Making Sense Of Abstract Art

In abstract painting, there is an arbitrary relation between meaning and expression, and the meaning is instantial only, not systemic. As a consequence, an instance engenders unlimited readings, since there is no identifiable system of meaning to which the meaning of the instance can be attributed.

Making Sense Of Colour

Differences in colour correspond to different spatial wavelengths of light. A light wave grades the potential locations of photons in a beam in terms of probability, with each peak as the most probable location of a photon, and each trough as the least probable location. Spatial wavelength is therefore the spatial interval between equiprobable photons, and so it is the different spatial intervals between equiprobable photons that correspond to different colours.

Making Sense Of Wave-Particle Duality

The wave function grades the range of potential construals of experience in terms of probability.

A particle is a construal of experience that is an instance of that probability-graded potential.

Making Sense Of Misunderstandings Of 'Space' In Physics

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity construes space as three dimensions: as three axes of four-dimensional space-time. The notion that gravity is the curvature of space-time originates with Einstein himself. However the curvature that Einstein described is actually the curvature of a trajectory through space, as in the case of light passing a massive body.

What is actually curved is the geodesic: the shortest path between two points. The reason why the trajectory is curved is that, according to General Relativity, gravity is the contraction of space intervals in the direction of the centre of mass. This means that space intervals along these vectors are contracted relative to space intervals along perpendicular spatial axes. Consequently, the shortest trajectory of light in three-dimensional space is bent in the direction of the centre of mass.

The misunderstanding of space — rather than geodesics — as curved leads to misunderstandings like the following, where gravity is misrepresented as a deformation of otherwise flat space, instead of as the increasing contraction of space intervals along all vectors in the direction of the centre of mass:

Making Sense Of Misunderstandings Of 'Time' In Physics

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity construes time as a dimension: as one axis of four-dimensional space-time. On this basis, time does not slow down or speed up, because a dimension does not slow down or speed up. 

What does slow down or speed up is a process, such as the ticking of a clock. If the ticking process slows down, then there is a longer time interval between each tick; if the ticking process speeds up, there is a shorter time interval between each tick.

This demonstrates, on the one hand, that according to Einstein's theory, time intervals expand or contract, and on the other hand, that time is the dimension of the unfolding of processes. It is because time is the dimension of the unfolding of processes that time has an "arrow" (direction/asymmetry): from earlier phases of unfolding to later phases of unfolding.

On this basis, time is unlike the dimensions of space, because movement along the dimension is a matter of duration only. That is, "travelling" in time is merely the persistence of a process along the time axis. There is no travelling forwards or backwards in time analogous to travelling forwards or backwards in space.

On the same basis, time does not flow or pass, because a dimension does not flow or pass. 

What "flows" or "passes" is a reference point, the present, along the time axis. The present is the location on the time axis of the process of construing experience as meaning; that is of conscious processing: sensing or saying. As the process of consciousness unfolds, the reference point 'present' shifts on the time axis, along with what this reference point designates as 'past' or 'future'.

Making Sense Of The Findings Of Quantum Physics

Quantum physics confirms that meaning is the creation of meaners (observers) and probabilistic in its instantiation (the collapse of the wave function).

The reason physicists think Quantum Theory is "weird" is that (1) they assume that meaning is independent of meaners — that Nature is categorised independent of categorisers — and (2) they treat potential as if it were actual (e.g. superposition).

Making Sense Of Time Relativity vs Space Relativity

Gravity is the increasing relative expansion of time intervals with proximity to a centre of mass, and the increasing relative contraction of space intervals in the direction of a centre of mass, with increasing proximity to that centre.

The relative expansion of time intervals means that a process such as the ticking of a clock, unfolds relatively more slowly. The contraction of space intervals means that the shortest trajectory (geodesic) of another body traversing the affected space will be curved in the direction of the centre of mass. But there is an important difference between time relativity and space relativity. 

In time relativity, the expansion of time intervals is relative to other time intervals: those at other spatial locations, further from the centre of mass. In space relativity, on the other hand, the contraction of space intervals (in the direction of a centre of mass) is relative to the other space dimensions (those perpendicular to the dimension of contraction).

This means that a person does not detect the expansion of time intervals, since time intervals are expanded only relative to time intervals at spatial locations not occupied by that person; whereas a person does detect the contraction of space intervals (as gravitational attraction in one direction), since space intervals are contracted relative to the other two spatial axes at which the person is located.

