The Thoughts Of Bohr And Born Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1990: 120-1):

Bohr stressed the importance of experiments in our understanding of the quantum world. We can only probe the quantum world by doing experiments, and each experiment, in effect, asks a question of the quantum world. … In addition, we have to interfere with the atomic processes in order to observe them at all, and, said Bohr, that means that it is meaningless to ask what the atoms are doing when we are not looking at them. All we can do, as Born explained, is to calculate the probability that a particular experiment will come up with a particular result.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, each observation is a construal of experience as meaning.  When no observation is being made, there is no construal of experience as meaning ('what particles are doing').  Born's probability interpretation of the wave function is a construal of experience as potential ('where particles are likely to be').

The Thoughts Of Born Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1990: 118-9):

Born found a new way of interpreting Schrödinger's waves. The important thing in Schrödinger's equation that corresponds to physical ripples on the pond in the everyday world is a wave function, which is usually denoted by the Greek letter psi (ψ). … [Born] tried to find a way of associating a wave function with the existence of particles. The idea he picked up on was one that had been aired before in the debate about the nature of light, but which he now took over and refined. The particles were real, said Born, but in some sense they were guided by the wave, and the strength of the wave (more precisely, the value of ψ²) at any point in space was a measure of the probability of finding the particle at that particular point. We can never know for sure where a particle like an electron is, but the wave function enables us to work out the probability that, when we carry out an experiment designed to locate an electron, we find it in a certain place.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the complementarity of wave and particle is the complementarity of potential and instance.*  The wave model is concerned with the probability of construing experience as a particle across a range of locations, whereas the particle model is concerned with each instance of construing experience as a particle across a range of locations, with the frequency of instances reflecting the probability of potential.

This is not a trivial observation.  Everett's 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics mistakes potential for instance, and leads to the notion of a multiverse, where potential universes are misconstrued as actual universes.

* This suggests that, when system probabilities are eventually included in the SFL model, each system of features will be represented as a wave of probability.

The Thoughts Of Bohr Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

Gribbin (1990: 118):

Bohr gave us a philosophical basis with which to reconcile the dual particle/wave nature of the quantum world… . Bohr said that both the theoretical pictures, particle physics and wave physics, are equally valid, complementary descriptions of the same reality. Neither description is complete in itself, but there are circumstances where it is more appropriate to use the particle concept, and circumstances where it is better to use the wave concept. A fundamental entity such as an electron is neither a particle nor a wave, but under some circumstances it behaves as if it were a wave, and under other circumstances it behaves as if it were a particle (really, of course, it is a slithy tove). But under no circumstances can you invent an experiment that will show the electron behaving in both fashions at once. This idea of wave and particle being two complementary facets of the electron's complex personality is called complementarity.

Blogger Comment:

Bohr's view that physics provides a picture or description is consistent with the view of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory that physics is a construal of experience as meaning.

Quantum Physics Through Systemic Functional Linguistics: Causality

Gribbin (1990: 66):

In the classical world, everything has its cause. … But in the world of the quantum, such direct causality begins to disappear as soon as we look at radioactive and atomic transitions. An electron doesn't move down from one energy level to another at particular time for any particular reason. The lower energy level is more desirable for the atom, in a statistical sense, and so it is quite likely (the amount of likelihood can even be quantified) that the electron will make such a move, sooner or later. But there is no way to tell when the transition will occur. No outside agency pushes the electron, and no internal clockwork times the jump. It just happens, for no particular reason, now rather than then. … It really does seem that these changes occur entirely by chance, on a statistical basis, and that already begins to raise fundamental philosophical questions.

Blogger Comment:

Systemic Functional Linguistic theory distinguishes between self-engendered processes and those with an external cause (agent). In the 'world of the quantum', electrons are construed as the medium of self-engendered processes — processes that can be viewed from the complementary perspectives of 'happening' (material) vs 'being' (relational).

The 'Schrödinger's Cat' Paradox Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

Gribbin (1990: 2-3):

For what quantum mechanics says is that nothing is real and that we cannot say anything about what things are doing when we are not looking at them.  Schrödinger's mythical cat was invoked to make the differences between the quantum world and the everyday world clear.

In the world of quantum mechanics, the laws of physics that are familiar from the everyday world no longer work.  Instead, events are governed by probabilities.  A radioactive atom, for example, might decay, emitting an electron, say; or it might not.  It is possible to set up an experiment in such a way that there is a precise fifty-fifty chance that one of the atoms in a lump of radioactive material will decay in a certain time and that a detector will register the decay if it does happen.  Schrödinger, as upset as Einstein about the implications of quantum theory, tried to show the absurdity of those implications by imagining such an experiment set up in a closed room, or box, which also contains a live cat and a phial of poison, so arranged that if the radioactive decay does occur then the poison container is broken and the cat dies.  In the everyday world, there is a fifty-fifty chance that that the cat will be killed, and without looking inside the box we can say, quite happily, that the cat inside is either dead or alive.  But now we encounter the strangeness of the quantum world.  According to the theory, neither of the two possibilities open to the radioactive material, and therefore to the cat, has any reality unless it is observed.  The atomic decay has neither happened nor not happened, the cat has neither been killed nor not been killed, until we look inside the box to see what happened.  Theorists who accept the pure version of quantum mechanics say that the cat exists in some indeterminate state, neither dead nor alive, until an observer looks into the box to see how things are getting on.  Nothing is real unless it is observed.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the finding from quantum mechanics that 'we cannot say anything about what things are doing when we are not looking at them' is not at all strange, but entirely consistent with the view that 'what things are doing' is meaning construed of experience.  Without the observation, there is no construal of experience as meaning. The meaning 'Schrödinger's cat is alive/dead' cannot be construed of experience until the observation is made.

The confounding notion of 'real' here derives from the Galilean and Cartesian distinction of 'primary' qualities, such as locomotion and position, being 'out there' in the world of matter versus 'secondary' qualities being 'in here' in the world of the mind.