The picture of physical reality that quantum theory gives us is, however, far from easy to grasp and full of mysteries — beginning with the very concept of wave-particle duality that unavoidably implicates the observer in the question of what is measured: a wave or a particle. In quantum theory physical reality is dependent on the observer and hence on human consciousness. Einstein's lifelong adherence to a physical reality independent of human beings is the one that most of us instinctively feel to be true. For science, this view of reality has been immensely productive from the Ancient Greeks up to the present day.
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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, however, the picture of physical reality that quantum theory gives us is relatively easy to grasp, whether or not it is deemed to be full of mysteries.
Wave-particle duality is explained as potential-instance duality, and the reason why physical reality is dependent on the consciousness of the observer is that physical reality is meaning construed of experience by language (the semogenic processes of human consciousness).
The notion of 'a physical reality independent of human beings' derives from the notion that meaning is transcendent of semiotic systems, and explains why many physicists believe that they will one day find 'a final theory of everything', since the meaning is 'out there', waiting to be discovered.
However, quantum theory demonstrates that this view is untenable. Meaning is a property of semiotic systems (immanent). The perceived universe is a creation of perceptual systems, which in humans, is further interpreted in terms of language — and other semiotic systems that language makes possible — and reinterpreted in terms of theories construed by language. From this perspective, scientific theorising is an unending evolution of semogenesis (meaning-making).
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