Making Sense Of Classical vs Quantum Physics

From the perspective of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the main distinction between classical physics and quantum physics is that quantum physics introduced the distinction between potential and instance, which introduced the notion of probability, whereas classical physics is only concerned with instances.

Where Newtonian mechanics is only concerned with the quantification of instances, Quantum mechanics is concerned with the quantification of both potential and instance, where potential is quantified in terms of waves of probabilities, and instances are quantified in terms of the statistics of the particles that manifest those probabilities.

Making Sense Of The Flow Of Time

Time, as one dimension of space-time does not 'flow', any more than do the three dimensions of space. The 'flow' of time is the shifting of the location of a reference point, the present, along the time axis, where 'the present' is the temporal location of making meaning: of sensing or saying.

Making Sense Of Emergent Complexity

Chemical systems emerge as values of physical tokens.

Biological systems emerge as values of chemical tokens.

Somatic semiotic systems emerge as values of biological tokens.

Social systems emerge as values of somatic semiotic tokens.

Social semiotic systems emerge as values of social tokens.

Making Sense Of Theorising

On the 'transcendent' view of meaning, theorising is making meanings of meanings outside semiotic systems. On the 'immanent' view of meaning, theorising is making meanings of meanings inside semiotic systems, such as the meanings made by language of the meanings of perceptual systems. The findings of quantum physics — 'a phenomenon is not a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon' — are consistent with the 'immanent' view, but not with the 'transcendent' view.

Making Sense Of Existence

Each electron (existent) is the instantiation of potential.

The Universe (of existents) is the instantiation of potential.

Existence is the instantiation of potential.

Making Sense Of Belief

Ideationally, beliefs are the projections of desiderative processes (not cognitive processes). As ideas, they are desires (not thoughts).

Interpersonally, beliefs are proposals: offers/commands (not propositions: statements/questions). In terms of modality, beliefs are modulations: inclinations/obligations (not modalisations: probabilities/usualities).

Beliefs include ideologies. Ideologies are desires, offers/commands and inclinations/obligations.

When the rich symbologies of mythologies are misconstrued as facts to be believed, mythologies become desires, offers/commands, and inclinations/obligations, and function on a par with ideologies.

Making Sense Of 'Cyclical' Time

The notion of 'cyclical' time confuses processes with time. Time is the dimension along which processes unfold. A year is the temporal duration of a cyclical process: one revolution of the Earth around the Sun. A day labels the temporal duration of a cyclical process: one rotation of the Earth on its axis. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, seasons and years label time intervals of cyclical processes. It is not time that is cyclical but the process that unfolds in time.

Making Sense Of Curved Space-Time

If gravity is understood as the relative contraction of space intervals, and the relative expansion of time intervals, by a massive body, then gravity is neither the curvature of space nor the curvature of time. What is curved is the geodesic, the minimum distance between two points in space, which is the trajectory a body will take unless acted upon some other force. This is because the minimum distance, say for a moon moving relative to a planet, is always in the direction of the planet, since this is the direction in which space intervals are contracted.

Making Sense Of The 'Schrödinger's Cat' Paradox

The 'Schrödinger's Cat' Paradox, that the cat is simultaneously either both dead and alive, or neither dead nor alive, until observed, is created by two misunderstandings.

First, it confuses potential with instance. The cat is potentially dead or alive until observed.

Second, it makes the false epistemological assumption that meaning exists independently of meaners and their semiotic systems. It is the observation by a meaner that transforms the meaningless domain into the alternative meanings: 'the cat is dead' or 'the cat is alive'.

Making Sense Of Black Holes

A black hole is not a hole. It is a region of relatively contracted space intervals and relatively expanded time intervals due to the presence of mass.

The periphery of a black hole, the event horizon, is the circumference at the radial distance from its centre where the quantity of mass of the black hole is sufficient to contract the intervals of space to the degree that the geodesic of light is curved within that circumference, so that light cannot "escape" the black hole.

The centre of a black hole, the singularity, is an idealised mathematical point where the quantity of mass of the black hole is sufficient to contract the intervals of space to zero, and expand the intervals of time to infinity. (More realistically, at the centre, the intervals of space are contracted to the minimum distance, the Planck length, and the intervals of time are expanded to the distance that is inversely proportional to the space contraction.)

