Applying The Principle Of Complementarity Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 216):

In all fairness it should be said that other distinguished physicists have interpreted the quantum measurement problem without calling the consciousness of the observer into play. Niels Bohr, the father of quantum theory, declared that there is no ultimate or deep reality; one simply applies the principle of complementarity (of which Heisenberg's principle is perhaps the most elegant expression) and then obtains the result dictated by the entire situation of measurement, particle, apparatus, and observer. Bohr's "Copenhagen interpretation" is the position taken by most physicists who use the theory. It gives a formula describing what one observes with an apparatus, one that is ultimately made up of the same kind of quantum particles one is measuring.

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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the following are all processes of consciousness that construe experience of the non-semiotic domain as meaning of the material-relational domain:

• applying the principle of complementarity,
• obtaining a result,
• observing, and
• measuring.

Wave-particle complementarity is the complementarity of the potential meaning that can be construed of experience, varying according to probability, and the actual instances of meaning that are construed of experience in the conscious process of observation, varying according to frequency.