What is an observer?
We have long assumed that “an observer observes the world.”
But what if—
observation itself is not something we do, but something that only appears when certain conditions are met?
Two independent systems align only at specific moments.
Yet this alignment cannot be explained by causality, correlation, or measurement.
So who is observing?
Or rather—
does the observer emerge only when observation becomes possible?
Summary 👇 https://docs.google.com/document/d/19nDAJ_9MgrUFv4Ggyd9yvZIy4YCH9EqSlVOZPr_VuPs/edit?usp=drivesdk
What do you think about this perspective?
An observer is a means of taking measurement.
The things being measured are so small the means to measure such things greatly disrupts what they would be if not being measured. Think equal and opposite reactions.
I’m wondering if it is that simple. Does the observer needs to have a “consciousness” ? Is a photon colliding with an atom is consider as the observer, or is it the scientist that lighted up the atom which is the observer ?
If we takes Schrödinger cats, when does the measure happen ? When the sensor detect the radioactive particle ? When the cat realize its death ? When the box is open ? When someone actually looks inside the box ?
That’s true questions, I’m trying to understand quantum physics since years, but the sources I find are either too simple ("The cat is both dead and alive, It means there are parallel universe !), either too complicated (directly jump to equations).
Well. Philosophically, many might argue that. The classic, “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
The materialist in me would say certainly. Mechanical sound waves exist independently of your, or anyone, hearing them. And indeed, if we set up a camera in the woods and capture the tree falling, the microphone will hopefully clearly capture the sound as the lens does the image.
You must remember when you’re playing with quantum you’re playing probabilities. No guarantees.
I read a study not too long ago where they claimed to measure the photonic wake (like on a lake) and they could tune the strength of detection with the interference pattern and were able to get a gradient between full interference and none based on the resonance of the detector.
So that kind of throws a wrench into the box with the cat…
I think that perspective makes a lot of sense. Especially the idea that “sound exists independently of observation” is pretty strong within a classical physics framework.
What’s interesting about this paper, though, is that it actually redefines the position of the observer itself. Instead of treating the observer as simply the one who measures—or as a device—it redefines the observer as a structure that makes the phenomenon of observation possible in the first place.
So even the question, “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” gets reframed. It’s no longer about who is observing, but about under what structure reality itself becomes established.
This also connects to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. In this framework, observation isn’t just about “reading out a result”—it’s the process by which possibilities become actualized as reality.
That’s why experimental results where interference changes continuously don’t have to be interpreted as “strength of observation.” Instead, they can be understood as how fully the conditions for an observational structure are satisfied.
Even Schrödinger’s cat shifts meaning here. It’s less about “what’s inside the box” and more about at what point we consider reality to be fixed.
That’s a pretty big departure from the conventional idea of “observation = measurement.”
By the way, this is exactly what that paper is getting at— it redefines the observer not as a measuring agent, but as a structure. Even things like interference and detection strength are treated in terms of conditions for that structure, rather than degrees of measurement.
Reads like AI slop.
I’m Japanese, so I’m not very good at English.
I rely on AI for translation, but the ideas themselves are my own.
Great question—this is exactly the issue the paper addresses.
In standard quantum theory, “observer” is not formally defined, which is why it’s unclear whether measurement happens at interaction, detection, or perception.
In this framework, measurement is not tied to consciousness or a single event. It occurs only when a coherence condition (SIC) is satisfied, fixing one outcome.
So the question is not who observes, but when coherence becomes sufficient to determine reality.
Quantum mechanics is just a statistical theory. There is no magical role for observers.
In classical statistics, we also describe systems as a vector that is formed by superimposing basis states, and in classical statistics, the definite configuration of the system is also not tracked in the mathematics. The whole point of statistics is that you assume that there are limitations that disallow you from tracking the definite configuration, so it is not there in the mathematics, but that does not prove it is not there in the physical world.
