The Act Of Observation Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 208-9):

Probably the most unsettling aspect of these studies is the way that the observer seems to play a central role in fixing the nature of reality at the quantum level. This has long worried both physicists and philosophers. In the pre-quantum era of physics, everyone assumed that the world "out there" existed in a well-defined state quite irrespective of whether, or how, it was observed. 

Admittedly the act of observation would intrude into that reality, for we cannot observe anything without interacting with it physically to some extent; yet it was always supposed that the interaction was purely incidental and could either be made arbitrarily small (at least in principle) or else be performed in a controlled way and so be taken precisely into account. 

But quantum physics presents a picture of reality in which observer and observed are inextricably interwoven in an intimate way. The effect of observation is absolutely fundamental to the reality that is revealed, and cannot be either reduced or simply compensated for. 

If, then, the act of observation is such a key element in creating the quantum reality, we are led to ask what actually happens when an observation of an electron or a photon is made.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the reason why 'the observer seems to play a central role in fixing the nature of reality at the quantum level' is that observation is the construing of experience as meaning, and reality is the meaning thus construed. The 'observed' is perceptual meaning reconstrued as the meaning of language, and theoretical models are reconstruals of those meanings.

The reason why 'this has long worried both physicists and philosophers' is that such physicists and philosophers, following Galileo, take a transcendent view of meaning, wherein meaning transcends semiotic systems, and experience is categorised independently of semiotic systems. The findings of Quantum physics have demonstrated that this view is untenable.

The 'effect of observation' is thus to construe reality, rather than reveal it, and 'what actually happens when an observation of an electron or a photon is made' is that experience is construed as meaning: as an instance of potential.