Quantum Uncertainty Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [2]

Gribbin (1989: 215):

[Quantum theory] tells us that it is impossible to predict with absolute certainty the outcome of any atomic experiment, or indeed any event in the Universe, and that our world is governed by probabilities.  And it tells us that it is impossible to know simultaneously both the exact position of an object and its exact momentum (where it is going).

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the world is not governed by probabilities.  On the one hand, a model of a phenomenon, such as a map, does not govern the phenomenon that it models, such as a landscape.  Within the domain of meaning, the two are of different orders of experience: the model of a phenomenon (metaphenomenon) is second-order (semiotic) experience, whereas the phenomenon is first-order (material) experience.  The model is a second-order reconstrual of a first-order construal of experience as meaning.

On the other hand, the probabilities of quantum physics are (second-order) construals of experience as potential meaning.  Probabilities are the quantification of potential.  The statistical behaviour of instances of that potential actualise the probabilities inherent in that system potential.