The Needed Perspectival Change In Physics Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 1045):

The spacetime singularities lying at cores of black holes are among the known (or presumed) objects in the universe about which the most profound mysteries remain — and which our present-day theories are powerless to describe. As we have seen, there are other deeply mysterious issues about which we have very little comprehension. It is quite likely that the 21st century will reveal even more wonderful insights than those that we have been blessed with in the 20th. But for this to happen, we shall need powerful new ideas, which will take us in directions significantly different from those currently being pursued. Perhaps what we mainly need is some subtle change in perspective — something that we all have missed . . . .

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the required subtle change of perspective is that confirmed by the experiments of quantum mechanics. Meaning does not transcend semiotic systems, and a construal of experience as meaning instantiates the most probable of a range of potential construals.

∞

This is the final post on The Road to Reality (Penrose 2004).

The Notions That Biology Reduces To Physics And Is Controlled By Mathematics

Penrose (2004: 1043):

Many of these developments certainly depend directly upon physics in one form or another. Moreover, the basic rules of chemistry, as understood today, are also fundamentally physical ones (in principle if not in practice) — mainly coming from the rules of quantum mechanics. Biology is a good deal further from being reducible to physical laws, but we have no reason to believe (consciousness apart) that biological behaviour is not, at root, purely dependent upon physical actions that we now basically understand. Accordingly, biology seems also to be ultimately controlled by mathematics.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, biological systems and chemical systems do not reduce to physical systems, since if they did, they would just be physical systems. Instead, physical systems are the foundation from which chemical and then biological systems emerge. A chemical system is both chemical and physical, a biological system is biological, chemical and physical. Physics models the physical level of chemical and biological systems.

In this view, biological behaviours are not "dependent" on physical actions. Instead, biological and physical are two levels of description of biological phenomena.

Moreover, mathematical models of phenomena do not "control" phenomena, biological or otherwise, any more than a map controls the territory it models.

Some Ultimate Theory Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 1033-4):

I hope that it is clear, from the discussion given in the preceding sections that our road to the understanding the nature of the real world is still a long way from its goal. Perhaps this goal will never be reached, or perhaps there will eventually emerge some ultimate theory, in terms of which what we call ‘reality’ can in principle be understood. If so, the nature of that theory must differ enormously from what we have seen in physical theories so far. The most important single insight that has emerged from our journey, of more than two and one-half millennia, is that there is a deep unity between certain areas of mathematics and the workings of the physical world, this being the ‘first mystery’ depicted in Figs. 1.3 and 34.1. If the ‘road to reality’ eventually reaches its goal, then in my view there would have to be a profoundly deep underlying simplicity about that end point. I do not see this in any of the existing proposals.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, there is no ultimate theory, because there is no meaning outside semiotic systems to be matched by the meanings of theory. Instead, the symbolic processing of consciousness construes experience as meaning, and reconstrues such meaning as theory. Theories, as semiotic systems, are open-ended evolutionary systems with no ultimate goal, like biological systems. Moreover, each theory circumscribes its range of possibilities by its foundational epistemological assumptions.

The de-Broglie–Bohm Approach Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 1032):

As far as I can make out, the only interpretations that do not necessarily depend upon some notion of ‘conscious observer’ are that of de-Broglie–Bohm that require some fundamental change in the rules of quantum mechanics, according to which U and R are both taken to be approximations to some kind of objectively real physical evolution.

As I have stated in many places in this book, I am an adherent of this last view, where it is with gravitational phenomena that an objective R (i.e. OR) takes over from U. This gravitational OR would take place spontaneously, and requires no conscious observer to be part of the process. In usual circumstances, there would be frequent manifestations of OR occurring all the time, and these would lead to a classical world emerging on a large scale, as an excellent approximation. Accordingly, there is no need to invoke any conscious observer in order to achieve the reduction of the quantum state (R) when a measurement takes place. 

On the other hand, I envisage that the phenomenon of consciousness — which I take to be a real physical process, arising ‘out there’ in the physical world — fundamentally makes use of the actual OR process. Thus, my own position is basically the reverse of those referred to above, in which, in one way or another, it is envisaged that consciousness is responsible for the R process. In my own view, it is a physically real R process that is (partly) responsible for consciousness!

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the de-Broglie–Bohm 'pilot wave' interpretation of quantum mechanics posits two levels of reality:

a firmer ‘particle’ level of the reality of the configuration of the system, as well as a secondary ‘wave’ level of reality, defined by the wavefunction ψ, whose role is to guide the behaviour of the firmer level.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the 'wave' level identifies the range of potential construals of experience as meaning, and the 'particle' level constitutes an instance of those potential construals. From this perspective, both levels are intersubjectively real.

The 'taking over' of R from U — the collapse of the wavefunction — is the instantiation of potential when a conscious observer takes a measurement, and the wavefunction 'guides' the 'behaviour of the firmer level' in the sense that is delimits the range of potential that can be instantiated and grades it in terms of probability.

Consciousness, in this view, is mental and verbal symbolic processing, rather than a physical process, but it is realised by physical processes of the brain, the observation or thought of which is an instance of a construal of experience as meaning.

The Observer In Interpretations Of Quantum Mechanics Viewed Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Penrose (2004: 1031-2):

The consistent-histories approach is also explicitly dependent upon some notion of what an ‘observer’ might be (the notion referred to as an IGUS in the Gell-Mann–Hartle scheme). The point of view suggested by Wigner that consciousness (or perhaps living systems generally) might violate U evolution is also one which makes explicit reference to the role of the mind (or whatever constitutes an ‘observer’) in the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Blogger Comments;

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the conscious observer is necessary in the interpretation of quantum mechanics because it is the observer who instantiates one construal of experience as meaning from the range of potential construals identified by the wavefunction.