Cosmogonic Myth Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [4]

Genesis (1:4):

4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, this symbolism from Abrahamic mythology can be interpreted as further construing the genesis of construing experience as meaning through language.

The first clause construes the phenomenon as a domain of the mental perception of the creator of meaning:

and	God	saw	the light
	Senser	Process: mental: perception	Phenomenon

That is to say, the creator of meaning sees what language construes of experience as meaning.

The second clause attributes a positive value (attitude) to the phenomenon:

that	it	was	good
	Carrier	Process: attributive	Attribute

and construes the attribution as a cognitive projection of the creator of meaning (God saw…).  This introduces the ascription of interpersonal values (attitudes) to experiential phenomena by the creator of meaning; cf the notion of 'categorising on value' in the neuroscience (TNGS) of Edelman (1992).

The third clause construes the creator of meaning as the cause of the distinction between mutually-defining phenomena:

and	God	divided	the light from the darkness
	Senser	Process: mental	Phenomenon

* This treats the light from the darkness as a nominal group complex realising the Phenomenon (the 'something') that was divided.

Cosmogonic Myth Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [3]

Genesis (1:3):

3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, this symbolism from Abrahamic mythology can be interpreted as further construing the genesis of construing experience as meaning through language.

Here the creator of meaning verbally projects a proposal for a phenomenon to exist:

and	God	said		let	there	be	light
1			"	2
	Sayer	Process: verbal		Process:		existential	Existent

and this results in the existence of the phenomenon:

and	there	was	light
		Process: existential	Existent

That is to say, the phenomenon is construed here as a linguistic construal of experience, made by the creator of meaning.

Cosmogonic Myth Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [2]

Genesis (1:1):

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, this symbolism from Abrahamic mythology can be interpreted as construing the genesis of construing experience as meaning through language.

The clause construes time beginning with the creator of meaning — see previous post — making an initial categorial distinction between phenomena:

in the beginning	God	created	the heaven and the earth
Location: time	Creator	Process: existential	Existent

Cosmogonic Myth Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

The Gospel of John (1:1):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, this symbolism from Abrahamic mythology can be interpreted as construing the genesis of language, as meaning potential, and if it is language that primarily distinguishes humans from other apes, as construing the genesis of humanity itself.

The first clause construes time beginning with the existence of the Word (Greek logos 'word', 'speech', 'discourse'); that is, with the existence of language:

in the beginning	was	the Word
Location: time	Process: existential	Existent

The second clause extends this by construing God (creator) as an Attribute of language:

and	the Word	was	with God
	Carrier	Process: attributive	Attribute: accompaniment

And the third clause extends this by construing the identity of language and its creator:

and	the Word	was	God
	Identifier Token	Process: identifying	Identified Value

in which the creator of meaning is encoded by reference to the meaning created, and/or:

and	the Word	was	God
	Identified Token	Process: identifying	Identifier Value

in which the meaning created is decoded by reference to the creator of meaning.

If, on the other hand, the clause is interpreted as receptive, rather than operative, then either:

and	the Word	was	God
	Identifier Value	Process: identifying	Identified Token

the creator of meaning is decoded by reference to the meaning created, or

and	the Word	was	God
	Identified Value	Process: identifying	Identifier Token

the meaning created is encoded by reference to the creator of meaning.

Alternatively, on an attributive reading (e.g. George was king):

and	the Word	was	God
	Carrier	Process: attributive	Attribute

the meaning created is an instance of the creator of meaning (as meaning potential).

∞

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, mythologies are sub-potentials of cultural semiotic systems that are realised in — and construed by — language in the first instance (followed by other semiotic systems made possible by language).

Mythologies are the oldest surviving reconstruals of experience, and were made possible by the stratification of the content plane of language into wording and meaning.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 25):

This stratification of the content plane had immense significance in the evolution of the human species — it is not an exaggeration to say that it turned Homo ... into Homo sapiens. It opened up the power of language and in so doing created the modern human brain.

And it was the stratification of content into wording and meaning that made metaphor possible. Where science uses grammatical metaphor to understand the environments in which humans must fit, mythology uses lexical metaphor to construe ways of fitting into physical and social environments.

The Epistemological Status Of Terms Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1989: 278):

Whatever its basis in "reality", however, the quark model very neatly explains the interactions of the particle world.  The everyday particles, the proton and neutron and the pions that carry the strong force, can all be described simply in terms of two quarks, which are given arbitrary labels to distinguish them from one another.  One is called "up" and the other is called "down".  The names have no significance; physicists could just as well, if they wished, call one quark "Alice" and the other "Albert".

