The 'Mind Of God' Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 175):

However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, 'the mind of God' here is a reference to Einstein's 'God' — who he famously said 'does not play dice' — which can be understood as the universe itself. (Einstein believed in the pantheistic God of Spinoza, defined as a singular self-subsistent Substance, with both matter and thought being attributes of such.)

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the God of Spinoza and Einstein can be understood as the content of consciousness: the construal of experience as meaning.  The mind of God is thus the conscious process that construes experience as meaning. Knowing the mind of God is thus consciousness knowing itself.

The identification of God with (the medium of) conscious processes, rather than the contents of consciousness, can be seen in Hindu mythology, where the Universe is reconstrued as a mental projection (dream) of the God Vishnu, and in Abrahamic mythology, where Creation is reconstrued as a verbal projection of the Creator (God said "Let there be light. …").

The Interdependence Of Philosophy And Language Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 174-5):

However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists. Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, “The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.” What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, not only are science are philosophy realised in the meaning of language, but it is language that makes science and philosophy possible, since it is the meaning of language that is reconstrued by the processes of consciousness as the meaning of science and philosophy.

Moreover, because science and philosophy are realised in language, a theory of language can be used to analyse the language of theory. This blog is an attempt to demonstrate the potential value of using one theory of language, Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, to analyse the language of science and philosophy.

The Interdependence Of Science And Philosophy Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 174-5):

Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why. On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advance of scientific theories. In the eighteenth century, philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge, including science, to be their field and discussed questions such as: did the universe have a beginning? However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, 'why' interrogates two distinct types of cause: reason-result versus purpose, which frequently become blurred when physicists engage in philosophy (e.g. the Anthropic Principle).

As this blog demonstrates, the failure of physicists to make sense of the implications of Quantum Theory results from ignorance of philosophy, specifically: ignorance of the epistemological assumptions that form the foundation of Galilean science, and the assumption that meaning is transcendent of semiotic systems ("out there" to be discovered), rather than construed of experience of the non-semiotic domain by the processes of consciousness.

'Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?' Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 174):

Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, what we view as, think of, and call 'the universe' is a construal of experience of the non-semiotic domain as (first-order) meaning by the processes of consciousness.  Models that describe the universe are reconstruals of that meaning as the (second-order) meaning of theories.

The question of why the universe exists is a matter of second-order meaning, and it conflates two distinct types of cause: reason vs purpose.  Physical science is concerned with the why of reason (causes of effects).  If purpose is limited to conscious beings, then applying it to the entire universe constitutes a category error.  The notion of the universe bothering to exist makes this category error, since 'bothering' is a behavioural process, and as such, limited to conscious beings.

Gravity Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 173):

In this book I have given special prominence to the laws that govern gravity, because it is gravity that shapes the large-scale structure of the universe, even though it is the weakest of the four categories of forces. The laws of gravity were incompatible with the view held until quite recently that the universe is unchanging in time: the fact that gravity is always attractive implies that the universe must be either expanding or contracting. According to the general theory of relativity, there must have been a state of infinite density in the past, the big bang, which would have been an effective beginning of time.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the laws of gravity (metaphenomena) don't govern gravity (phenomenon).  The laws of gravity are reconstruals of gravity as the General Theory of Relativity.

From the perspective of the General Theory of Relativity, gravity is not a force, but a consequence of the geometry of space-time under the influence of matter. (It is because gravity is nevertheless construed as a force that physicists believe that it needs to be unified with the three forces that are modelled in terms of particle exchange.)

Although gravity is always attractive, gravity (local contraction of space) and the cosmological expansion of space can be understood as opposite polarities of one and the same phenomenon.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the beginning of time corresponds with the beginning of the unfolding of processes, of which time is the dimension of measurement.

The Uncertainty Principle Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [2]

Hawking (1988: 172-3):

We now know that Laplace’s hopes of determinism cannot be realised, at least in the terms he had in mind. The uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics implies that certain pairs of quantities, such as the position and velocity of a particle, cannot both be predicted with complete accuracy.

