The Conscious Observer in The Many-Worlds Interpretation Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 1031):

The many-worlds viewpoint is manifestly dependent upon having a proper understanding of what constitutes a ‘conscious observer’, since each perceived ‘reality’ is associated with an ‘observer state’, so we do not know what reality states (i.e. ‘worlds’) are allowed until we know what observer states are allowed. Put another way, the behaviour of the seemingly objective world that is actually perceived depends upon how one’s consciousness threads its way through the myriads of quantum-superposed alternatives. In the absence of an adequate theory of conscious observers, the many-worlds interpretation must necessarily remain fundamentally incomplete.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the many worlds interpretation misconstrues alternative potentials as actual alternative instances (many worlds). From this perspective, each 'perceived reality' is an 'observer state' because a perceived reality is a construal of experience as meaning by the observer. It is not that consciousness 'threads its way through the myriads of quantum-superposed alternatives', but that the act of observation instantiates one of superposed alternatives as an actual construal of experience as meaning.