From the perspective of regions outside a black hole — the only locations where observers construe experience as meaning — matter falling into a black hole can never reach the singularity, because the increasing expansion of time intervals on this trajectory entails that the process would take an infinite amount of time to unfold.

Making Sense Of Music

Music is organised by socio-semiotic systems (music theory), represented by socio-semiotic systems (music notation), expanded by socio-semiotic systems (lyrics), and produced by socio-semiotic beings (humans), but music is not a socio-semiotic system. This is because, unlike genuine socio-semiotic systems, systems of content (meanings) cannot be systematically assigned to systems of expression (musical sounds).

In terms of Halliday's linear taxonomy of physical—biological—social—(socio-)semiotic systems, music is social, but not socio-semiotic. That is, music features value, but not symbolic value. According to Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, perceptual categorisation is made on (+/–) values that have been adaptive to ancestors. On this basis, music can be understood as selecting values in the process of perception — values that weight all mental processes.

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, then, one way to understand music is as a perceptual phenomenon that activates mental processes that range over emotions, desires and thoughts.

Making Sense Of Theism And Atheism

According to the comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell, mythology arose as the use of symbolism to fit consciousness to its physical and social environments through different stages of life.

Theism arose as the belief in mythic symbology as fact.

Atheism arose as the disbelief in mythic symbology as fact.

Agnosticism arose as abstaining from the choice of belief or disbelief in mythic symbology as fact.

With symbology misconstrued as fact, to be believed or disbelieved, the meaning of the symbology is ignored and lost. See Making Sense Of Religion.

Making Sense Of 'Homo Sapiens'

Homo sapiens is a biological classification. On biological grounds (DNA), humans and chimpanzees belong to the same genus, just as horses and asses, which are less closely related, belong to the same genus. This means that, on biological grounds, Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus are more accurately classified as Homo troglodytes and Homo paniscus. 

It follows from this that all human ancestors since the split with chimpanzees are also of the same genus. This means that, on biological grounds, Australopithecus Afarensis, Australopithecus Africanus, etc. are more accurately classified as Homo Afarensis, Homo Africanus, etc.

By the same token, since Homo sapiens sapiens successfully interbred with Homo neanderthalensis, on biological grounds, Neanderthals belong to the same species as Homo sapiens, and are more accurately classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.

Making Sense Of Infinity

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, infinity is a quality: limitlessness. An infinite amount is a limitless amount, not a specific number. To treat infinity as a number is to misconstrue a quality as a quantity.

Making Sense Of Energy And Entropy

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, energy, which is interchangeable with mass (persistence), can be understood as the potential for a process (change) to unfold and the instantiation of that potential.

By the same token, entropy can be understood as a degradation of the potential for a process to unfold, so that as entropy increases, the potential for a process to unfold decreases, resulting in less order in a system whose order depends on the unfolding of processes. Like all potential, entropy is quantified in terms of probability.

Making Sense Of Light

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the wave-particle duality of light (and electrons) can be understood in terms of instantiation, with wave as potential, and particle as instance.

For example, in the 'double slit' experiment, the wave model of light provides the potential locations of a photon, quantified in terms of probability, while the particle model provides the actual locations of photons, quantified in terms of frequency.

The interference patterns on the detector sheet are the frequencies of actual photons, in accord with the probabilities of potential photons. In the 'single slit' experiment, all photons are detected in the one most probable location, beyond the single slit. In the 'double slit' experiment, actual photons are detected in frequencies that reflect the interacting waves of probability that quantify the potential of the system.

Wave crests of light measure the most probable location of a photon, and wavelength is the spatial distance between the two most probable locations in a train of photons. Frequency is the number of probability peaks per time interval. Different probability peak frequencies are construed as different colours, within the visible spectrum.

Without the distinction between potential and actual, wave-particle duality leads physicists to mistake potential states of Schrödinger's cat for actual states (alive and/or dead) and potential universes for actual universes.

Making Sense Of Time

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the single dimension of time can be understood as circumstances of the unfolding of processes: location and extent (duration or frequency).

On the model of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, intervals of time, the distance between two temporal locations, are not uniform across the Universe, but are either relatively contracted or expanded (dilated). On the one hand, the cosmological expansion since the Big Bang is the ongoing relative contracting of time intervals. On the other hand, the presence of matter has the effect of relatively expanding time intervals — not "curving" time — with the distance between temporal locations increasing with relative proximity to the centre of mass. (The limiting case is the singularity of a black hole, which is the expansion of time intervals to ∞.)

