Intrinsic Uncertainty Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 202):

The fact that electron waves are waves of probability is a vital component of quantum mechanics and an important element in the quantum nature of reality. It implies that we cannot be certain what any given electron will do. Only the betting odds can be given. This fundamental limitation represents a breakdown of determinism in nature. It means that identical electrons in identical experiments may do different things. There is thus an intrinsic uncertainty in the subatomic world. This uncertainty is encapsulated in the uncertainty principle of Werner Heisenberg, which tells us that all observable quantities are subject to random fluctuations in their values, of a magnitude determined by Planck's constant.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the fact that electron waves are waves of probability demonstrates that they model the potential, not the actual, because probability is a grading of potentiality, not actuality. The 'breakdown of determinism in nature' thus refers to the relation between potential and actual, where the statistics of instances manifest the probabilities of potential.

Importantly from this perspective, the 'intrinsic uncertainty in the subatomic world' is uncertainty in what we can mean about the subatomic world. This means that, in reconstruing the phenomena of the subatomic world as theory, the propositions we enact on the instantiation of potential are modalised.

∞

It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is.

Physics concerns what we say about Nature.

— Niels Bohr