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.