The Metaphors Of Particles "Knowing" And "Deciding" Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 205):

So how can an individual particle, which can pass through only one of the slits, "know" of the existence of the other slit and adjust its behaviour accordingly? Could it be that a wave of something passes through the two slits, only to collapse into a particle when its position is "measured" by the screen? This is surely too conspiratorial, for the electrons or photons would have to know our intentions. And how does each individual particle "know" what the others will do so it can decide where it belongs in the interference pattern that builds up from the flow of thousands or millions of individual particles through the experiment? 

This is clear evidence for the holistic nature of quantum systems, with the behaviour of individual particles being shaped into a pattern by something that cannot be explained in terms of the Newtonian reductionist paradigm.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the behaviour of individual particles is 'shaped into a pattern' by the probabilities of the potential they instantiate. Instantiation requires no "knowledge" or "decisions" on the part of the instantiated.

In this view, it is particles — not waves — that pass through the slits, and each particle passes through either one slit or the other — not through both – in accordance with the probabilities of the potential.