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the names of phenomena are construals of experience as wording, and wording realises — is a lower level of symbolic abstraction than — meaning.

The Epistemological Status Of Models Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1989: 278):

It reminds us that all our models of fundamental particles and their interactions are no more than artificial aids to help us get a picture of what is going on in terms that seem familiar, or at least recognisable, from everyday life.  But it is ironic that as the quark model has become increasingly well established, in recent years many accounts of particle physics seem to have lost sight of the fact that even the best of our models are no more than aids to the imagination, and those accounts have begun to present an image of photons, neutrons, and the rest as made up of "real" little hard lumps, the quarks, which rattle around inside what we used to think of as the "fundamental" particles.  The image is beguilingly reminiscent of the earlier vision of the atom as being made up of little hard lumps, electrons, protons and neutrons — and it is just as inaccurate.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, observations of fundamental particles and their interactions (i.e. data) are construals of experience as first-order meaning (phenomena) whereas models of fundamental particles and their interactions (i.e. theories) are reconstruals of first-order meaning as second-order meaning (metaphenomena).

The wording "no more than" enacts the interpersonal meaning 'counter-expectancy: limiting'.

The Flaw In Quantum ElectroDynamics Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1989: 260):

But [QED theory] suffers from one crucial flaw, related to the presence of that cloud of virtual particles around each electron. 

Quantum physics tells us that an electron is surrounded by a cloud of virtual photons and that any or all of these photons may be turning into electron–positron pairs, or into other pairs of virtual particles, before being reabsorbed by the electron.  Extra energy is always being borrowed from the field, and from the uncertainty relation, literally without any limit to the complexity of the loops of virtual photons and virtual electron–positron pairs being produced.  When the rules of quantum physics are applied with scrupulous care to calculate how much energy can be involved in such loops of virtual particles, it turns out there is no limit — the energy of the electron plus the cloud of virtual particles around it becomes infinite, and since the electron and its cloud are inseparable, at first sight that seems to mean that electrons must have infinite mass.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the cloud of virtual particles around each electron are momentary instances of electron matter potential, in line with the probabilities of that potential.  The "reabsorption" of virtual particles "by an electron" are cessations of such instantiations of that potential.  The extra energy that is always being "borrowed" from the field and the uncertainty relation constitute instances of electron energy potential.  The false notion that electrons must have infinite energy and mass arises from not distinguishing quantum potential from actual instances.

Field Quanta Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [4]

Gribbin (1989: 259):

Virtual photons — and indeed, ordinary photons — can also create electrons, as virtual electron–positron pairs, provided they, too, are short-lived and exist only within the confines set by the uncertainty principle.  And those electrons have their own clouds of virtual photons, and so on, ad infinitum.  The froth of activity around an electron, or involved in the repulsion, or scattering, of one electron by another is a far cry from the tranquil image most people associate with the word "vacuum".  But by applying the principles of quantum theory to the electromagnetic field in this way, physicists have been able to come up with a theory of quantum electrodynamics, and a living vacuum, that describes the interactions of electrons, photons, and the electromagnetic field in quantum terms.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the creation of virtual electron–positron pairs by photons or virtual photons is the instantiation of electron–positron matter potential as particles, and the clouds of virtual photons around a virtual electron are instantiations of its electromagnetic potential — all in line with the probabilities of such potentials.

Field Quanta Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [3]

Gribbin (1989: 259):

The electromagnetic field around an electron can create virtual photons, provided they are short-lived and do not stray far from home.  The rule of thumb, from the uncertainty principle, is that such a virtual photon can move only half its own wavelength away from the electron before it must turn back and be reabsorbed.  Longer wavelengths correspond to less energy, so less energetic virtual photons stray farther from the electron.  The result is a quantum picture of the electron as a charged region embedded in a sea of virtual photons, which get more energetic the closer you approach the electron itself.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the "creation" of virtual photons by the electromagnetic field around an electron is the instantiation of the electromagnetic potential of an electron as a photon, in accordance with the probabilities of that potential. 

On this picture, an electron is an instance of electron potential (field) that is surrounded by instances (virtual photons) of electromagnetic potential (field), the energy of latter decreasing with distance from the electron.