The Readiness Cut in Quantum Theory: How the Inclination/Ability Distinction Clarifies the Quantum World: 4 Dissolving the ‘Weirdness’: Potential Is Not One Thing

Quantum theory becomes “weird” only when we ask it to do something logically impossible:
to treat potential as a single, undifferentiated kind of thing.

Every quantum paradox — without exception — rests on this conflation.

But once we introduce the readiness architecture, and split potential into its two irreducible components:

• inclination = internal structure of potential

• ability = external constraint on potential

the entire landscape of quantum puzzles reorganises itself with startling clarity.

This post shows why.

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1. The hidden assumption behind every quantum paradox

All paradoxes of quantum mechanics assume implicitly that:

Potential is monolithic.

That is:

• a system is either “in a superposition” or “not,”

• a particle “has a path” or “doesn’t,”

• an outcome is “determined” or “undetermined,”

• a wavefunction is “complete” or “incomplete.”

But quantum theory never tells us this.

It tells us only that:

1. There is a structured internal disposition to evolve in certain ways (inclination).

2. There is a structured external disposition that constrains what evolutions are available (ability).

The wavefunction encodes inclination — the internal shaping of potential.

The measurement context encodes ability — the external shaping of potential.

Once we separate these two, paradoxes stop being paradoxical; they simply become cases where we previously asked one structure to do the work of two.

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2. Why the conflation matters

When internal and external dispositions are not distinguished, four errors recur:

1. Treating internal structure as external fact
   (“A superposition means the system really has multiple incompatible properties.”)

2. Treating external constraint as internal negativity
   (“Measurement destroys the coherence that was ‘really there’.”)

3. Treating inclination as incomplete ability
   (“The wavefunction is only a probability distribution because something is missing.”)

4. Treating ability as magical override
   (“Which-path information instantaneously rewrites history.”)

These are exactly the moves that generate:

• wave–particle duality

• Schrödinger’s cat

• Wigner’s friend

• delayed choice paradoxes

• nonlocality

• contextuality

• the measurement problem

• “collapse”

And all four moves disappear the moment inclination and ability are treated as different kinds of structure.

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3. What happens when we apply the readiness cut

Inclination: internal structure of potential

An evolving wavefunction is nothing more or less than a system’s internal organisation of possible morphisms — a cohesive, endogenous shaping of how its potential unfolds.

Ability: external constraint on morphism availability

A measurement device, environment, or interaction supplies external structure, constraining which morphisms (transitions) are admissible.

A paradox arises only when we ask one side to explain both the internal shaping and the external constraint.

Split them, and the “paradox” becomes a routine compositional interface.

Quantum weirdness is a category error: treating inclination as ability, or vice versa.

Once corrected:

• superposition is not multistate actuality;

• interference is not self-contradiction;

• measurement is not collapse;

• entanglement is not nonlocality;

• contextuality is not epistemic fragility.

What remains is cleanly structured potential in interaction with cleanly structured constraint — nothing spooky, nothing contradictory.

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4. A preview of the detailed demonstrations

In the next post, we will take each major paradox in turn and show how:

• wave–particle duality reduces to:
  inclination supports interference, ability suppresses or enables it

• Schrödinger’s cat reduces to:
  inclination ≠ external ability, so no object is “half-dead”

• Wigner’s friend reduces to:
  inclination = relative internal structuring;
  ability = frame-dependent external constraint

• delayed choice reduces to:
  ability restructures potential by altering admissible morphisms, not retroactively

• quantum eraser reduces to:
  re-imposing inclination structure previously overridden by ability

• entanglement reduces to:
  co-inclination + distributed ability, not spacelike influence

• nonlocality reduces to:
  expectation that ability should be universal (it’s not)

• measurement reduces to:
  selective actualisation of one morphism among those made admissible

The punchline is consistent and powerful:

Quantum mechanics was never weird. Our construal of potential was.

The readiness architecture cleans the lens.