Related papers: The importance of the observer in science

I review basic principles of the quantum mechanical measurement process in view of their implications for a quantum theory of general relativity. It turns out that a clock as an external classical device associated with the observer plays…

The theoretical limits of 'lossy' data compression algorithms are considered. The complexity of an object as seen by a macroscopic observer is the size of the perceptual code which discards all information that can be lost without altering…

The lately developed part of Quantum Bayesianism named QBism has been proclaimed by its authors a powerful interpretation of Quantum Physics. This article presents analysis of some aspects of QBism. The considered examples show…

Quantum cosmology is the quantum theory of the entire universe. Although strange at first sight, it is appropriate because (1) our world appears to be fundamentally quantum, (2) the classical description of gravity breaks down at…

In quantum mechanics, not everything that can be observed can be observed simultaneously. Observational data exhibits \emph{contextuality} -- a generalisation of nonlocality -- if the result of an observation is necessarily dependent on…

Both empirical and theoretical objective science can only access relations, revealing nothing about the intrinsic nature of the entities "in relation". We typically refer to these entities as "matter", assuming their nature is irrelevant…

A precise formulation of the strong Equivalence Principle is essential to the understanding of the relationship between gravitation and quantum mechanics. The relevant aspects are reviewed in a context including General Relativity, but…

Analysing Quantum Measurement requires analysing the physics of amplification since amplification of phenomena from one scale to another scale is essential to measurement. There still remains the task of working this into an axiomatic…

A number of issues related to measurement show that self-consistency is lacking in quantum mechanics as this theory has been generally understood. Each issue is presented as a point in this paper. Each point can be resolved by incorporating…

The treatment of time in relativity does not conform to that in quantum theory. In the context of quantum gravity this is called "the problem of time". A crucial difference is that time $t$ may be seen as an observable in relativity theory,…

There have lately been a variety of attempts to connect, or even explain, if not in fact, reduce human consciousness to quantum mechanical processes. Such attempts tend to draw a sharp and fundamental distinction between the role of…

We discuss views about whether the universe can be rationally comprehended, starting with Plato, then Leibniz, and then the views of some distinguished scientists of the previous century. Based on this, we defend the thesis that…

It is usually assumed that the quantum state is sufficient for deducing all probabilities for a system. This may be true when there is a single observer, but it is not true in a universe large enough that there are many copies of an…

The properties of quantum entanglement are examined and the role of the observer is pointed out.

In a previous paper (arXiv:1008.3661v1[quant-ph] 21 Aug 2010), we have given a purely logical proof of the Conway and Kochen Free Will theorem in QM: the freedom of the observer implies the freedom of the observed particle. Here we show…

It is argued that at a sufficiently deep level the conventional quantitative approach to the study of nature faces difficult problems, and that biological processes should be seen as more fundamental, in a way that can be elaborated on the…

The text points out that one of the main contradictions of quantum realism, which is particularly relevant to the social sciences, is the tension between the existence of an observer-independent reality and the idea that this reality is…

Well over a century after the discovery of the electron, we are still faced with serious conceptual issues regarding precisely what an electron is. Since the development of particle physics and the Standard Model, we have accumulated a…

We initiate a study of the complexity of quantum field theories (QFTs) by proposing a measure of information contained in a QFT and its observables. We show that from minimal assertions, one is naturally led to measure complexity by two…

The question of what should be meant by a measurement is tackled from a mathematical perspective whose physical interpretation is that a measurement is a fundamental process via which a finite amount of classical information is produced.…