Modern science achieved objectivity by removing subjectivity from theory.
Observers were treated as coordinate systems, and physical reality was assumed to exist independently of them.
This worked well for classical physics.
But quantum mechanics introduced a strange situation: measurement determines physical outcomes, yet the observing subject itself is never defined within the theory.
The observer is necessary, but structurally absent.
This raises a deeper question.
Modern knowledge is built on the subject–object distinction. But if the observing subject is excluded from theory, can a theory of observation actually be complete?
Maybe the “observer problem” in physics is not just a technical issue, but a structural consequence of removing subjectivity from the foundations of knowledge.
That’s just Laplacian determinism. It’s not a physical issue. Maybe the universe is just random? Physics has no issue describing randomness in the language of mathematics. It is a physical issue if the model has a particular contradiction or inconsistency, but this is not a contradiction or inconsistency, it is just a dislike of nondeterminism.
But if you really dislike nondeterminism. well, Louis de Broglie showed you can fit quantum mechanics to a deterministic model a century ago back at the 1927 Solvay conference. It’s called de Broglie - Bohm theory. It makes all the same predictions as quantum mechanics but is absolutely deterministic where the outcome of a quantum experiment is solely determined by the precise initial position of the particles involved. Why a particular outcome is selected is then not random but specifically due to the precise initial positions of the particles.
Also, Hameroff is also a mystic nutcase. You need to get out of the loony bin and come back to reality.
If Bohmian mechanics really solves the measurement problem, where in the theory is the Born rule (ρ = |ψ|²) actually derived, rather than assumed?
Also, regarding your point that this is “outside of physics”:
I think that is true within the framework of existing physics, from Newton through Einstein, where outcome selection is not treated as part of the internal structure of the theory.
However, the work by Satoru Watanabe is precisely attempting to address this gap — not by appealing to mysticism, but by proposing a framework in which what has traditionally been placed outside of physics can be incorporated into its internal structure in a consistent way.
In that sense, it suggests something closer to a Copernican shift: not rejecting physics, but extending what counts as part of its formal structure.
ψ is not necessary in the formulation of Bohmian mechanics. You can formulate it without it since the quantum potential Q only has partial dependence upon ψ.
But I don’t even see how it’s relevant even if ψ is assumed. I don’t think you have any idea what the measurement problem is. The measurement problem is not that “we assume things.” All mathematical models in the entirety of human history assume something. If you replace the current model with a more fundamental model, that more fundamental model will also assume things. Having assumptions is not the problem. The assumptions being coherent is the problem.
I am beginning to suspect that “Laura” is not even real and that you are Satoru Watanabe.
Thank you for your detailed comment.
I agree that all physical theories necessarily involve some assumptions, and that what ultimately matters is their coherence.
However, the point I am raising is not about whether assumptions exist, but about something more structural.
In quantum mechanics, the time evolution of the state is clearly defined, but how that mathematical state connects to a single observed outcome does not seem to be explicitly defined within the theory itself.
In other words,
under what conditions a single outcome becomes actualized from multiple possibilities
is the issue I am pointing to.
This is not simply a question of determinism vs. indeterminism, nor about whether assumptions are present, but rather about how the mapping from state to outcome is defined within the theory.
And it seems that even in Bohmian mechanics, this ultimately depends on initial conditions or distributions (such as those corresponding to the Born rule), whose origin is not fully derived within the theory itself.
The research I shared is an attempt to address this not by introducing additional assumptions, but by defining this part as a coherence condition within the structure of the theory.
In other words, the focus is not on reducing assumptions, but on defining the conditions under which an outcome becomes actual as part of the internal structure of the theory itself.
In that sense, I think your emphasis on coherence is actually quite close to the core of the issue being addressed.
And just to clarify one point: I am not Satoru Watanabe.
Again, you are just asking for Laplacian determinism. I don’t have any issues with randomness. That’s just your personal problem. And, again, if it bothers you that much, there are deterministic models out there, like de Broglie - Bohm theory, where particles have definite positions at all times that evolve deterministically according to the quantum Hamilton-Jacobi equation, and you measure the particle at the location you find it because it evolves there deterministically.
It objectively is. You cannot complain about nondeterminism and turn around and say it has nothing to do with nondeterminism. Your problem is clearly the nondeterminism as you constantly repeat that you dislike that there lacks a reason for one value to be selected over another from the probability distribution. That is, by definition, a complaint about nondeterminism.
In standard quantum mechanics it is, again, just random.
What on earth does that even mean? If I fire a cannonball from point X and it lands at point Y, and Newtonian mechanics predicts the full deterministic trajectory that would lead it to land at Y given it started at X, would you also respond saying that in Newtonian mechanics the origins of objects is “not fully derived”? What does that even mean?
Bohmian mechanics is very Newtonian esque. The particles just follow well-defined trajectories that are completely determined by their initial conditions. If a photon leaves a photon emitter at location X and later shows up at location Y, it was absolutely determined to show up at Y given its location at X, and the trajectory between X and Y in 3D space is also well-defined.
Sure.
By the way, how do you understand the concept of “God” in this context?
The reason I ask is that, in the work I mentioned, Watanabe argues that by excluding “God” — understood not theologically, but as a structural grounding of the relation between subject and object — modern physics has struggled for over a century to reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics in a fully coherent way.
I’m curious how you would interpret that claim from your perspective.
I don’t believe God exists, “there is just atoms and the void.” I also don’t think they can be reconciled because relativity is just wrong. Bell’s theorem proved that relativity is incompatible with objective reality, but people have such a strong devotion to it that many physicists have descended into crackpot woo territory claiming that we should deny objective relativity even exists in order to preserve relativity. “Reality doesn’t exist, but thank God it’s local!” That is legitimately a popular mindset among academics in physics and it’s entirely deranged. If you (1) accept objective independently of the observer reality exists, and (2) the predictions of quantum mechanics are correct, then it is trivial to write down a two-qubit experiment, one far simpler than Bell’s original theorem which proves that the states of the qubits cannot be Lorentz invariant. This conclusion is “escaped” in the academic literature by denying reality, denying premise #1, which, in my opinion, is an absurdity.
I’ve been taking the time to look into the points you’ve been raising, since they’re quite technical, and I feel like I’m starting to understand the structure of your position more clearly.
It seems that your view is that quantum mechanics is correct, and that objective reality exists independently of observation.
In that case, as a consequence of Bell’s theorem, you are effectively rejecting locality and accepting a form of non-local realism — is that a fair understanding of your position?
With that in mind, I’d like to ask one question:
If objective reality is fundamental, what, in your framework, grounds or guarantees its existence?
Also, just one more point — you mentioned that you do not believe God exists. Would you describe your position as atheistic? If you don’t mind sharing, I’d also be interested in what led you to that view.
By the way, in case you’re interested, here is the paper that this discussion is based on:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398757987_The_Removal_of_God_from_Knowledge_How_the_Exclusion_of_Absolute_Subjectivity_Shaped_Modern_Science_and_Its_Limits