“The wave function does not describe the state of a system itself, but our knowledge of the system.”
— Niels Bohr

 

Prelude – Where We Are Now

In Chapter 4, we walked through the double-slit experiment — an experiment long revered for its strangeness — and found that much of its mystery melts away when viewed through the lens of Superdeterminism. We removed the illusion of collapse and peered into the structure beneath the surface.

Now, we turn to the object at the heart of that structure — the wave function itself, known as the Greek symbol hereafter referred to as Psi.

What is Psi, really?
Is it something the universe “is”?
Or is it something we use to describe the unknown?

This chapter is not an argument against quantum mechanics.
It is an invitation to understand what its language actually means.

The Wave Function Is Not the World

The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics teaches us that Psi — the wave function — contains all possible outcomes of a system, and that when a measurement is made, Psi “collapses” into one actual result. This idea of collapse has haunted physicists and philosophers alike.

It was Heisenberg who said:

“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”

Collapse, then, is not something the universe is doing — it is something we impose through interaction and limitation. We do not see the system as it is — we see what is revealed to us under tightly constrained conditions.

In Superdeterminism, collapse isn’t needed. It was never real. The apparent “choice” among possibilities is simply the arrival of a determined outcome that always was.

Psi does not describe objective multiplicity. It encodes our uncertainty. It is not a description of what the world is, but a model of what we know, and how we anticipate the system will relate to a measurement context that is itself part of the causal structure.

Reframing the Born Rule

This brings us to the Born Rule — a mathematical postulate that gives us the probability of a given outcome when a quantum measurement is made. It tells us that the chance of observing a particular result is the square of the amplitude of Psi, or |Psi|².

For nearly a century, this has been interpreted as nature’s way of playing dice — selecting one outcome at random from a field of possibilities.

But Superdeterminism challenges this deeply.

The Born Rule is not nature rolling dice — it is us mapping our ignorance.

It does not describe reality making a choice. It describes the statistical structure of our predictions — predictions made from an embedded perspective with limited access to the full causal chain.

What we call “probabilities” are a byproduct of not knowing all the correlations. The Born Rule simply reflects how likely we are to observe a particular result, given our limited preparation and interaction with the system — not because multiple outcomes were real, but because our model lacked full resolution.

Schrödinger understood this. He wrote:

“The wave function itself is not a fact, but a means for calculating probabilities. It is a tool of the mind, not a feature of nature.”

Superdeterminism doesn’t throw out the Born Rule.

It grounds it — not in randomness, but in relational complexity.

Psi Is a Map, Not the Territory

Let’s strip away the veil of mysticism.

Psi is not the electron. Psi is not the particle. Psi is not the world.
Psi is the map we use when the full terrain of causality is obscured from view.

Just as we use probabilities to forecast tomorrow’s weather, we use Psi to estimate outcomes in a system too complex for our present vantage. Not because the world is uncertain — but because we are. When we measure, we don’t cause reality to collapse — we intersect with it. And that intersection, that “outcome,” was always coming.

So Psi isn’t meaningless.

It’s contextual, relational, and epistemic.

It describes the space between what is determined and what is known — the interface between system and observer, not the fabric of reality itself.

Figure 4: Map vs. Territory — The Epistemological Nature of Psi

This diagram illustrates the distinction between the map (the wavefunction or Psi, which encodes all possible outcomes) and the territory (the single, causally determined path that is actually realized). The top half depicts a branching structure labelled “Map” and “Possibilities,” symbolizing the mathematical space of quantum outcomes. The lower half shows a single winding path labelled “Territory” and “Determined Path,” representing reality as it unfolds within a superdeterministic universe. The figure visually reinforces the idea that Psi is not ontological — it is an epistemological tool describing uncertainty from within, not fundamental indeterminacy in the world itself.

