Quantum Theory On Reality — Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Robinson (2005: 92):

In answer to Einstein's well-known poser "Does the moon really exist only when you look at it?" a current physicist, David Peat, answers: "Einstein's moon really exists. It is linked to us through non-local correlations but does not depend upon us for its actual being in the world. On the other hand, what we call the moon's reality, or the electron's existence, depends to some extent upon the contexts we create in thought, theories, language and experiments." In quantum theory, an electron (or a photon) has no independent reality 'out there', wholly independent of the human world. It can be both a wave and a particle, depending on how it is measured and observed.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, Quantum Theory demonstrates that reality is the meaning that is construed of experience by consciousness. The reason why an electron or photon has "no independent reality 'out there' " is that it is construed as being 'out there' by consciousness in the act of observing. Consciousness creates meaning out of meaninglessness. 

Importantly, the sense in which "it can be both a wave and a particle" is that the wave constitutes the particle's potential, whereas a particle is an instance of that potential.

So it is not a case of whether or not the moon really exists, but that to observe or think or talk about the moon is construe experience as meaning.