backdrop of Newtonian space and time. Space and time were no longer separate containers but fused into spacetime. Yet out of this insight came one of physics’ most tenacious evasions: the block universe.

The evasive manoeuvre

The block universe takes spacetime as a four-dimensional slab, already complete from beginning to end. Past, present, and future are equally real; the entire history of the cosmos is laid out “all at once.” What we experience as the flow of time is relegated to illusion, a parochial trick of consciousness.

Why does this picture persist? Because it preserves the mathematical elegance of relativity. Treating the cosmos as a fixed four-dimensional geometry keeps the equations neat and symmetric. But the neatness comes at an ontological cost.

The ontological cost

In the block universe, possibility is frozen. The future is no less determined than the past; becoming is erased. Individuation can no longer emerge, since all events already exist. Relation collapses into geometry, a static adjacency with no openness.

This is not merely determinism; it is the denial of temporality itself. The world becomes a sculpture, not a process. Construal, alignment, emergence—these are written out of the script.

The epistemic collapse

If the block universe is true, then the very practice of science is incoherent. Experiment depends on temporal unfolding: posing a question, intervening, waiting for an outcome. But if outcomes are already fixed in the block, experiment is just our traversing of a pre-laid track. Inquiry becomes a form of tourism through an already-finished landscape.

More subtly, the block universe deprives science of its own reflexivity. Scientific practice is itself a temporal process of conjecture, critique, and revision. To deny the openness of time is to deny the openness of science itself.

The theological return

Once again, what presents itself as “hard-headed” physics smuggles in theological undertones. The block universe is a cosmic manuscript, already authored, where becoming is replaced by eternal inscription. It echoes the ancient image of the book of fate: everything already written, nothing truly unfolding.

A relational reframing

Relational ontology does not require such evasions. Time is not an illusion to be explained away, but the very mode of perspectival actualisation. Becoming is real because relation individuates and aligns in ways that cannot be pre-scripted. Possibility is not the weak shadow of a fixed block; it is the condition for emergent construals of reality.

From this view, relativity’s real insight is not that time is illusory, but that the separation of time and space was always perspectival. Relation unfolds across multiple horizons, but this does not erase temporality—it multiplies it.

Conclusion

The block universe is not a courageous extrapolation of relativity but an evasion: freezing time to preserve equations, even at the expense of ontology and epistemology alike. What physics calls elegance here is, in truth, paralysis.

The alternative is not to retreat into illusionism, but to affirm the openness of time as relational becoming. Only then can physics move beyond the block and into the living cosmos it seeks to understand.

Ontological Evasions in Physics, Part 1 Superdeterminism: Physics in a Straitjacket of Its Own Making

Bell’s theorem posed a sharp dilemma for physics. If quantum correlations cannot be explained by local hidden variables, then physics must either accept some form of nonlocality or rethink its ontology of relation and possibility. For many, this was an intolerable choice: they wanted to preserve the sacred image of locality without conceding anything to a deeper reworking of ontology. Out of this tension came a strange proposal: superdeterminism.

The superdeterminist escape

Superdeterminism suggests that the “choices” made in an experiment—the settings of detectors, the generation of random numbers, even the experimenter’s own decisions—are not genuinely open possibilities at all. They were already determined from the very beginning of the universe. The appearance of freedom, of contingency, of probing reality through experiment, is just that: appearance. Everything, down to the last twitch of an electron and the last flick of a human finger on a switch, was written in advance.

This saves locality, but at what cost?

The ontological price

Superdeterminism collapses the openness of possibility into the closure of necessity. It denies that relation can ever actualise anything new. Individuation is flattened into a cosmic fate; construal is rendered illusory. The world becomes nothing but the replay of a pre-ordained script, written once and for all at the “beginning.”

Such an ontology is not simply deterministic. It is paranoid: no event can escape its already-fixed trajectory. The entire unfolding of the cosmos is a puppet theatre where both puppets and puppeteers were wired from the start.

The epistemic collapse

Physics prides itself on being an experimental science. But if superdeterminism is true, then experiment is no longer an open probe into nature. Every result was predetermined to vindicate precisely the theories we already hold. Evidence cannot arbitrate between competing accounts, because every outcome has been scripted to deliver one specific confirmation.

In this way, superdeterminism undermines the very epistemic practice of science. It turns inquiry into tautology, an elaborate self-confirmation ritual disguised as investigation.

The theological return

Ironically, the move that presents itself as the most “hard-nosed” of physics is structurally theological. Superdeterminism smuggles back in the figure of the absolute author, who wrote the entire cosmic play in advance. All questions, all objections, all experiments are lines already inscribed in the script.

This is not science emancipating itself from metaphysics, but science returning—blindly and unknowingly—to a metaphysics of divine preordination.

A relational reframing

The dilemma posed by Bell does not require such self-defeating solutions. From a relational ontology, possibility is not pre-scripted. It emerges perspectivally through the collective actualisation of relation. Correlations without local causation are not “spooky” once causation itself is re-understood as alignment across perspectival horizons.

The locality vs nonlocality axis misleads because it presumes a fixed grid of independent entities joined by causal arrows. A relational framing begins instead with relation itself: construal scales, individuates, and aligns without presupposing absolute separability. What physics experiences as paradox is simply the fracture line of its own ontological assumptions.

Conclusion

Superdeterminism is not a daring new proposal. It is physics retreating into a straitjacket of its own making. Faced with the challenge of Bell’s theorem, physics could choose to rethink its ontology of relation and possibility. Instead, superdeterminism denies openness altogether.

The more fruitful move is to accept what superdeterminism cannot: that reality is not a closed script but a collective and perspectival unfolding of relation.

Ontological Evasions in Physics: A Series Introduction

Physics prides itself on confronting reality head-on. Equations are taken to be the ultimate distillation of truth; experiment is the final court of appeal. Yet again and again, when pressed by contradiction, paradox, or anomaly, physics chooses not to rethink its ontology but to evade it. Instead of asking what its categories of relation, possibility, and causation actually mean, it patches the cracks with metaphysical quick fixes.

These evasions take many forms. Some deny the openness of possibility altogether, as in superdeterminism. Others freeze reality into a static tableau, as in the block universe. Still others proliferate infinities of worlds, invoke invisible placeholders, or retreat into the subjectivity of the observer. The tactics differ, but the logic is consistent: preserve the formal apparatus at any cost, even if ontology must be contorted into incoherence.

The result is that physics, in its most self-assured moments, becomes least aware of what it is doing. It smuggles in theological structures (the cosmic author, the simulation programmer), collapses the very conditions of experiment (superdeterminism), or dissolves ontology into epistemology (QBism). In every case, what is evaded is the need to reconceive relation itself: not as entities joined by causal arrows, but as perspectival construals that individuate and align.

This series will track these evasions one by one. Each instalment will:

1. Identify the problem physics was trying to solve.

2. Show the evasive manoeuvre and its appeal.

3. Expose the ontological cost of that move.

4. Unpack the epistemic collapse it entails.

5. Sketch a relational reframing that dissolves the paradox without mutilating ontology.

The point is not to score rhetorical victories over physics, but to reveal the structural pattern: when ontology is treated as a disposable inconvenience, physics ends up ensnared in contradictions of its own making. Only by confronting relation directly—as perspectival, collective, and open—can the dilemmas physics generates be reframed rather than evaded.

The first instalment takes up perhaps the starkest evasion of all: superdeterminism, the claim that everything we take to be possibility, choice, or experiment was already fixed from the beginning of time. What physics embraces here is not courage but retreat, a straitjacket masquerading as rigour.