Detecting Waves vs Particles Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 203):

Bohr admonished those who would ask what an electron really is — wave or particle — by denouncing the question as meaningless. To observe an electron, one has to conduct some form of measurement on it, by carrying out an experiment ("tossing the coin"). Experiments designed to detect waves always measure the wave aspect of the electron; experiments designed to detect particles always measure the particle aspect. No experiment can ever measure both aspects simultaneously, and so we can never see a mixture of wave and particle.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, all experiments involving electrons are concerned with particles, because particles are the actual instances of potential. Experiments 'designed to detect waves' are those that probe the probabilistic nature of particle instantiation.

From this perspective, 'reality' is the construal of experience as meaning, potential or instance, not the experience that is construed. Meanings, including categorisations of experience, constitute semiotic systems, and do not transcend them.