Tuesday 22 August 2017

The Laws Of Quantum Mechanics Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Gribbin (1989: xvi-xvii):
This state of affairs is as unsatisfactory as it sounds — so much so that most scientists and engineers ignore it and continue to pretend that electrons are little, hard, predictable billiard balls, even though the equations they use to design lasers, or nuclear reactors, depend fundamentally on the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics worked out in the 1920s.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the reason why most scientists and engineers can regard electrons as particles is that particles are instances of quantum potential, whose overall statistical distribution is in line with the probabilities provided by the wave function.

Importantly, the laws of quantum mechanics are "laws" in the sense of modalisation (probability, usuality), not in the sense of modulation (obligation, inclination).  That is, they are statements of probability, not commands that are "obeyed" by the universe.  This misunderstanding leads to serious epistemological confusions.

No comments:

Post a Comment