How the World Becomes Determinate: Synchronicity, constraint, and the ontology of relations

Abstract

Persistent difficulties in quantum mechanics, biosemiotics, and artificial intelligence suggest a shared limitation of a dominant ontological formalism that presupposes determinate entities, intrinsic identity, and explanation through efficient causation. This paper develops a relational, processual ontology in which determinacy and significance emerge through formally causal processes of symmetry breaking, constraint, and synchronization. Probability is reinterpreted non-epistemically as a measure of relational compatibility rather than uncertainty about pre-existing states, and identity is understood as relationally enacted through participation in coordinated systems. These claims are realized across quantum measurement, biological sign activity, and large language models, showing classical ontology to be incomplete rather than false.

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