Schrödinger’s Cat As Both Dead And Alive Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 804-5):

We suppose that there is a photon source S which emits a single photon in the direction of a beam splitter (‘half-silvered’ mirror), at which point the photon’s state is split into two parts. In one of the two emerging beams, the photon encounters a detector that is coupled to some murderous device for killing the poor cat, while in the other, the photon escapes, and the cat remains alive. See Fig. 29.7. …

Since these two alternatives for the photon must co-exist in quantum linear superposition, and since the linearity of Schrödinger’s equation demands that the two subsequent time-evolutions must persist in constant complex-number-weighted superposition, as time passes, the quantum state must ultimately involve such a complex-number superposition of a dead cat and a live cat: so the cat is both dead and alive at the same time!

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the superposition of states is potential only. The cat is either alive or dead, depending on which photon state is instantiated. The absurd notion of the cat being both dead and alive at the same time simply arises from confusing potential with actual.