Quantum Theory Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [5]

Gribbin (1990: 162):

Can Eddington's doubts really be taken at face value?  Is it possible that the nucleus, the positron and the neutrino did not exist until experimenters discovered the right sort of chisel with which to reveal their form?  Such speculations strike at the root of sanity, let alone our concept of reality.  But they are quite sensible questions to ask in the quantum world. … But the interpretation of particles is all in the mind, and may be no more than a consistent delusion. … If we cannot say what a particle does when we are not looking at it, neither can we say that if it exists when we are not looking at it, and it is reasonable to claim that nuclei and positrons did not exist prior to the twentieth century, because nobody before 1900 ever saw one.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the nucleus, the positron and the neutrino did not exist as meanings until experimenters discovered the means of construing experience as such.

Moreover, the construal of experience as particles is "all in the mind", in the sense that particles, like all meanings, are the content of consciousness, projected into semiotic existence by mental (and verbal) processes.