To relate this to the unfolding of processes, a useful example is the ticking process of a clock. If time intervals are relatively contracted, then there is less time between successive ticks, which means that the clock is ticking relatively faster, which means that all processes are unfolding relatively faster. If time intervals are relatively expanded, then there is more time between successive ticks, which means that the clock is ticking relatively more slowly, which means that all processes are unfolding relatively more slowly.

The gravitational expansion of time entails that someone at sea level ages relatively more slowly than someone on a mountain top, since all their biological processes unfold relatively more slowly than the person further from the Earth's centre of mass. It also entails that there is no unfolding of processes at the singularity of a black hole, since a process would take an infinity of time to unfold.

For clear thinking, it is important to distinguish time from the processes that measure and are measured by it. For example, time doesn't run relatively faster or slower, processes do; time (like space) doesn't flow, processes do.

Time differs from the three dimensions of space in an important way: there is locomotion in space, but not in time. It is possible to travel from one spatial location to another, but not from one temporal location to another. To "travel" from 1pm to 2pm is merely to endure for one hour. That is, the notion of time travel derives from a category error: that time is precisely the same type of dimension as space.

Making Sense Of Space

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the three dimensions of space can be understood as circumstances of the unfolding of processes: location and extent (the distance or interval between locations).

On the model of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, intervals of space, the distance between two locations, are not uniform across the Universe, but are either relatively expanded or contracted. On the one hand, the cosmological expansion since the Big Bang is the ongoing relative expanding of spatial intervals, the distance between locations. On the other hand, the presence of matter has the effect of relatively contracting spatial intervals, with the distance between locations decreasing with relative proximity to the centre of mass. (The limiting case is the singularity of a black hole, which is the contraction of spatial intervals to 0.)

The constant acceleration of a falling body due to gravity is explained by the constant contraction of spatial intervals with proximity to the centre of mass of the two bodies. As spatial intervals contract, more and more of them are traversed by the falling body, such that the distance travelled for a given unit of time — the velocity of the object —increases at a constant rate.

The direction of gravitational attraction to the centre of mass of the two bodies is explained by the fact that, unless acted upon by an external force, a moving body always takes the shortest trajectory between two locations: the geodesic. Because spatial intervals are contracted in the direction of the centre of mass of the two bodies, the shortest distance, for each spatial interval, is in the direction of that centre of mass.

The trajectory of an orbiting satellite is perpendicular to the direction of gravitational attraction, but the shortest spatial intervals are always in the direction of the centre of mass of the two bodies, and it is this that accounts for its curved trajectory. That is, gravity is not the curvature of space, but the contraction of space that results in curved trajectories of bodies through space.

(In the 'rubber sheet' model that is used to explain gravity, the relative contraction of spatial intervals is misleadingly represented as a deepening deformation of the sheet — that is, as an additional dimension instead of variation in the dimensions of space.)

Making Sense Of Science

Science can be understood as fulfilling the cosmological function of mythology. Joseph Campbell (1988) identifies four basic functions of mythology:

1. mystical: 'realising what a wonder the universe is, and what a wonder you are, and experiencing awe before this mystery';
2. cosmological: 'the dimension with which science is concerned – showing you what shape the universe is, but showing it in such a way that the mystery again comes through';
3. sociological: 'supporting and validating a certain social order'; and
4. pedagogical: 'how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances'.

With modern science, the principal means of creating meanings of meanings shifted from lexical metaphor to grammatical metaphor.

Making Sense Of Religion

The existence of religion can be understood as a direct result of the emergence of language (i.e. human consciousness). This can be explained as follows.

On Halliday's model, with the emergence of language and the stratification of linguistic content into meaning and wording, a metaphorical relation between meaning and wording became possible. This has the effect of creating symbolic (Token-Value) relations at the level of meaning — meanings of meanings — thereby expanding the overall meaning potential of language.

The earliest deployments of metaphor were lexical, rather than grammatical, because words are the least abstract dimension of language. This created the rich mythic symbolism of the world's religions, including the personification of material phenomena as gods, which amounts to a reconstrual of the natural world as intersubjective.

But even the restrictions of lexical metaphor can yield profound intellectual insights. For example, in Hindu symbology, the Universe is reconstrued as a mental projection (dream) of the God Vishnu, and in Abrahamic symbology, as a verbal projection of the Creator (God said "Let there be light. …"). That is, in both traditions, 'the world' is reconstrued as meaning that is projected by the creator of meaning. In this symbology, the creator god represents language as meaning potential, and an individuation of the creator god, a soul, represents an individuation of meaning potential, the consciousness of an individual human.

