Quantum Mechanics as a Semantic Problem

Abstract

Physics, like all science, is grown out of a desire to understand the world. However, modern physics with its mathematical form has become increasingly removed from the world of everyday experience and visual imagination. In quantum mechanics it is impossible to visualize the reality represented by the theory. All we have is a consistent mathematical structure. Although the theory works perfectly well instrumentally, the question remains, how can the mathematics of the theory impart understanding? If we look at mathematics as a language, we are faced with the semantic problem: how does the language of mathematics acquire meaning? In an attempt to answer this question, I study Derrida’s early critique of Husserl’s intuitionism and Wittgenstein's picture theory of language. I also introduce Paul A. M. Dirac as having similar notions of quantum mechanics as expressed in this article.