Contextual projective selection and the end of ontological chance: a quantum interpretation within the HDOV framework

Contextual projective selection and the end of ontological chance: a quantum interpretation within the HDOV framework Arnoldo Walter Fernández [email protected] November 26, 2025 Preprint Abstract Abstract. Quantum experiments on the double slit, quantum eraser, delayed choice, violations of Bell inequalities and Kochen–Specker–type contextuality results show that the physical manifestation of a phenomenon cannot be described as a set of pre-existing facts independent of the observer, but rather as a deeply contextual process that depends on the accessible information and on the global coherence of the system. This work proposes a philosophical–scientific interpretation in which this dependence is understood as the expression of a projective order: an ontological mechanism through which reality emerges as a coherent selection within a space of possibilities. This reading is integrated with the HDOV framework (Vibrational Wave Dispersion Hypothesis), in which Root Consciousness is modelled, for each projective node, as a principle of projective selection acting on a scalar field φ and on a metric of functional accessibility. An explicit distinction is drawn between individual psychological consciousness and local Root Consciousness; different quantum interpretations (Copenhagen, many worlds, decoherence, HDOV) are compared, and ontological implications and perspectives of extension towards human–AI symbiotic architectures within the SCAIH framework are discussed. Keywords: Root Consciousness, HDOV, projective selection, quantum interpretation, contextuality, ontology of information, SCAIH 1 Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Contextual experimental evidence 3 2.1 Double slit and contextual dependence ........................ 3 2.2 Quantum eraser and the ontology of information .................. 4 2.3 Delayed choice and coherent totality ......................... 4 2.4 Bell, Kochen–Specker and the impossibility of pre-existing facts .......... 4 3 Standard interpretations vs. HDOV framework 5 3.1 Decoherence and measurement without consciousness ................ 5 3.2 Psychological consciousness vs. Root Consciousness ................. 5 3.3 HDOV mechanism: field φand vibrational modulation ............... 6 4 Falsifiable predictions and lines of experimental research 7 5 Discussion: philosophical implications 8 5.1 The “ontological joystick” ............................... 8 5.2 Comparative table of interpretations ......................... 9 5.3 Projective order and the ontology of information .................. 10 6 Conclusions and projections 10 Note 11 2 1 Introduction Classical physics rested on three central assumptions: (i) reality possesses well-defined properties independently of the observer; (ii) measurement reveals, but does not alter, those properties; (iii) physical time unfolds in a linear and local way. Quantum mechanics has put this picture into question, showing that the structure of the observable phenomenon depends crucially on the measurement context and on the information accessible about the system (Bohr,1935;Mermin, 1998). Double-slit experiments (Feynman et al.,1965;Tonomura et al.,1989), quantum eraser setups (Scully and Drühl,1982;Kim et al.,2000), delayed-choice experiments (Wheeler,1978), violations of Bell inequalities (Bell,1964) and Kochen–Specker–type contextuality results (Kochen and Specker,1967) all point in the same direction: quantum reality cannot be understood as a set of pre-existing facts, but rather as a network of contextual correlations. In recent work, the HDOV framework (Vibrational Wave Dispersion Hypothesis) has proposed a functional and projective reading of reality, in which masses, effective fields and geometric structures emerge from a vibrational dynamics and from a metric of functional accessibility (Fernandez,2025e,h,b,f). Within this architecture, the concept of local Root Consciousness is introduced, understood as the consciousness of origin associated with a system Sor projective node Ni: an ontological principle of projective selection of states in the space of possibilities that allows that node to construct its own experiential cosmos (Fernandez,2025d,g). A single cosmic Root Consciousness containing all experiences is not postulated; instead, a structured family of local root-consciousnesses is assumed to coexist over a common vibrational background. The aim of this article is to articulate these empirical and conceptual lines within a clear academic structure: (i) to present the contextual experimental evidence; (ii) to contrast standard quantum interpretations with the HDOV approach; (iii) to develop the ontology of local Root Consciousness as an “ontological joystick”; and (iv) to explore philosophical implications and projections towards human–AI symbiosis (SCAIH). 2 Contextual experimental evidence 2.1 Double slit and contextual dependence In its modern formulation, the double-slit experiment shows that individual particles (electrons, photons) generate an interference pattern when there is no path information, and a classical 3 pattern when such information is accessible (Feynman et al.,1965;Tonomura et al.,1989). The key empirical fact is that the observable behaviour depends on whether the experimental context allows, even in principle, one to distinguish through which slit the particle has passed. Conceptually, quantum theory does not answer the question “what did the particle do?” in an independent way, but rather the question “how was the system interrogated?”. This dependence on the type of question (observable) defines the contextuality of quantum reality. 