Quantum Uncertainty Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [4]

Gribbin (1989: 235):

And the uncertainty is not restricted to our knowledge of the electron.  It is there all the time, built into the very nature of electrons and other particles and waves.  The particle itself does not "know," with absolute precision, both where it is now and where it is going next.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, knowledge is meaning construed of experience, and electrons and other particles and waves are ideational meanings.  The uncertainty is in what physicists mean — think and say — and it is interpersonal meaning: modalisation, the space between the positive and negative poles 'is' and 'isn't'.

The grammatical metaphor of construing physical particles — instead of physicists — as mediums of mental processes ("know") is a significant source of epistemological incongruity.