Construal, Equivalence, and Quantum Cuts

Einstein’s equivalence principle and the strange logics of quantum mechanics are often treated as irreconcilable fragments of physics — one governing the very large, the other the very small. But through the lens of relational ontology, we can see them as two variations on a single theme: the reflexivity of construal.

The Equivalence Principle as Construal-Alignment

Einstein’s insight was that locally — in a small enough region of experience — the effects of gravitation are indistinguishable from those of acceleration. In relational terms, this is a principle of perspectival invariance. Two distinct construals of experience (falling freely in a gravitational field, or being pushed in a rocket) are treated as the same phenomenon once the construal-cut is made. Gravity is not discovered as an absolute substance but aligned, perspectivally, with motion.

Quantum Mechanics as Construal-Actualisation

Quantum mechanics, by contrast, insists that phenomena are structured as systems of possibility. A system is a theory of potential instances; an event is a perspectival cut that actualises one construal over others. Wave and particle, superposition and collapse, are not contradictions but alternative construals that cannot be held simultaneously. The quantum world foregrounds the dependence of actuality on construal.

A Common Reflexivity

Seen together, the two principles are not opposites but siblings. Both are reflexive accounts of how phenomena depend on the ways we cut them:

• The equivalence principle aligns construals across scales of motion (gravity vs acceleration).

• Quantum mechanics aligns construals across scales of possibility (potential vs actual).

The much-discussed “unification problem” between relativity and quantum mechanics then appears differently. It is not a question of welding two incompatible descriptions of an independent reality, but of finding the conditions under which the cuts legitimised by one system of construal can be aligned with those legitimised by another.

Toward Relational Physics

From a relational-ontological perspective, neither relativity nor quantum mechanics reveals the world “as it is in itself.” Both are disciplined construals of how experience can be patterned, aligned, and actualised. Einstein’s principle teaches us about construal-alignment in motion; quantum mechanics teaches us about construal-alignment in possibility. Their unity lies not in a hidden substance beneath them, but in their shared reflexivity — their insistence that what is actual is always dependent on how it is construed.