The Laws Of Dynamics That Shape The Universe Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 686):

What sorts of laws shape the universe with all its contents? The answer provided by practically all successful physical theories, from the time of Galileo onwards, would be given in the form of a dynamics — that is, a specification of how a physical system will develop with time, given the physical state of the system at one particular time. These theories do not tell us what the world is like; they say, instead: ‘if the world was like such-and-such at one time, then it will be like so-and-so at some later time’. Such a theory will not tell us how the world is shaped unless we tell it how the world was shaped.

 Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, laws don't shape the universe, just as a map doesn't shape the terrain it models. Instead, the physical universe is the construal of experience as first-order (phenomenal) meanings, and the laws of physics are reconstruals of first-order meanings as second-order (metaphenomenal) meanings that realise theory.

Importantly, the laws reconstrue the Universe in terms of modalisation (probability), not modulation (obligation).