Relational, constitutive and local: a refinement prohibition for finite embedded observers
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Every measurement by a finite embedded observer is a quotient: the observer holds its record, not the fibre behind it. A registered value is relational, constitutive and local (A1). Three prohibitions follow, one for each property (A2): no assertion without its presuppositions, since a value holds only relative to its anchors; no bare-value read-out, since a value is constituted by its arrangement and carries its index; and no refinement of local values into a global ontology without new evidence. Whether new evidence can refine a registration depends on the direction of measurement. For other-referential measurement, a finer embedded observer can in principle resolve what a coarser one merged. For full-grain registration of a domain containing the observer, every embedded observer of any size meets a pigeonhole bound (A3). The quantum puzzles are located by the refinement each demands. A single measurement is an ordinary registration; the puzzles arise when its value is read bare, or when values from different arrangements or times are assembled into one global assignment — a refinement of a parent-system property into local values. Values in different arrangements are constitutively independent; their correlation is a parent-system property registrable only at a comparison point. By Fine's theorem a Bell violation shows that no global joint distribution reproduces the statistics, and a Leggett–Garg violation shows the corresponding failure for histories, given non-invasiveness. These are obstructions of a different kind from A3, which bounds full-state registration and implies neither result. Light-speed invariance and gravitational curvature show the same structure of complete local measurements and parent-system properties registered by comparison. Wave–particle duality, delayed choice and Wigner's friend are analysed on this basis. The paper does not derive the Hilbert-space formalism or the Born rule. It explains the paradoxical form of the measurement puzzles, states complementarity as a hypothesis about a parent-system bound, and leaves the quantitative form of interference statistics to further work.
Author: Shi, Ruipeng
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225651679
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