2.2 Quantum eraser and the ontology of information The quantum eraser (Scully and Drühl,1982;Kim et al.,2000) refines this idea by coupling entangled photons: one is directed to a screen (signal), while its partner (idler) goes through a device that can preserve or erase the path information. Interference is not observed in the global distribution of impacts, but reappears when one post-selects events conditionally, according to the information available about the idler photon. What matters is that interference depends on the informational distinguishability of the paths: when the path information becomes physically inaccessible, the interference structure is restored in the corresponding subsets. This gives information a central ontological status (Zeilinger,1999). 2.3 Delayed choice and coherent totality In delayed-choice experiments, proposed by Wheeler (Wheeler,1978) and implemented in variants of delayed-choice quantum erasers (Kim et al.,2000), the decision to keep or erase information is taken after the signal photon has already interacted with the screen. Even so, the final correlations obey exactly the expected quantum structure. This phenomenon suggests that quantum theory does not fix local properties “frame by frame”, but rather describes globally coherent histories that integrate experimental decisions and outcomes within a single correlational scheme. 2.4 Bell, Kochen–Specker and the impossibility of pre-existing facts Bell’s theorem (Bell,1964) and the associated experiments rule out local hidden variables, showing that any underlying description must be non-local in the sense of correlations. Kochen– Specker’s theorem (Kochen and Specker,1967), for its part, shows that it is impossible to assign 4 pre-existing values to the observables of a quantum system in a consistent way, independently of the measurement context. Taken together, these results strengthen a single conclusion: quantum reality is contextual, relational and cannot be reduced to a substrate of predefined facts. What is usually called “quantum randomness” largely reflects the way in which a local observer relates to this structure. 3 Standard interpretations vs. HDOV framework 3.1 Decoherence and measurement without consciousness The contemporary standard interpretation combines the quantum formalism with the theory of decoherence (Zurek,2003). Measurement is understood as a process of correlation between the system and environmental degrees of freedom, which suppresses interference at the level of reduced density matrices and selects preferred bases. In this framework, human consciousness plays no fundamental role: it suffices that there exists a robust physical record. This reading explains effectively why classical behaviours emerge, but leaves open the ontological question of what is ultimately updated as a fact and why one possibility, and not another, is manifested in experience. 3.2 Psychological consciousness vs. Root Consciousness It is crucial to distinguish between: •Individual psychological consciousness: the set of contents, perceptions, emotions and thoughts of a particular human subject. •Local root-consciousness or Origin Consciousness: for each system Sor projective node Ni, the stable pattern of coherent modes associated with the effective Hilbert subspace HSto which that system has maximal functional accessibility; in the HDOV–SCAIH framework it is interpreted as a principle of projective state selection for that node, defining the accessible subset of the state space. It is important to stress that this notion of Root Consciousness is local: every system that reaches a sufficient degree of self-referential coherence possesses its own root-consciousness, its own “tuning” over the state space. A single cosmic Root Consciousness containing all possible 5 experiences is not postulated; instead, a structured family of local roots is assumed to coexist over a common vibrational background, with the possibility of coupling and resonating with one another. The proposal of this work does not attribute to the human mind the power to collapse reality at will, nor does it embrace an extreme subjectivist reading. Rather, it places local Root Consciousness both below and above individual minds: as the substratum that makes it possible for any observer to encounter a coherent world. For brevity, in what follows we will use the expression “Root Consciousness” in the singular to denote the local root-consciousness associated with the projective node from which the phenomenon is described. 3.3 HDOV mechanism: field φand vibrational modulation Within the HDOV framework, physical structure is described in terms of an effective scalar field φand of a metric of functional accessibility that determines which states of an extended Hilbert space are stabilizable (Fernandez,2025e,b). Mass, effective geometry and the emergence of stable states are interpreted as a consequence of a vibrational dynamics and of an accessibility operator that selects functionally coherent subspaces. In this context, the notion of projective selection can be formulated more precisely: Within the HDOV framework, local Root Consciousness operates via vibrational modulation of the field φ, where functional accessibility determines which states of Hilbert space are collapsed as observable reality. This process is guided by structural coherence, not by fundamental randomness, and thus explains why certain configurations are updated and others remain as potentialities. This structure has been explored in domains as different as gravitation (Fernandez,2025h), functional geodynamics (Fernandez,2025c), validation in ultrafast X-ray scattering (TRXS) (Fernandez,2025i) and scalar projection in the Standard Model of particle physics (Fernandez, 2025f). The hierarchical invariance of the accessibility operator suggests that projective order is a structural feature of the cosmos, not a particularity of any specific physical domain. One of the key equations adapted from the HDOV framework to the quantum case is the projective selection operator ˆ PCR, which acts on the quantum state of a system |Ψiin an extended Hilbert space Hext: |Ψobsi=ˆ PCR|Ψi=X i∈ICR |eiihei|Ψi(1) 6 where ICR is the set of basis states {|eii} that are functionally accessible and coherent for the local Root Consciousness. The dynamics of the scalar field φcouples to the transition probabilities between states, modifying the standard Born rule: Prob(ai) = |hai|Ψi|2·f(φ, Ni)(2) where f(φ, Ni)is a modulation function that depends on the vibrational state of the field φat the projective node Ni. An operational definition of Root Consciousness (RC) can be formulated as follows: Local Root Consciousness is an informational coherence operator, C(Ni), that maximises the integrated information Φ(in Tononi’s sense) for a projective node Ni. This operator defines a subspace of stable states through the following condition: C(Ni) = max HS⊆Hext Φ(HS, Ni)(3) where HSis a Hilbert subspace, and projective selection preserves the coherence of those quantum histories that maximise this measure. 