The 'Schrödinger's Cat' Paradox Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [4]

Gribbin (1990: 205):

Schrödinger thought up the example to establish that there is a flaw in the strict Copenhagen interpretation, since obviously the cat cannot be both alive and dead at the same time.  But is this any more "obvious" than the "fact" that an electron cannot be both a particle and a wave at the same time?  Common sense has already been tested as a guide to quantum reality and been found wanting.  The one sure thing we know about the quantum world is not to trust our common sense and only to believe what we see directly or detect unambiguously with our instruments.  We don't know what goes on inside the box unless we look.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Quantum theory, to say what's happening when we are not looking is 'to produce an error', as Richard Feynman cautioned.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, a cat being "both alive and dead at the same time" confuses potential with instance. An instance of that potential is only construed when an observation is made.

By the same token, an electron is not "both a particle and a wave at the same time" because particles are construed instances of quantum potential, whereas waves are construed quantum potential, and it is only instances that are actual.

The "common sense" that has been "found wanting" by the results of Quantum experiments is the worldview based on the mistaken epistemological assumptions of Galileo (and Descartes), as previously explained here. When these assumptions are jettisoned, Quantum Physics no longer seems mysterious or paradoxical.