Saturday 28 May 2022

The Order Of The Physical World Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 24):
All science is founded on the assumption that the physical world is ordered. The most powerful expression of this order is found in the laws of physics. Nobody knows where these laws come from, nor why they apparently operate universally and unfailingly; 


Blogger Comments:

From the perspective Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the order of the physical world is a construal of experience as meaning. The ability to construe experience as ordered has conferred an adaptive advantage on the organisms that do so.

The laws of physics, on the other hand, are reconstruals of perceptual and linguistic meanings as the meanings of theoretical physics, and 'come from' the semogenesis, meaning-making, of physicists. The writers here confuse phenomenal data (the construed physical world) with metaphenomenal theory (the reconstrued laws of physics), which is analogous to confusing a territory with a map of that territory.

The reason why the laws apparently apply universally and unfailingly is that they are selected by the scientific community for their ability to do so. But note that these laws break down at the singularities of black holes and the Big Bang, and that General Relativity cannot be made consistent with Quantum Theory on the present assumptions of physicists.

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