Western Cosmology and the Becoming of Possibility: 8 Quantum Possibility: Indeterminacy, Superposition, and the Probabilistic Cosmos

Where relativity restructured space and time as dynamic and contingent, quantum theory transformed the very notion of possibility. At the microscopic scale, matter and energy do not conform to deterministic trajectories but to principles of indeterminacy, probability, and superposition. The cosmos here is no longer calculable clockwork; it is a field in which multiple potentialities coexist until actualised.

Wave-particle duality demonstrates that entities such as electrons or photons cannot be reduced to fixed categories. Their behaviour depends on experimental conditions, embodying relational construal at the physical level: the possibilities that manifest are contingent upon the context of observation. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle formalised this indeterminacy, showing that certain pairs of properties (such as position and momentum) cannot be simultaneously determined. Potential is inherently non-deterministic, not due to ignorance but because of the structure of reality itself.

Schrödinger’s concept of superposition pushed this further: quantum systems can exist in multiple possible states simultaneously, only collapsing into a definite outcome upon interaction. This is not mere epistemic limitation but an ontological account of how possibility operates at the quantum level. Bohr’s principle of complementarity underscored the perspectival nature of construal, insisting that wave and particle descriptions, though mutually exclusive, are both necessary to apprehend quantum phenomena.

In this frame, the cosmos is construed as probabilistic: what may occur is governed not by determinist necessity but by distributions of likelihood. Actualisation occurs through relational events of measurement or interaction, where one among many coexisting possibilities is brought into being. Possibility itself becomes a constitutive feature of ontology, no longer a mere lack of knowledge or a gap awaiting fuller description.

This probabilistic cosmos thus represents a radical reframing of construal. It displaces the Laplacian ideal of total predictability and inaugurates a relational universe in which potential is irreducibly open, perspectival, and contingent. What can occur is not determined in advance but emerges from the dynamic interplay of superposed possibilities and relational actualisations.

In sum, quantum theory articulates a cosmos in which possibility itself is primary: multiple trajectories co-exist, uncertainty is structural, and construal must attend to relational indeterminacy as the horizon of actualisation.