Potential, Probability, and the Relational Turn: I From Probability to Potential

When we speak of potential, we often reach instinctively for probability.

The world, in classical and quantum physics alike, seems to present itself as a landscape of possible outcomes: events with varying likelihoods, uncertain futures quantified by numbers.

But probability, as it is usually invoked, belongs not to reality itself, but to our knowledge of reality. It is epistemic: a measure of uncertainty.

Relational ontology — and insights from systemic functional linguistics (SFL) — allow us to see a deeper layer: potential is not probability, but readiness.

---

1. The SFL distinction: modalisation vs modulation

Halliday’s model of modality separates two fundamentally different phenomena:

• Modalisation: the speaker’s construal of likelihood or usuality; i.e., probability.

• Modulation: the speaker’s construal of readiness; i.e., potentiality, ability, and inclination.

In SFL terms, readiness is sometimes called “dynamic modality.” It measures capacity and tendency, not truth-value. It is enactive, not epistemic.

When we transfer this insight to ontology, the implications are profound: reality itself is not probabilistic; it is dispositional, a structured field of capacities and tendencies awaiting perspectival actualisation.

---

2. Probability vs readiness

Probability quantifies uncertainty about outcomes; readiness expresses the field’s capacity to actualise.

• Probability (modalisation, epistemic) = what we can say about likelihoods based on our knowledge.

• Readiness (modulation, ontic) = the latent inclinations and abilities that define what can become actual.

This distinction resolves a deep confusion: for centuries, physics has slid between treating indeterminacy as real (ontic) and treating it as knowledge-limited (epistemic).

---

3. Ontology as modulation

In relational ontology, potential is the field of readiness itself.

Every system has:

• Ability: structural capacities for certain alignments or outcomes.

• Inclination: directional tendencies that make some outcomes more likely to actualise given a cut or instantiation.

Potential is therefore not “a weighted set of possibilities” but a kinetic, relational disposition: the world is a field of becoming, poised for alignment.

---

4. Implications for thinking about reality

This shift — from probability to readiness — reframes how we understand indeterminacy:

1. Instances do not collapse pre-existing probabilities; they actualise configurations of readiness.

2. Probability measures epistemic uncertainty about outcomes, not the ontic character of the system.

3. Relational ontology restores the distinction: the world is structured, dispositional, and dynamic, not merely a canvas of probabilities.

---

5. Preview of the series

In the posts to come, we will explore:

• How SFL modulation maps directly onto relational ontology.

• How probability belongs to the meta-phenomenal layer, not the ontic field.

• How this re-framing dissolves the confusion in quantum mechanics between epistemic uncertainty and ontological potential.

• How readiness unfolds recursively, evolves over time, and situates human construals and symbolic systems within the broader field of possibility.

The journey begins here: not with probabilities, but with readiness — the ontological potential that underpins the actualisation of all things.