The Universe as an Embedded Structure
On time, determination, quantum mechanics and free willIntroduction
The following reflection departs from a simple but rarely made explicit observation: the human being does not stand outside the universe but is fully embedded within it. All perception, experience and knowledge arise within the universe and cannot be understood apart from it. From this starting point, we examine step by step what implications this embeddedness has for concepts usually regarded as fundamental: process, time, determination, quantum uncertainty and free will.
The aim of this text is not to formulate a new physical theory, nor to contest existing empirical insights. It seeks a conceptual repositioning: making explicit the assumptions that remain implicit in many scientific and philosophical discussions. By making these assumptions visible, a coherent perspective emerges in which apparently conflicting concepts can be understood anew.
I. Embeddedness and emergence
The human being is not an external observer of the universe. Every act of observation takes place within the universe itself. There is no perspective from which the universe as a whole can be surveyed from outside. The observer is an integral part of the reality they seek to understand.
This embeddedness is not only ontological but also biological. The human being is a product of physical and chemical processes. Biology is not an exception to natural law but a continuation of it under specific conditions of complexity and organisation. The human species holds no fundamental exceptional position within this biological continuum. Differences between life forms are gradual and functional, not ontological.
If the observer is fully embedded, the possibility of an external reference point disappears. This applies not only to knowledge but also to speculation about a possible "outside" of the universe. Statements about something that would exist outside the universe lack meaning for embedded observers, because they fall by definition outside any possible experience or verification. The universe thus forms both the totality of what exists and the horizon of what can be meaningfully discussed.
II. Process and interpretation
In everyday and scientific thinking, reality is conceived as a collection of processes. Change and development seem to be fundamental features of existence. On closer analysis, however, it becomes apparent that processes are not directly observed. What is observed are states, configurations and differences between them. Process appears as an interpretation when these states are compared with each other.
The concept of process functions as a descriptive instrument that orders and makes coherence comprehensible. The effectiveness of this description does not imply, however, that processes are ontologically fundamental. The distinction between the experience of process and the ontology of process is crucial here. That change is experienced does not mean that it forms a fundamental building block of reality.
This reinterpretation opens the possibility of thinking about order and coherence without necessarily appealing to dynamic progression.
III. Time as non-fundamental
Thinking in processes is closely connected with thinking in time. Past, present and future are experienced as self-evident dimensions of reality. Yet only the present is directly observed. The past appears through memory structures; the future through expectation and projection. Both are properties of the current perceptual system, not independently existing domains.
A thought experiment can clarify this. Imagine a universe in which all relations and configurations are fully fixed, without any sequence or dynamic evolution. In such a timeless framework, coherence and lawfulness are preserved. What disappears is only the interpretation of structure as something that unfolds in successive moments.
The absolute now refers in this context not to a fleeting moment but to the total configuration of reality. The experience of time arises because biological observers combine memory and anticipation. This experience is real as an experiential phenomenon, but not necessarily fundamental in the ontological sense.
IV. Determination as structural property
When time and dynamic process are not fundamental, the classical conception of determinism also loses its self-evidence. Determination need not be understood as causal succession in time. It can be conceived as structural fixity: the necessity of the total coherence of the universe.
Determinacy means in this framework not that events produce each other in a chain, but that the universal structure cannot be otherwise than it is. Causality functions as a direction of description within this structure, not as an ontological motor.
Determination does not imply predictability. A fully determined universe can remain fundamentally unpredictable for embedded observers, because they cannot take an external perspective and have only limited access to the total coherence.
V. Quantum mechanics and epistemic uncertainty
Quantum mechanics is often interpreted as indicating fundamental indeterminacy. The probabilistic nature of its predictions seems to point to ontological coincidence. Within the framework developed here, however, quantum uncertainty can be understood as epistemic and positional.
If time is not fundamental and determination is conceived structurally, the concept of dynamic evolution loses its ontological status. The formal structure of quantum theory can then be interpreted as a description of correlations within the universal coherence, not as an indication of fundamental coincidence.
Uncertainty reflects the bounded position of the observer within the whole. It concerns what can be known, not what exists. Quantum mechanics and structural determination thus turn out not to be opposites but descriptions at different levels.
VI. Free will as experiential phenomenon
The classical opposition between free will and determinism rests on a dynamic temporal framework in which multiple futures remain open. When time is not fundamental and determination is conceived structurally, the question shifts. Free will need not be conceived as an ontological exception but can be understood as an experiential structure.
Choice arises within biological systems that represent and evaluate alternatives. The feeling of having been able to act otherwise reflects the capacity for internal representation, not the existence of multiple ontological possibilities. Free will is real as experience within determination.
Meaning and responsibility remain intact within this framework. They do not derive their ground from metaphysical exceptions but from involvement and experiential structure within the universal coherence.
Synthesis
The foregoing reflection develops a coherent perspective in which the human being is fully situated within a structurally determined universe. Time, process, uncertainty and free will appear not as fundamental properties of reality but as interpretative and experiential structures arising from the position of embedded biological observers.
What remains is a consistent whole in which coherence, lawfulness and experience are not denied but placed. The universe requires no external perspective, no fundamental time and no ontological coincidence in order to be comprehensible. Reality forms one structural coherence in which perception and meaning arise as internal configurations.