Figure 5: Entanglement Without Spookiness — Correlation Through Shared Causal History

This schematic illustrates how entangled particles do not require faster-than-light communication or magical collapse. Instead, they share a causal past that determines their future measurement outcomes. The top portion of the diagram shows a “Shared Causal Past” forming a V-shaped light cone, from which Particle A and Particle B emerge. Dashed lines labelled “Entanglement” indicate their shared origin. Below, downward arrows marked “Correlation” emphasize that their synchronized measurement results arise from their embedded position within a causally consistent universe — not through retroactive influence or instantaneous signalling. The visual underscores the superdeterministic reframe: correlation without collapse, and coherence without magic.

From Things to Relations — Psi and the Language of Process

This shift — from seeing Psi as a “thing” to seeing it as a model — mirrors a deeper transformation that physics has undergone before.

When Einstein introduced relativity, he didn’t just change our equations. He changed our frame of meaning. Space and time were no longer absolute containers in which events occurred. They became relations between events — structured, contextual, and inseparable from the observer’s frame.

In the same way, Superdeterminism invites us to rethink Psi not as a “thing” floating in Hilbert space, but as a process embedded in causal structure — a relational expression of what is knowable, given how the observer and system are configured.

There are no isolated “particles” that switch between wave-like and point-like behaviour. There are only causally coherent trajectories — and Psi describes our epistemic approximation of those trajectories from within the system.

This isn’t just semantics. It’s a philosophical realignment:

We move from a worldview of objects and collapses
Psi to a worldview of interactions and constraints.

We move from the ontology of “being”
Psi to the logic of becoming.

In this view, what exists are not separate “things,” but relations.
What unfolds is not randomness, but process.
And what Psi gives us is not magic, but orientation.

The Ontological Lightness of Being

By lifting the burden of ontology off Psi, something remarkable happens.

We no longer need to invent exotic metaphysical scaffolding — no Many Worlds, no mystical collapses, no parallel timelines.

The strangeness fades when we stop demanding that Psi describe everything.

In a superdeterministic view, the interference, the entanglement, the so-called measurement problem — all of it — becomes comprehensible. These are not paradoxes of reality. They are reflections of what happens when embedded observers attempt to model a system far larger than their scope of access.

What feels random is simply unresolved structure.
What feels like choice is simply causal arrival.

Superdeterminism lets us see that Psi is not the mystery.
Our interpretation of Psi is.

Case Study: Bell’s Theorem and the Assumption That Shook the World

In 1964, John Bell published a theorem that challenged the foundations of quantum mechanics. But few realize that Bell’s entire argument rested on a quiet assumption: that measurement choices are independent — free from hidden influence.

It seemed innocent at the time. But it became the fulcrum of decades of quantum paradox.

What if that assumption wasn’t true?

Superdeterminism dares to say just that. And in doing so, it doesn’t violate physics — it closes a loophole that was never properly sealed. The shock? If Bell’s assumption is relaxed, the entire “spooky action at a distance” vanishes — not because the universe is weird, but because we misunderstood how deeply embedded we truly are.

Final Reflection

Let’s remember Heisenberg again:

“Nature is made in such a way that it is impossible to make statements about it that are not probabilistic.”

But perhaps that statement is not about nature.
Perhaps it’s about us.

The wave function, Psi, and the Born Rule are not magical forces — they are mathematical tools. They help us survive within complexity, not peer beyond it.

Superdeterminism does not undo quantum theory.

It lifts it out of mysticism and returns it to the realm of process, structure, and causal clarity.

And that’s not a loss of wonder. That’s its rediscovery.

