The Possibility Of An Ultimate Theory Of The Universe Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 165-7):

But can there really be such a unified theory? Or are we perhaps just chasing a mirage? There seem to be three possibilities:

1. There really is a complete unified theory (or a collection of overlapping formulations), which we will someday discover if we are smart enough.
2. There is no ultimate theory of the universe, just an infinite sequence of theories that describe the universe more and more accurately.
3. There is no theory of the universe: events cannot be predicted beyond a certain extent but occur in a random and arbitrary manner. … 

The second possibility, that there is an infinite sequence of more and more refined theories, is in agreement with all our experience so far. On many occasions we have increased the sensitivity of our measurements or made a new class of observations, only to discover new phenomena that were not predicted by the existing theory, and to account for these we have had to develop a more advanced theory. …

What would it mean if we actually did discover the ultimate theory of the universe? As was explained in Chapter 1, we could never be quite sure that we had indeed found the correct theory, since theories can’t be proved. But if the theory was mathematically consistent and always gave predictions that agreed with observations, we could be reasonably confident that it was the right one. It would bring to an end a long and glorious chapter in the history of humanity’s intellectual struggle to understand the universe.

Blogger Comments:

The notion that there is an ultimate theory of the universe that may or may not be eventually discovered makes the epistemological assumption that meaning transcends semiotic systems — that meaning is 'out there' to be discovered.  This is the opposite of the epistemological assumption of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory: that meaning does not transcend semiotic systems.

From the latter perspective, meaning is construed, by consciousness, of experience of the non-semiotic domain, and it is this meaning that constitutes "reality". In this view, theorising is not the matching of meanings of theory with pre-existing meanings outside semiotic systems, but the reconstrual of the meanings of "reality" as the meanings of theory. On this basis, there is no end to theorising. Instead, theorising is an unceasing, open-ended evolution of meaning-making.