Explanatory Strain and Entanglement: 4 Instantiation and Entanglement

We have now cleared the ground: the metaphor of electrons that “decide,” the pseudo-temporal framing of A influencing B, and the illusion of coordination across space have all been examined and shown to be explanatory strains. What remains is the positive account using relational ontology.

In this framework, the entangled electron pair is a structured potential. The joint spin states define the space of possible outcomes: each measurement is an instantiation, a perspectival cut through this structured potential. There is no process by which one electron informs or alters the other. The anti-correlation is not produced by communication; it is encoded in the system-as-theory that governs what counts as possible events.

Superposition describes potential, not indecision. Each electron does not “decide” upon measurement; each measurement actualises an outcome consistent with the constraints of the entangled state. The outcomes are intelligible only in relation to the potential that defines them; their correlation is a consequence of the structure, not of causal influence or temporal sequence.

Viewed this way, entanglement loses its aura of paradox. The so-called “spooky action at a distance” is not a physical process but a reflection of how we tend to misapply familiar causal and temporal intuitions to situations governed by structured potential. Measurement events instantiate potential; correlations are constraints; no mysterious signalling is needed.

Entanglement, like the two-slit experiment, teaches a broader lesson: the appearance of mystery arises when patterns or correlations are explained in terms of events alone. Relational ontology provides the corrective: systems are theories of potential, and individual events are perspectival actualisations of that potential.

Once this shift is made, entanglement is no longer spooky—it is a compelling illustration of how structure informs what can occur, not a challenge to locality or causality. The electrons never communicate; they simply instantiate the constraints that define their joint potential.