 

Endnotes — Chapter 5: Psi Is Epistemological — There Is No Ontological Mystery

1. Heisenberg’s Epistemological View: The quote, “What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning,” reflects Heisenberg’s foundational view that quantum mechanics is a theory of knowledge, not necessarily of reality. See Heisenberg, W. (1958), Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science.
2. Collapse as Epistemic Artifact: In Superdeterminism, wavefunction collapse is reinterpreted as a shift in knowledge, not ontology. This view aligns with QBism and relational quantum mechanics, where measurement updates information rather than changing physical reality.
3. Born Rule as a Probability Tool: The Born Rule (|Psi|²) is traditionally viewed as an axiom of quantum mechanics assigning probabilities to outcomes. Superdeterminism reframes it as a statistical tool to manage ignorance, echoing interpretations where probability reflects epistemic limitations, not intrinsic randomness. See Born, M. (1926), Zur Quantenmechanik der Stoßvorgänge.
4. Schrödinger’s Caution Against Reification: Erwin Schrödinger’s writings repeatedly emphasized that the wavefunction is a computational device, not a physical entity. His quote, “The wave function is not a fact, but a means for calculating probabilities,” reinforces the epistemological reading of Psi.
5. Map–Territory Distinction: The analogy that Psi is “a map, not the territory” echoes Alfred Korzybski’s foundational insight in general semantics: “The map is not the territory.” This perspective aligns with Superdeterminism, where Psi is seen as a representation of inference, not intrinsic being.
6. Causal Entanglement Without Spooky Action: Figure 5’s reframe of entanglement as shared causal ancestry rather than faster-than-light influence mirrors arguments from Tim Palmer and Gerard ’t Hooft. In this view, correlations emerge from deep coherence, not non-local communication.
7. Relational Process Philosophy: The shift from “things” to “relations” resonates with the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1929), where reality is constituted by events and relations, not discrete objects. Superdeterminism extends this view to quantum ontology.
8. Relativity and Relational Structure: Just as Einstein’s relativity made space and time relational rather than absolute, Superdeterminism applies this logic to measurement and probability. See Einstein, A. (1920), Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.
9. Hilbert Space as Modelling Scaffold: Hilbert space is a formal, abstract construction for representing quantum systems. Treating it as a map for possibility rather than physical reality supports a pragmatic, epistemic approach to quantum theory.
10. Many Worlds and the Burden of Ontology: Everettian interpretations demand that Psi be ontological, spawning an infinite branching multiverse. Superdeterminism avoids this metaphysical inflation by denying the ontological multiplicity implied by indeterminism.
11. Entanglement as Correlated Constraint: In Superdeterminism, entangled particles do not require mysterious non-local influence. Instead, their correlated outcomes are a consequence of their shared causal configuration — akin to deterministic constraint propagation in cellular automata.
12. From Probability to Constraint: What appears probabilistic in quantum systems is viewed in Superdeterminism as unresolved structure — an idea supported by Stephen Wolfram’s notion of computational irreducibility, where complex behaviour is deterministic but not easily predictable.
13. Psi as a Guide for the Embedded Observer: The reinterpretation of Psi as an orientation tool reflects Bayesian perspectives on inference, where beliefs are updated with new information. This positions Psi within the observer’s evolving internal model rather than in the world itself.
14. Rejection of Ontological Collapse: The chapter’s core claim — that Psi doesn’t collapse because it was never ontological — aligns with arguments from the epistemic view of quantum states (see Harrigan & Spekkens, 2010) and recent work by Matt Leifer and Christopher Fuchs.
15. Causal Completeness and Structural Realism: Superdeterminism maintains a commitment to causal completeness — the idea that every event has a cause. This coheres with structural realism, which holds that what is real is the structure of relations rather than individual objects.
16. Psi as Orientation, Not Magic: By reframing Psi as a relational tool rather than a mysterious force, the chapter dissolves the perceived magicalism surrounding measurement. This interpretation echoes Niels Bohr’s idea that physics is about what we can say about nature — not what nature is.
17. The Language of Becoming: The move from “being” to “becoming” echoes David Bohm’s implicate order, where processes unfold rather than “things” existing. It also resonates with Eastern philosophies that emphasize impermanence and interdependent origination.
18. Rediscovering Wonder Through Clarity: The final claim — that Superdeterminism restores wonder by removing mystification — recalls Einstein’s sense of “cosmic religious feeling,” where understanding the laws of the universe is itself a spiritual act. See Einstein, A. (1930), The World as I See It.