'An Unlabelled World Constrained By The Laws Of Physics' Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 99):

Two apparently unrelated observations have compelled us to take a new look at how the brain might function as a recognition system. The first is the enormous diversity and individuality of brain structure. The second is that the world, although constrained by the laws of physics, is an unlabelled place.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the 'world' of experience is 'unlabelled' until it is construed as meaning.  Within meaning, there is the distinction between first-order meaning (e.g. the data for the laws of physics) and second-order meaning (e.g. the laws of physics), the latter being a reconstrual (a model) of the former.

It is not that model constrains the data, but that the data constrain the model.  And the laws of physics are not laws in the sense of modulation (obligation), but laws in the sense of modalisation (probability).