I think it’s also important not to confiate CI with consciousness-causes-collapse theories. CI doesn’t need to regard observers as ontologically special, it just asserts that macroscopic observers will make classical style , real valued observations
And that QM, nonetheless, isn’t a classical theory. At the time if it’s formulation, the main rivals were theories that tried to explain away the probablistic nature of QM as statistics applying to ensembles.
Yes. The special role of observers does not mean Wigner style consciousness-induces-collapse theories, which I am firmly against. That could potentially lead to some bizarre conclusions such as a dog could collapse the wavefuntion but a cat can’t. CI doesn’t say that (it didn’t say much at all). For example, PBR suggests the perspective center (the observer) can be a person just like it can be a Geiger counter.
That being said, PBR can be regarded as a consciousness-related theory if one pushes it. Our natural first-person perspective can be simple treated as primitively given or fundamental. But if there has to be an explanation to this perspective, “why is it apparent that I am the perspective center?”, then the answer ought to be because the only subjectivity available is of this particular human/physical system. By postulation, we can choose to reason from other perspectives (e.g. a Geiger counter’s). Now asking why the Geiger counter is the perspective center would potentially point to a subjectivity of its own. Granted, it does not suggest its subjective experience has got anything in common with humans’. Yet that in essence would lead to panpsychism.
Of course, all this has got nothing to do with actions upon the perspective center or anything physically detectable. So I don’t think they are related to the discussion of QM. Just some random thoughts.
I think it’s also important not to confiate CI with consciousness-causes-collapse theories. CI doesn’t need to regard observers as ontologically special, it just asserts that macroscopic observers will make classical style , real valued observations
And that QM, nonetheless, isn’t a classical theory. At the time if it’s formulation, the main rivals were theories that tried to explain away the probablistic nature of QM as statistics applying to ensembles.
Yes. The special role of observers does not mean Wigner style consciousness-induces-collapse theories, which I am firmly against. That could potentially lead to some bizarre conclusions such as a dog could collapse the wavefuntion but a cat can’t. CI doesn’t say that (it didn’t say much at all). For example, PBR suggests the perspective center (the observer) can be a person just like it can be a Geiger counter.
That being said, PBR can be regarded as a consciousness-related theory if one pushes it. Our natural first-person perspective can be simple treated as primitively given or fundamental. But if there has to be an explanation to this perspective, “why is it apparent that I am the perspective center?”, then the answer ought to be because the only subjectivity available is of this particular human/physical system. By postulation, we can choose to reason from other perspectives (e.g. a Geiger counter’s). Now asking why the Geiger counter is the perspective center would potentially point to a subjectivity of its own. Granted, it does not suggest its subjective experience has got anything in common with humans’. Yet that in essence would lead to panpsychism.
Of course, all this has got nothing to do with actions upon the perspective center or anything physically detectable. So I don’t think they are related to the discussion of QM. Just some random thoughts.