The Double-Slit Experiment, Without the Magic

A plain-language companion to Relation Before Relata. The double-slit experiment is usually presented as proof that conscious observation collapses reality. This essay gives a plainer — and, in the end, stranger — reading: what destroys the interference pattern is neither a mind nor a physical jolt, but the formation of a relationship, the existence of which-path information anywhere in the surroundings. Drawing on which-path marking without momentum disturbance, the quantum eraser, and interaction-free measurement, it argues that being definite is a matter of being in relation, while leaving the further question of inner experience explicitly open. It introduces no new physics — standard quantum theory predicts every result exactly — and offers a reading of what those results mean.