Physical Vs Geometrical Space Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 58):

There was a basic difference in viewpoint, however, between the Greek notion of a real number and the modern one, because the Greeks regarded the number system as basically ‘given’ to us, in terms of the notion of distance in physical space, so the problem was to try to ascertain how these ‘distance’ measures actually behaved. For ‘space’ may well have had the appearance of being itself a Platonic absolute even though actual physical objects existing in this space would inevitably fall short of the Platonic ideal.

 

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the ancient Greeks began the reconstrual of phenomena, first-order meanings such as the distance between physical objects, as metaphenomena, the second-order meanings that realise the field of mathematics. Thus, the space of physical objects is phenomenal, whereas the 'Platonic' space of mathematics is metaphenomenal.