Field Quanta Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

Gribbin (1989: 257):

But, as the discovery that electromagnetic waves must also be regarded in particle terms showed, a field can be directly responsible for the existence of particles.  Indeed, in the quantum world a field must give rise to particles.  Quantum physics says that the energy in the field cannot be smoothly changing from place to place, continuously, as in the classical picture.  Energy comes in definite lumps called quanta, and every matter field must have its own quanta, each with a definite amount of energy, or mass.  The particles are energetic bits of the field, confined to a certain region by the uncertainty principle.  A photon is a quantum of the electromagnetic field; in the same way, by applying quantum principles a second time to the matter field of electrons, we find that we recover the idea of the electron as a particle, as the quantum of the electron matter field.  This interpretation of particles as "field quanta" is known as second quantisation.  It tells us that there is nothing else in the Universe except quantum fields.  So the more we know about quantum fields, the better we will understand the Universe.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory:

• regarding electromagnetic waves in particle terms is modelling them as instances of potential;
• a field is responsible for the existence of particles in the sense that potential is "responsible" for instances of potential;
• a field "must give rise to" particles in the sense that potential "must give rise to" instances of potential;
• every matter field "must have" its own quanta in the sense that every potential "must have" its own instances;
• the electron as the quantum of the electron matter field is the electron as the instance of electron matter potential.

The claim that "there is nothing else in the Universe except quantum fields" is an instance of the epistemological error known as reductionism (a.k.a. "nothing buttery") in as much as it reduces an entire organisational hierarchy to what is believed — in this case: falsely — to be the fundamental level of that hierarchy.