Quantum mechanics deals with this situation via a class of quantum theories in which particles don’t have well-defined positions and velocities but are represented by a wave. These quantum theories are deterministic in the sense that they give laws for the evolution of the wave with time. Thus if one knows the wave at one time, one can calculate it at any other time. The unpredictable, random element comes in only when we try to interpret the wave in terms of the positions and velocities of particles. But maybe that is our mistake: maybe there are no particle positions and velocities, but only waves. It is just that we try to fit the waves to our preconceived ideas of positions and velocities. The resulting mismatch is the cause of the apparent unpredictability.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the wave model represents the quantum system as potential, quantified as probabilities. The evolution of such a wave is thus the evolution of the system probabilities. Interpreting the wave in terms of positions and velocities of particles is construing instances of that probabilistic potential. The uncertainty is thus inherent in the system as potential, rather than in its instantiations as particle positions and velocities.

Laws That Determine The Evolution Of The Universe Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 172-3):

The success of these laws led Laplace at the beginning of the nineteenth century to postulate scientific determinism; that is, he suggested that there would be a set of laws that would determine the evolution of the universe precisely, given its configuration at one time.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, this blurs the distinction between the construal of experience as first-order meaning (the evolution of the universe) and its reconstrual as second-order meaning (the laws of physics). Clearly, second-order meaning (laws of physics) does not determine first-order meaning (the evolution of the universe) any more than a map (second-order) determines a landscape (first-order).

Moreover, the abstract notion of 'determinism', like its frequent opposite, 'free will', can be understood as a desiderative projection (a hope or fear) rather than a cognitive projection (a thought).  Interpersonally, this dichotomy can be understood in terms of the complementary aspects of modulation: obligation (determinism) and inclination (free will).

Astronomical Regularities And Laws Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 172):

Gradually, however, it must have been noticed that there were certain regularities: the sun always rose in the east and set in the west, whether or not a sacrifice had been made to the sun god. Further, the sun, the moon, and the planets followed precise paths across the sky that could be predicted in advance with considerable accuracy. The sun and the moon might still be gods, but they were gods who obeyed strict laws, apparently without any exceptions, if one discounts stories like that of the sun stopping for Joshua.

At first, these regularities and laws were obvious only in astronomy and a few other situations. However, as civilisation developed, and particularly in the last 300 years, more and more regularities and laws were discovered.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, regularities are assessments in terms of modalisation: usuality/probability.  Descriptions of regularities are laws in the sense of general laws, not laws in the sense of requiring obedience, which are assessments in terms of modulation: obligation/inclination.

Moreover, phenomena (such as the trajectory of planets) do not obey their metaphenomenal reconstruals ("strict laws") any more than a landscape obeys a map of that landscape.

The Functions Of Mythology Vs Science Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 171-2):

The earliest theoretical attempts to describe and explain the universe involved the idea that events and natural phenomena were controlled by spirits with human emotions who acted in a very humanlike and unpredictable manner. These spirits inhabited natural objects, like rivers and mountains, including celestial bodies, like the sun and moon. They had to be placated and their favour sought in order to ensure the fertility of the soil and the rotation of the seasons.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, a theory is a reconstrual of meaning as higher-order meaning.  That is, experience of the non-semiotic domain is construed by consciousness as meaning, and meaning is reconstrued as 'meta-meaning' (meaning of meaning), such as those that realise mythological traditions and scientific theories.

What makes such reconstruals possible is the distinction between meaning and wording, the stratification of the content plane of language, which, according to Halliday (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 25), is what distinguishes the species Homo sapiens from its ancestors.  It is this distinction that makes metaphor possible, and it is metaphor that makes the reconstrual of meaning possible, beginning with lexical metaphor, as in mythic symbolism, with grammatical metaphor coming to the fore in the emergence of modern science.

According to comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell, mythic symbolism is not concerned with explaining the universe, but with providing the means of fitting consciousness to both the (construed) physical and (enacted) social environments.