The quantum revolution introduces a construal of temporality in which determinacy is suspended, potentialities proliferate, and the actualisation of events is inherently probabilistic. Time is no longer a uniform backdrop against which sequences unfold; it is a relational field in which multiple potential trajectories coexist until interaction, observation, or measurement collapses possibilities into particularised actualisations. The horizon of temporal potential is thus expanded, revealing the indeterminacy embedded within both microphysical and symbolic domains.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle exemplifies this reconstrual. Temporal and energetic measurements are bounded by relational constraints: the more precisely a system’s energy is known, the less determinate its temporal evolution becomes. Temporality is not a fixed sequence but a field of probabilistic potentialities, co-constituted by the interaction between observer and system. The relational character of time emerges as an intrinsic feature: possibilities do not merely unfold; they are modulated by context, interaction, and relational alignment.
Wheeler’s participatory perspective amplifies this insight, emphasising that observers play a constitutive role in the actualisation of temporal sequences. Events materialise through relational interaction, rendering time contingent upon participation and measurement. Potentialities exist in superposition, and temporal horizons are realised only as relational outcomes of co-constitutive processes. Time is simultaneously emergent, probabilistic, and perspectival: it is a medium of relational actualisation, not a pre-existing continuum.
Quantum temporality thus foregrounds a radical relational ontology of time. Causality, sequence, and duration are contingent rather than absolute; the field of possible events is multi-dimensional and co-constructed; and the act of measurement or interaction defines which potentialities are instantiated. In this context, temporality and possibility are inseparable: the very structure of time is a dynamic interplay of relational constraints and emergent actualisations.
Modulatory voices: While quantum time radically reconceives potentiality, classical and relativistic frameworks remain effective at macroscopic scales, providing nested layers of temporal construal. Symbolic, literary, and affective temporalities continue to operate alongside quantum probabilistic structures, revealing the stratified and perspectival nature of temporal experience. The quantum field thus extends the genealogical horizon: temporality is not merely measured, narrated, or experienced; it is an active, relational medium through which possibilities are co-actualised across multiple scales and modes of construal.
With Post 8, we have now integrated probabilistic and superpositional conceptions of temporality into our genealogical series.
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