A scientific approach to religion is to try to understand it; a religious approach to religion is to denounce it as an abomination. The symbology of religious traditions potentially provides rich insights into the evolution of human consciousness.

Making Sense Of Human Consciousness

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, human (higher-order) consciousness is the symbolic processing made possible by language: mental and verbal, and the content of consciousness is the content plane of language: meaning (semantics) and wording (lexicogrammar).

The relation between consciousness and the content of consciousness is projection, which is the relation between different orders of experience. The content of consciousness is second-order experience with respect to the process of consciousness itself.

Each act of consciousness is an instance of symbolic processing, mental or verbal, and each projection is an instance of the content of consciousness, meaning or wording (spoken, signed or written text).

The content of consciousness is organised according to metafunction:

• content as the construal of experience (ideational),
• content as the enactment of social relations (interpersonal),
• content as coherent and relevant (textual).

Because every human language is a collective phenomenon that is individuated differently in each human, the content of consciousness is a collective phenomenon that is individuated differently in the ontogenesis of each human.

Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection provides an epistemologically-informed and scientifically-testable model of the material substrate that makes human consciousness possible.

Making Sense Of What We Perceive

What we perceive is meaning construed of experience of the meaningless. Interpreting Edelman's extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection from the perspective of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, this involves an identifying relation between the meanings of somatic perceptual semiotic systems and the social semiotic system of language.

On this model, the identity encodes the meanings of language by reference to perceptual systems:

the meanings of somatic semiotic perceptual systems	realise	the meanings of social semiotic linguistic systems
Identifier Token	Process	Identified Value

and decodes the meanings of perceptual systems by reference to the meanings of language:

the meanings of somatic semiotic perceptual systems	realise	the meanings of social semiotic linguistic systems
Identified Token	Process	Identifier Value

That is, what we perceive are perceptual meanings, construed of the meaningless domain, interpreted in terms of the meanings of language. On this model, members of other species do not perceive what humans perceive, since their perceptual meanings are not interpreted in terms of the meanings of language.

Making Sense Of The Emergence Of Language

According to Halliday, language is differentiated from all other semiotic systems by being constituted by a stratified content plane (the 'signified' of Saussure's sign), such that semantics is realised by lexicogrammar, and it was this stratification of the content plane that created modern humans. 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.

The semiotic means through which this stratification could come about is suggested by the model of metaphor in Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory.

As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288) explain, the deployment of metaphor involves an internal stratification of semantics, in the sense that a lower level token (metaphorical meaning) realises a higher level value (congruent meaning).

By the same token, in the emergence of language from protolanguage, the content plane becomes stratified when a lower level token (lexicogrammatical wording) comes to realise a higher level value (semantic meaning).

It is this prior emergence of a lower level token (lexicogrammar) on the content plane that makes possible the emergence of lower level tokens (metaphors) on the semantic stratum, and it is these lower level tokens on the semantic stratum that enormously expand the meaning potential of language, as demonstrated by the use of lexical metaphor in the reconstruals of meaning in the field of mythology, and the use of grammatical metaphor in the reconstruals of meaning in the fields of science.

Making Sense Of Reality

Axiom 1: Immanence: All meaning is within semiotic systems

Axiom 2: Semiotic systems distinguish between a non-semiotic domain and a semiotic domain.

Axiom 3: Within the semiotic domain, the semiotic system of language distinguishes between a material-relational domain and a mental-verbal domain.

Axiom 4: It is the mental-verbal domain (the process of consciousness) that construes experience of the non-semiotic domain as the meaning of the semiotic domain.

∞

In this view, 'reality' is identified with the semiotic domain: the outer material-relational ± the inner mental-verbal. For example,

Galilean science is concerned with the outer material-relational domain ('primary qualities') rather than with the inner mental-verbal domain ('secondary qualities'); and

in Cartesian philosophy, the certainty of the existence of the inner mental-verbal domain (cogito) guarantees (ergo) the existence of the outer material-relational domain (sum).

∞

To be clear, this does not mean that the domain outside meaning (e.g. what is construed as 'cancer') "does not exist", but that to think or say that anything exists is to transform the meaningless into meaning (e.g. a material world).