Quantum Theory Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [5]

Gribbin (1990: 162):

Can Eddington's doubts really be taken at face value?  Is it possible that the nucleus, the positron and the neutrino did not exist until experimenters discovered the right sort of chisel with which to reveal their form?  Such speculations strike at the root of sanity, let alone our concept of reality.  But they are quite sensible questions to ask in the quantum world. … But the interpretation of particles is all in the mind, and may be no more than a consistent delusion. … If we cannot say what a particle does when we are not looking at it, neither can we say that if it exists when we are not looking at it, and it is reasonable to claim that nuclei and positrons did not exist prior to the twentieth century, because nobody before 1900 ever saw one.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the nucleus, the positron and the neutrino did not exist as meanings until experimenters discovered the means of construing experience as such.

Moreover, the construal of experience as particles is "all in the mind", in the sense that particles, like all meanings, are the content of consciousness, projected into semiotic existence by mental (and verbal) processes.

The Thoughts Of Eddington Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1990: 161-2):

"The discovery [of the nucleus] does not go beyond the waves which represent the knowledge we have of the nucleus," says Eddington [in The Philosophy Of Physical Science], for nobody has ever seen an atomic nucleus.  All we see are the results of experiments, which we interpret in terms of the nucleus.

Blogger Comment:

This is consistent with the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory to the extent that the 'knowledge we have of the nucleus' is the meaning 'nucleus' that we construe of experience in experiments.  The 'waves which represent' such knowledge are construals of experience as potential (probability) rather than instance (frequency).

The Thoughts Of Eddington In Systemic Functional Linguistics

Kœstler (1979: 542):

Thus Eddington wrote:

The stuff of the world is mind-stuff.  The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time; these are part of the cyclic scheme ultimately derived out of it.

Blogger Comment:

Eddington's view is consistent with the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory that categories of experience, such as space and time, are meanings construed in the social semiotic system of language, and so are the contents of consciousness.

cf also the view of William James that pure experience is the one primal stuff out of which everything in the world is composed.