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.

  • pcalau12i@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    2·
    1 month ago

    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.

    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.

    This is not simply a question of determinism vs. indeterminism,

    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.

    but rather about how the mapping from state to outcome is defined within the theory.

    In standard quantum mechanics it is, again, just random.

    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.

    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.

    And just to clarify one point: I am not Satoru Watanabe.

    Sure.

    • Laura@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      29 days ago

      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.

      • pcalau12i@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        1·
        28 days ago

        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.

        • Laura@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
          1·
          23 days ago

          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.