The 'Schrödinger's Cat' Paradox Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [8]

Gribbin (1990: 207-8):

But suppose we replace ["Schrödinger's human"] by a computer.  The computer can register the information about the radioactive decay, or lack of it.  Can a computer collapse the wave function (at least inside the box)?  Why not?  According to yet another point of view, what matters is not human awareness of the outcome of the experiment, or even the awareness of a living creature, but the fact that the outcome of an event at the quantum level has been recorded, or made an impact on the macroworld.  The radioactive atom may be in a superposition of states, but as soon as the Geiger counter, even, has "looked" for the decay products the atom is forced into one state or the other, either decayed or not decayed.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the collapse of the wave function is a construal of experience as an instance of meaning in the field of quantum physics.  In contrast, the "superposition of states" of a radioactive atom is a construal of experience as potential meaning in the field of quantum physics.

By the same token, observing (or imagining or talking or writing about) a computer or geiger counter registering ± radioactivity is construing experience as an instance of meaning.