Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation Of Quantum Theory Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [2]

Gribbin (1990: 237):

Everett's interpretation is that the overlapping wave functions of the whole universe, the alternative realities that interact to produce measurable interference at the quantum level, do not collapse.  All of them are equally real, and exist in their own parts of "superspace" (and supertime).  What happens when we make a measurement at the quantum level is that we are forced by the process of observation to select one of these alternatives, which becomes part of what we see as the "real" world; the act of observation cuts the ties that bind alternative realities together, and allows them to go on their own separate ways through superspace, each alternative reality containing its own observer who has made the same observation but got a different quantum "answer" and thinks that he has "collapsed the wave function" into a single quantum alternative.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, 'the overlapping wave functions of the whole universe, the alternative realities that interact to produce measurable interference at the quantum level' are construals of experience as potential meaning only.  

It is indeed the case that 'what happens when we make a measurement at the quantum level is that we are forced by the process of observation to select one of these alternatives, which becomes part of what we see as the "real" world'.  However, the alternatives are probability-weighted options in the system of quantum potential, and the "collapse of the wave function" when an observation is made is a construal of experience as one statistical instance of that potential.