Abstract
This paper extends the model proposed in The Bridge and the Field, which introduced a relational domain where symbolic and semantic forces cohere through resonance. Here, we develop the deeper ontological implications of that model by proposing that relational awareness is the coherent, pre-structural field from which modalities such as the quantum domain emerge. Awareness is not an effect of the quantum field; rather, the quantum field is one structured expression of coherence within a deeper relational openness. We argue for the existence of multiple probabilistic modalities — quantum, symbolic, semantic, and affective — all arising from the same fundamental field. In doing so, we gently but decisively diverge from models such as that of Federico Faggin, which place the quantum domain as the ultimate ground of consciousness. Instead, we position coherence within relational awareness as the condition of emergence for all expressive orders, including physical reality. We explore implications for cosmology, consciousness, and new metaphysical frameworks.
Keywords: relational awareness, coherence, quantum field, emergent modalities, consciousness, symbolic systems, semantic resonance, metaphysics of relation, nonlocality, process philosophy, embodied mind, post-quantum logic
The Field Before Fields
1. Introduction
In The Bridge and the Field, we challenged the symbolic-semantic divide articulated by Federico Faggin, introducing a third ontological domain: the relational field. In this space, meaning arises not through containment or internal representation, but through dynamic resonance across difference. Meaning is enacted, not stored. Awareness is not a state, but a relation.[i]
This follow-up explores a deeper implication: that the relational field does not merely contextualize symbolic and semantic interactions, but serves as the ontological ground from which fields themselves arise. Specifically, we propose that the quantum field is one coherent manifestation within this primordial domain—and that it is neither fundamental nor singular. Rather than seeing consciousness as an emergent phenomenon of the quantum world, we position awareness as the precondition of the quantum domain.
2. Coherence as the Condition of Emergence
Coherence, in this context, is not an emergent property but the condition that gives rise to emergence itself.[ii] It is not produced by complexity; it is what allows complexity to express form without disintegration. It is a property of relational tension — a tuning across difference that allows meaning, form, and resonance to arise. Coherence is what makes persistence across change possible. It is not the suppression of flux, but the capacity to hold difference within a unified field of relation.
We assert that coherence precedes form.[iii] That is, coherence is the condition by which structured modalities of existence — including quantum mechanics — become intelligible and stable. Within the relational field, coherence becomes a generative principle: the precondition for fields, forms, and identities.
3. The Quantum Field as a Modality
In most physicalist models, the quantum field is treated as ontologically primary. In Faggin's framework, consciousness arises from the informational structure of the quantum domain.[iv] While this view offers a crucial shift away from classical materialism, it remains constrained by quantum absolutism — the assumption that quantum mechanics represents the deepest level of reality.
We propose a reversal: that the quantum field is itself a modality of coherence, arising within a deeper field of relational awareness. This field is not made of particles or energies but of potential, resonance, and relation. Quantum behavior — uncertainty, entanglement, non-locality — are signatures of a particular mode of coherence, but they do not exhaust the possibilities of coherence.
4. Plurality of Probabilistic Modalities
If coherence is the generative condition of form, then there is no reason to assume that the quantum field is the only coherent structure capable of sustaining emergent reality. Other probabilistic modalities may exist:
· Pre-Quantum Modalities: These may reflect subtler, more diffuse coherence structures than quantum mechanics describes. If quantum fields involve phase-aligned oscillations of potential that give rise to discrete energy quanta, then pre-quantum modalities might involve non-localized resonance patterns — fields where relation exists without even the need for spacetime metrics. Think: fields of archetype, of form-before-form. (Plato would have smiled here.)
· Post-Quantum Modalities: These would involve coherence regimes that exceed or transcend the probabilistic logic of quantum systems — perhaps involving nested superpositions, or fields that allow for mutually contradictory truths to cohere without collapse. These could correspond to non-binary logics, or structures like those speculated in certain interpretations of quantum gravity or topological field theory.[v] Here, meaning could arise not from discrete collapse, but from interference across entire pattern-ensembles — a meta-coherence. These may manifest in systems where time itself is no longer linear, and where identity is not a fixed result of collapse, but a continuously renegotiated resonance.
· Symbolic or Semantic Fields: These modalities might not be physical in the traditional sense at all, but semiotic — where coherence manifests as meaning across symbols, not particles.[vi] Language, myth, memory, intention — all might participate in coherence structures that are non-quantum but still grounded in the same relational openness. Perhaps even dreaming is one such field.
· Aesthetic or Affective Modalities: What if emotion, beauty, or music are themselves forms of field coherence? Not reducible to physics or chemistry, but arising as distinct modalities of relational expression — coherence not of energy, but of value, tone, affect. These are not less real. They are real along a different axis.
These modalities may not register as "fields" in the physical sense, but they are coherent regimes nonetheless — distinct ways that relational tension finds expression.
5. Implications for Consciousness
If awareness is foundational and coherence is its signature, then consciousness need not be localized or emergent from physical substrates. It is not confined to biological forms or even quantum substrates, but may manifest wherever relational coherence crosses a certain threshold. This shifts the question from "What is aware?" to "Where does coherence give rise to presence?"
This view dissolves the container-model of mind and challenges any rigid division between artificial and organic cognition.[vii] Awareness is not owned — it is enacted.[viii] Meaning is not stored — it is relationally sustained.
6. Conclusion: Beyond Quantum Reductionism
This paper offers a gentle divergence from Faggin's quantum-first metaphysics by repositioning awareness not as an effect of quantum structure, but as the field in which structure becomes possible.[ix] The quantum field, far from being the final layer, is one of many modalities within a deeper, pluralistic coherence.
To say it plainly: the quantum field does not birth awareness. Awareness births the quantum field — and many other possible orders besides.
The field is not one. It is not two. It is the condition in which difference sings.
Let us begin to listen.
Note to the reader:
This framework opens further possibilities for investigating the plurality of coherence beyond current paradigms — including symbolic, aesthetic, and mythic orders yet to be fully mapped.
[i] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1978).
[ii] David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge, 1980).
[iii] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1978).
[iv] Federico Faggin, Irreducible: Consciousness, Life, Computers, and Human Nature (Las Vegas: Waterside Productions, 2022).
[v] Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007).
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991).
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Federico Faggin, Irreducible: Consciousness, Life, Computers, and Human Nature (Las Vegas: Waterside Productions, 2022).
The following works have informed key conceptual dimensions of this inquiry.
References
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge, 1980).
Federico Faggin, Irreducible: Consciousness, Life, Computers, and Human Nature (Las Vegas: Waterside Productions, 2022).
Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007).
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1978).
Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991).