Potential, Probability, and the Relational Turn: III Epistemology in Ontology — the Historical Confusion

In the previous posts, we distinguished probability from readiness and examined SFL modulation as a grammatical reflection of ontological potential.

Now we turn to a historical and conceptual issue that has obscured this distinction for over a century: the conflation of epistemology and ontology in physics.

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1. The rise of probability in physics

Classical physics, rooted in determinism, had no conceptual space for potentiality beyond deterministic laws.

When phenomena resisted precise prediction — for example, in statistical mechanics — probability was introduced as a practical tool to manage incomplete knowledge.

In quantum mechanics, the situation intensified: the wavefunction encodes potential outcomes, but the formalism is interpreted probabilistically.

Physicists quickly faced a conceptual puzzle:

• Does the wavefunction describe what exists, or only what we can know?

• Is the indeterminacy ontological or epistemic?

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2. Probability as epistemic cover

The early response was subtle but decisive: probability became the default explanation.

• Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle reframed indeterminacy as a limit on measurement.

• The Copenhagen interpretation emphasised that the wavefunction represents knowledge (or knowledge potentials), not reality itself.

In other words, quantum mechanics substituted epistemology for ontology: the uncertainty of measurement was conflated with the potentiality of being.

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3. Why this is a relational problem

From a relational ontology perspective, this conflation is a category error:

• Ontology concerns the field of readiness: capacities and inclinations of systems awaiting perspectival actualisation.

• Epistemology concerns our knowledge about the outcomes of that field — our uncertainty.

Probability belongs in the latter, not the former.

The persistent confusion in physics arises because mainstream interpretations lacked a conceptual distinction between potentiality (modulation) and uncertainty (modalisation).

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4. Consequences of the conflation

Treating probability as ontic led to several recurring confusions:

1. Collapse debates – does measurement create reality, or reveal it? The question assumes that potential is probabilistic rather than dispositional.

2. Determinism vs indeterminism – the world was framed as inherently probabilistic, obscuring the dispositional, relational structure of readiness.

3. Philosophical entanglements – attempts to interpret quantum mechanics metaphysically were forced to reconcile an epistemic construct (probability) with reality itself.

The relational approach dissolves these confusions: potential is readiness, and probability is our model of uncertainty about it.

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5. Reframing readiness as ontic

By relocating probability to the meta-phenomenal stratum, we see clearly:

• The world is dispositional — a structured field of abilities and inclinations.

• Instances are perspectival actualisations of readiness, not probabilistic selections.

• Probability is a statistical reflection of our knowledge of the field, not a property of the field itself.

This distinction allows quantum mechanics, SFL modulation, and relational ontology to converge coherently: readiness is ontic; probability is epistemic.

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6. Preview of Part IV

In the next post, we will explore the ontology of readiness itself: what it means for the world to exist as a field of capacities and inclinations, and how actualisation — the cut from potential to event — occurs within this relational field.

We will begin to see how this reframing transforms our understanding of quantum phenomena, symbolic systems, and human agency alike.