Sunday 14 July 2019

The Relation Of Physics To Biology Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 198):
Physics and biology will "correspond" with each other in an intimate way, certainly in the next century and possibly even sooner than that. At the very least, they will have an exchange about how the human observer influences physical measurements and how the observers' perceptions relate to their physical descriptions. This is a key problem in quantum mechanics.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the relation of 'correspondence' between physics and biology can be understood in terms of symbolic abstraction (stratification), such that the meanings of biology are realised by the realisation of the meanings of chemistry in the meanings of physics. Or, from the reverse perspective, the meanings of physics realise the realisation of the meanings of biology in the meanings of chemistry.

The human observer 'influences' physical measurements by construing them of experience.  The observers' perceptions are construals of experience as the meaning of language, whereas their physical descriptions are reconstruals of such meaning as the meaning of the language of physics.

No comments:

Post a Comment