Observation Converting The Potential Into The Actual — Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 132-3):

Another strand of research … involves quantum theory, which tells us that there is an inherent uncertainty in the outcome of events at the subatomic level. In quantum mechanics, many possible future patterns all exist, in some sense, until observation converts the potential into the actual. This crucial transformation might just in some way be connected with the woolly concept of the flow of time.

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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, quantum potential is a probabilistic ('inherently uncertain') system, and a system is instantiated in accordance with its probabilities. Importantly, the 'many possible future patterns" only have potential existence. The reason why observation converts the potential into the actual — instantiates the system — is that this process of sensing is the act of construing experience as (an instance of) meaning.

The act of observation defines the present as a point of reference on the time axis. This is distinct from the change of this reference point on the time axis (the 'flow of time').