Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation Of Quantum Theory Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

Gribbin (1990: 233-4):

But still the Copenhagen interpretation is intellectually unsatisfying. What happens to all those ghostly quantum worlds that collapse with their wave functions when we make a measurement of a subatomic system?  How can an overlapping reality, no more and no less real than the one we eventually measure, simply disappear when the measurement is made?  The best answer is that the alternative realities do not disappear, and that Schrödinger's cat really is both alive and dead at the same time, but in two or more different worlds.  The Copenhagen interpretation, and its practical implications, are fully contained within a more complete view of reality, the many-worlds interpretation.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the "ghostly quantum worlds" are potential meanings only.  The collapse of "their wave functions when we make a measurement" is the construal of experience as statistical instances of that probabilistic potential.  There is no disappearance of "overlapping realities" because these are potential only, not instances.  Schrödinger's cat is not "both alive and dead at the same time" because these two states are potential only, not instances.  The many-worlds interpretation is not "the best answer" because it confuses potential with instance and because, to the extent that it proposes universes that cannot be investigated experimentally or observationally, it is not a scientific answer.