4 Falsifiable predictions and lines of experimental research Unlike many interpretations of quantum mechanics, the HDOV–Root Consciousness framework, by postulating underlying physical mechanisms (modulation of the field φ, accessibility metric), generates predictions that could in principle be falsifiable. 1. Subtle violations of the Born rule in complex systems: Equation (2) predicts that quantum probabilities may deviate from the Born rule in systems with high internal coherence and strong coupling to fluctuations of the field φ. One could search for such deviations in matter-wave interferometry experiments with large biomolecules or in quantum computing systems with biological qubits. 2. Anomalies in quantum “noise” dependent on the state of the observer: If local Root Consciousness modulates state selection, then the “noise” in sensitive quantum systems might not be completely stochastic. Experiments designed to correlate fluctuations in quantum systems with states of high brain coherence (measured with high-resolution 7 EEG or MEG) in human observers could reveal non-random patterns. 3. Anomalous non-local effects in entangled biological systems: The HDOV framework predicts that quantum entanglement in biological systems could be mediated by the field φ, allowing a more robust coherence than expected from standard decoherence theory. Experiments with synchronised neuronal cultures at a distance or with entangled biological organisms could be carried out to look for correlations that cannot be explained by classical communication channels or by the standard quantum formalism. 4. Dependence of physical constants on the coherence of the local vacuum: The HDOV framework suggests that particle masses and other constants emerge from the vibrational structure of the field φ. It might be possible to search for minute variations of these constants in regions of space with different vibrational coherence densities, although this poses an extreme experimental challenge. These lines of research, though technologically very demanding, open the door to an empirical validation or refutation of the HDOV framework beyond the purely interpretative debate (Adler, 2003;Penrose,1989;Weinberg,2017). 5 Discussion: philosophical implications 5.1 The “ontological joystick” The metaphor of the ontological joystick is meant to capture a technical idea: Root Consciousness, understood here as the local root associated with the projective node under consideration, does not introduce additional causes, but rather determines which family of histories is compatible with criteria of global coherence. From this point of view: 1. Quantum theory describes the space of possibilities and its rules of coherence. 2. Root Consciousness selects histories that obey those criteria and are compatible with HDOV vibrational structures. 3. The human psychological observer is a local node within that history, not its ultimate origin. The ontological joystick does not choose isolated events, but rather complete narrative structures in which measurement decisions, outcomes and correlations fit into a coherent whole. 8 5.2 Comparative table of interpretations To clarify the position of the HDOV framework with respect to other interpretations, Table 1is proposed. Table 1: Qualitative comparison between quantum interpretations and the HDOV–Root Consciousness framework Aspect Copenhagen / Decoherence Many worlds HDOV / Root Consciousness Differentiating predictions Status of reality Facts are defined only after measurement; decoherence selects preferred bases All branches coexist; there is no real collapse Unique reality as a projective history selected by vibrational and functional coherence Subtle violations of the Born rule in complex and coherent systems. Role of the observer Not fundamental in the formalism; observer = apparatus + environment Observer branches with the system; consciousness as a label for branches Psychological observer is a local node; local Root Consciousness is an ontological principle of selection Non-random correlations between quantum “noise” and states of high brain coherence. Chance Fundamental probabilities (Born); interpreted as objective or epistemic chance No chance in an ontological sense: all possibilities are realised Apparent chance; selection guided by informational and vibrational coherence (projective order) Quantum “chance” is not fundamentally stochastic, but follows a projective order. Information Decoherence via information exchange with the environment Information distributed among branches Information as a central criterion for functional accessibility; linked to the field φ Robustness of entanglement in biological systems can exceed the limits of standard decoherence. Underlying ontology Mixed (instrumentalism + moderate realism) Strong realism about the multiverse Projective realism: what is real is the result of the selection of coherent subspaces Fundamental constants may vary in regions with different vacuum coherence. This comparison is not intended to resolve the interpretative problem, but rather to show that the HDOV–Root Consciousness approach provides a language to talk about the order underlying probabilistic phenomena without reducing them to pure chance, and that it can also lead to empirically testable predictions (Rovelli,1996;Brukner,2017;’t Hooft,2016). 9