Source
Faye & Jaksland (2021), LIT-1672, §5; read in NOTE-1220.
What was actually shown
- Bohmian mechanics “reproduces all the predictions of quantum mechanics, while promoting a metaphysics that is significantly different from that of agential realism”: “individual particles with determinate position and (instantaneous) velocity” and pre-determined trajectories. It shares two features with agential realism (no ontological division between object and experiment; properties other than position produced in interaction), but its non-local interconnectedness “is an interconnectedness between individuals”. So agential realism gives at best “the epistemological and ontological implications of one particular interpretation”.
- Relational quantum mechanics (Rovelli 1996, LIT-1635) has no observer-independent values and no inherent system–observer line, close to Barad. But its ontology is “a sparse ontology of (relational) quantum events happening at interactions between physical systems”, “which means, of course, that the systems precede the interactions”. Its observer is “any physical system”; Barad’s measurement leaves “a mark on the measuring agency”.
The argument is the existence of a counter-model, which could have failed only if Bohmian mechanics did not reproduce the predictions.
What this does not say
- That Bohmian mechanics is right; the authors do not promote it.
- That agential realism is inconsistent with quantum mechanics (THEORY-1091).
- That relational values imply relational relata. RQM is the case of the first without the second, which is CLAIM-150’s distinction between relational identification and constitution in a physical key.
Note of 2026-10-27: Rovelli 1996 read
Rovelli’s founding paper (LIT-1635, read in NOTE-1227) bears out the substance of the relational-quantum-mechanics half and corrects its source. In 1996 the systems are prior to their interactions by assumption: “Assume that the world can be decomposed (possibly in a variety of ways) in a collection of systems” (§III.A, p. 10; THEORY-1068). But there is no ontology of events in that paper. The “sparse ontology of (relational) quantum events” Faye and Jaksland quote is Rovelli 2018. The decomposition is also not unique, which the THEORY’s “systems prior” should not be read to deny.