The Role Of Consciousness In Quantum Experiments Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 1031):

There is a quite separate important role played by consciousness in many interpretations of the R part of quantum mechanics .In fact, almost all the ‘conventional’ interpretations of quantum mechanics ultimately depend upon the presence of a ‘perceiving being’, and therefore seem to require that we know what a perceiving being actually is! 

We recall that the Copenhagen interpretation takes the wavefunction not to be an objectively real physical entity but, in effect, to be something whose existence is ‘in the observer’s mind’. Moreover, at least in one of its manifestations, this interpretation requires that a measurement be an ‘observation’, which presumably means something ultimately observed by a conscious being — although at a more practical level of applicability, the measurement is something carried out by a ‘classical’ measuring apparatus. 

This dependence upon a classical apparatus is only a stopgap, however, since any actual piece of apparatus is still made of quantum constituents, and it would not actually behave classically — even approximately — if it adhered to the standard quantum U evolution. (This is simply the issue of Schrödinger’s cat). 

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the 'perceiving being' required in quantum mechanics is a conscious being capable of construing experience as the the meanings of language.

In this view, both the wavefunction and observations are 'all in the mind' in the sense they are meanings construed by conscious processing.

In this view, it is the observation of the measuring apparatus (and the cat) that is required, and this is also a construal of experience by a 'perceiving being': the most probable construal of potential construals, in line with quantum theory.