Relative Determination After Bell: Clock Records, Contextual Ledgers, and the Reinterpretation of Quantum Determination (RDQ v1)

This paper proposes a conceptual reinterpretation of quantum determination under the explicit assumption that Bell-type results and quantum contextuality are accepted. The aim is not to replace the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics, nor to deny standard experimental results, but to isolate a conceptual tension that remains after local, context-independent hidden-value descriptions have been excluded.

If Bell-type results are accepted, measurement outcomes cannot be understood as the mere revelation of local pre-existing values stored in a single classical ledger. Yet after measurement, definite macroscopic records do appear. In particular, a clock may be opened at 3:00 and found to display 12:00 as its stopping time. Such a record cannot straightforwardly be interpreted either as a classical value that was already fixed for all contexts before observation, or as a value created from nothing at the instant of observation.

This paper calls the required conceptual shift <em>relative determination</em>. Determination is not treated as inscription in a single absolute ledger, but as the appearance of a contextual readout of an internal correlation structure in an external ledger. A two-clock thought experiment is used to make the tension intuitive. The Mermin–Peres magic square is then read as a nine-clock contextual ledger, showing why determinate readouts in each context need not combine into a single context-independent classical table.

The resulting view is not proposed as a local hidden-variable theory. It accepts the failure of a single classical ledger and uses that failure as the starting point. The paper also explains how this viewpoint can serve as an accessible entrance to the broader MOF–FDC–PFC program: MOF as the ontological layer, FDC as the finite-distinguishability closure layer, and PFC as the phase-flow physical reading layer.