The Overtime Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

A key conceptual achievement of special relativity was the abandonment of absolute time and the introduction of an operational definition of simultaneity through clock synchronization. Building on Einstein’s operational treatment of simultaneity, we extend the logic of clock synchronization to the quantum domain. Within the Overtime interpretation, quantum systems evolve in an internal time τ that becomes related to the observer’s time t only through synchronization. Measurement is thus understood as a temporal embedding rather than a physical collapse. Crucially, this resolution requires no new ontological entities—no additional state vectors, hidden variables, collapse mechanisms, or cosmological boundary conditions. The parameter τ is simply the standard ordering parameter of the Schrödinger equation, reinterpreted as system-intrinsic. This approach preserves all standard quantum predictions, maintains relativistic causality, and offers a unified conceptual framework for superposition, entanglement, delayed-choice phenomena, and the apparent discontinuity of measurement. The interpretation naturally aligns with the operational logic of special relativity and clarifies the role of entropy and the arrow of time in distinguishing macroscopic and microscopic systems.