In the previous post, we argued that the interpretative crises of quantum mechanics arise from a category mistake: the confusion of structured potential with actualised instance.
The so-called “measurement problem” emerges when superposition is treated as an ontic state requiring transformation into a definite outcome.
In this post, we test that claim.
We examine three major interpretative strategies — Many Worlds, objective collapse models, and hidden variables — and show that each arises from the same inflation:
Treating potential as if it were already instance.
1. Many Worlds: Ontologising Formal Multiplicity
The Many Worlds interpretation, first proposed by Hugh Everett III, begins with a simple move: take the formalism literally and refuse collapse.
This eliminates the measurement problem by denying that only one outcome occurs.
But notice the structural presupposition:
The superposition is treated as ontological multiplicity rather than structured potential.
The formal multiplicity of possible instances is reinterpreted as a multiplicity of actual worlds.
The move appears bold. In fact, it is conservative.
It assumes that the mathematical articulation of potential must correspond to ontic actuality. If multiple terms appear in the formalism, then multiple realities must exist.
But if superposition is structured potential — a theory of possible instances — then no branching ontology is required.
Many Worlds solves a problem that was generated by inflating potential into co-actuality.
2. Objective Collapse: Forcing Potential to Become Substance
Objective collapse models, associated with figures such as GianCarlo Ghirardi and Roger Penrose, accept superposition as an ontic state but modify the theory so that collapse becomes a real physical process.
Here, the wavefunction is treated as a physical entity that evolves according to one law and occasionally undergoes spontaneous reduction according to another.
The strategy is clear:
If superposition is real in the same sense that tables and chairs are real, then its disappearance must also be physically real.
Collapse must be built into the ontology.
But again, the pressure arises from the same initial inflation.
Superposition has been treated as an ontic condition requiring dynamical resolution.
If, instead, superposition belongs to structured potential, then no dynamical collapse is required.
Actualisation is not a physical jump within substance.
It is the cut from potential to instance.
Objective collapse models stabilise a metaphysical picture that was unnecessary to begin with.
3. Hidden Variables: Completing What Was Never Incomplete
Hidden variable theories, most famously developed by David Bohm, take a different approach.
If quantum theory yields probabilistic outcomes, perhaps the probabilities reflect incomplete knowledge of deeper, determinate states.
The solution is to posit additional variables that restore definiteness at the fundamental level.
Here the assumption is subtle but powerful:
Potential is interpreted as epistemic ignorance of an underlying instance.
Superposition becomes a sign that we do not yet know which definite state truly obtains.
But this presupposes that actuality must be fully determinate independently of structured potential — that possibility is merely a veil over hidden substance.
If potential is instead a genuine structured field from which instances are actualised, then indeterminacy is not ignorance of deeper facts.
It is a feature of the relation between potential and instance.
Hidden variables complete what was never incomplete.
They attempt to reduce potential to pre-existing instance.
The Shared Grammar
Despite their differences, these interpretations share a common grammatical move:
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Treat superposition as an ontic state.
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Demand that this state be reconciled with definite outcomes.
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Introduce additional ontology to resolve the tension.
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Many Worlds multiplies instances.
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Objective collapse multiplies dynamical laws.
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Hidden variables multiply underlying entities.
Each is internally coherent.
Each is motivated by a desire to preserve realism.
But each arises from the same initial conflation: the treatment of structured potential as if it were already actualised being.
Reversing the Inflation
If we maintain the distinction:
System (structured potential) → Cut → Instance
then the pressure dissipates.
Superposition belongs to the system.
Definite outcomes belong to instances.
The formalism retains its full predictive and experimental power.
What disappears is not physics.
What disappears is metaphysical inflation.
The Deeper Shift
The interpretative crisis of quantum mechanics did not force us to choose between rival ontologies of substance.
It invited us to clarify the relation between potential and instance.
Once that clarification is made, the multiplication of worlds, collapses, and hidden substrates appears not as necessity but as overcorrection.
The revolution was not that reality is stranger than we imagined.
It was that possibility has structure — and that structure was mistaken for substance.
Quantum theory does not demand ontological excess.
It demands grammatical precision.
And when that precision is restored, the proliferation of interpretative metaphysics begins to look less like insight —
and more like an elaborate attempt to repair a confusion we introduced ourselves.
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