There is just a huge problem among physicists in that many of them never take a class in statistics and have no idea what statistics even are. I remember once trying to talk about probability vectors with a physicist and they legitimately had never heard that term before but could not admit there was something they do not know so they accused me of making it up and that it is not a real concept. This is just how dire the situation is with how little physicists actually engage with statistics.
In statistics, you do not track the definite value of the system, only likelihoods of different possible configurations, and so the definite configuration does not exist in the mathematics, even if it exists in the real world. Physicists, who don’t engage with statistics, see that their mathematics does not typically contain a definite configuration, and then declare this must mean that there is no definite configuration in the real world!
Of course, if we go observe the particle in the real world, we find it has a definite configuration, and so they then introduce an additional postulate that says it suddenly “collapses” down such that it acquires a definite configuration the moment an “observer” or a “measuring apparatus” looks at it. Yet, if you look at the mathematics of this supposed “collapse,” it is literally mathematically equivalent to just applying Bayes’ theorem to the degree of freedom of the quantum state containing the probability vector!
That’s just straight out of classical statistics! No mystery or magic, but of course, if you know nothing about statistics, you won’t understand what I’m talking about at all. What the hell is Bayes’ theorem? What the hell is a probability vector?
All the supposed “weirdness” stems from this completely unjustified lunacy. Nothing in the academic literature justifies this nonsensical dogma. I often see people trying to justify it by referencing a lecture from Feynman or Deutsch, who both argue you can “prove” that particles do not have real values until you look at them from the double-slit experiment.
Their argument is as follows. Cover slit A and collect the statistics of where the photon lands on the screen when it goes through slit B. Cover slit B and collect the statistics of where the photon lands on the screen when it goes through slit A. Superimpose those two statistical distributions. If particles have definite values at all times, Feynman and Deutsch argue, then the statistical distribution when you open both slits should be that superimposed distribution. Yet, we know it isn’t in practice, therefore, they conclude particles have no properties until you look at them.
Why must it be? What law of logic says that? What law of statistics says that? People who regurgitate this argument just insist it must be so, and yet, that is all they can say about it. It must be so. Why? There is no argument beyond that. It is an entirely arbitrary premise. There is no statistical law or law of logic that says it must be so.
We can prove anything if we’re allowed to just make up whatever rules we want and insist it must be so.
And don’t even get me started on the huge industry centered around blatantly lying about Bell’s theorem.
It is trivial to represent any arbitrary quantum system in terms of a Markov chain.
What’s important in your point is this:
“The fact that a definite state does not appear in a probabilistic description does not imply that it does not exist in reality.” I agree with that.
However, your argument assumes a world that is already given and fully established as its starting point, doesn’t it?
Then the question is: under what conditions does that “world itself” come into being?
Probability distributions and Bayesian updates are merely descriptions of states after they have already been established.
But the real issue is: how do those distributions and outcomes come to be in the first place?
Or do you take the position that the world was created by God from the beginning?
I’m not rejecting that idea, of course.
The universe is eternal. It does not have a beginning.
I see.
However, as far as I understand, neither the claim that the universe is eternal nor the reason why it would be eternal has ever been scientifically proven.
That is why this question has traditionally belonged to the domains of philosophy and religion.
What Watanabe’s series of papers attempts to do is to provide a scientific demonstration of that very domain.
According to this framework, the universe begins from the co-creative process of Absolute Subjectivity, and reality is generated through the projection of Absolute Subjectivity onto Relative Subjectivity.
That Absolute Subjectivity, depending on the person, might be referred to as the Creator or as God.
blah blah blah
The observer emerges when it becomes entangled with the thing being observed. That’s the best explanation I’ve ever heard on the topic, anyway. What appears to be an unexplainable phenomenon of the emergence of an observer is actually just a byproduct of lab equipment trying to measure something at a quantum scale, and inadvertently becoming entangled with it. And quantum entanglement is rather well understood.
