The 'Schrödinger's Cat' Paradox Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [5]

Gribbin (1990: 205):

Arguments about the cat in the box have gone for fifty years.  One school of thought says that there is no problem, because the cat is quite able to decide for itself whether it is alive or dead, and that the cat's consciousness is sufficient to trigger the collapse of the wave function.  In that case, where do you draw the line?  Would an ant be aware of what is going on, or a bacterium?

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, other species construe their experience in terms of the non-linguistic semiotic systems specific to their species.  These do not include linguistic construals such as 'I am alive, and therefore, not dead'.  Only language affords meanings such as 'the cat/ant/bacterium is alive/dead'.  When a language user looks inside the box, one instance of the potential meanings is construed: either a smashed bottle of poison with a dead cat, or an intact bottle with a live cat.  The collapse of the wave function is the instantiation of (linguistic) meaning potential.