The Copenhagen Interpretation Of The Double-Slit Experiment Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [2]

Gribbin (1989: 242):

In an experiment where an electron goes from point A to point B via an intervening screen that has two holes in it, quantum theory says that unless we watch all the time we cannot possibly tell which holes it went through — indeed, that it is meaningless to say it went either way.  Its "real" trajectory is given by the sum of the two possible paths.  But classical theory says there is a definite path and it must have gone through just one of the holes, even if we weren't looking.  When we look to see which hole the electron goes through, of course, that particular uncertainty vanishes and we have a different experiment in which we know which path the particle took.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the reason we cannot tell which hole an electron went through unless we watch it going through one of them is because an electron going through a hole is a construal of experience as meaning.  For any interval that we are not watching, there is no construal of experience as meaning.

The "sum of the two possible paths", on the other hand, is a construal of experience as quantum system potential.  When we look, we construe one instance of that potential.

The Copenhagen Interpretation of the double-slit experiment is not strange, and does not contradict common sense, if the distinction is made between experience and meaning, and within meaning, between potential and instance.