Synchronisation as a Necessary Condition

A Nature article (here) presents the Copenhagen framework as relying on a “perfect synchronisation” between the passage of time in Hilbert space and in physical 3D space. This gives the impression that quantum mechanics demands a universal clock, coordinating abstract state evolution with tangible measurement events.

From a relational standpoint, this is a misleading framing. There is no absolute temporal axis against which quantum potentials and measurement outcomes must be aligned. Time is not a pre-existing grid to be synchronised; it is instantiated relationally, differently for each system, each measurement, and each event. The notion of a universal clock belongs to classical intuition, not the ontology of quantum phenomena.

The Feynmanian “sum-over-histories” approach, highlighted in the article, makes this explicit. Probabilities are calculated over histories embedded in space-time, without reference to Hilbert space or synchronised time. The relational content is in the pattern of potential events themselves — each history is an unfolding of possibilities constrained by interactions and the physical structure of space-time. Synchronisation is not a law of nature but an artefact of a particular formalism.

Effect: Presenting synchronisation as fundamental obscures the relational character of quantum systems and misleads readers into seeing a dual ontology where none is required.

Punchline: Quantum probabilities don’t wait for a master clock; they emerge in the unfolding relational patterns of events.