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.
There is actually a paper that tries to approach this experimentally, not just philosophically.
It proposes something called “subjectivity intersection,” where observation is treated as a structural interaction rather than just a measurement.
The interesting part is that some results suggest nonlocal correlations that can’t be reduced to standard causal interaction.
If that holds, it would mean observation isn’t just a local physical process, but something more relational in structure.
I’m not saying it’s proven — but it’s an attempt to move the discussion beyond interpretation and into testable structure.
I didn’t see any experimental approaches suggested in the paper.
And it is pretty obvious that the author doesn’t really get why the theory of relativity and the quantum theories are so at odds with each other.
So in general I think it is a load of (philosophically) idealist bullshit.
That’s a fair point — I should have shared the experimental part first.
The paper I linked was part of a series, and I picked it for the conceptual discussion, but the earlier one actually focuses on the measurement setup.
It describes experiments analyzing correlations between EEG signals and quantum computation outcomes under controlled conditions.
The methodology is also described in detail and can be replicated.
Here is the first paper if you’re interested:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/393397861_Experimental_Evidence_of_Nonlocal_EEG-Quantum_State_Correlations_A_Novel_Empirical_Approach_to_the_Hard_Problem_of_Consciousness
After a cursory look, it seems that they argue that people who thought really hard in Japan affected quantum computations in United States with pretty significant correlation, and people who received their training got even higher correlation.
My bet is that they made it up either completely or through extreme data mining like what consciousness state they select for each moment and so on. Even completely legitimate experiments with quantum teleportation get much lower rates of success. And their definitions of subjectivity and consciousness are math-flavoured bullshit and not something meaningful. I don’t think there is anything remotely valuable in those articles.
That’s a fair concern.
But the idea here isn’t that they looked at the data first and then picked what fits.
The conditions and matching rules are defined before looking at the data.
So it’s not “we found something that looks good,” it’s “we tested a specific setup and saw a correlation.”
You can still question whether the setup is valid — but it’s not just data mining after the fact.
I’m very suspicious about how they converted EEG results to “consciousness states”. They declared that they correspond to brain waves (which is already an extremely strong claim, which they didn’t care to justify), but didn’t explain, how they chose one at every, when humans normally have several brain waves simultaneously. Looks like the weakest place in the setup, even if we assume good faith. And there is also the question, why the participants thinking really hard should affect their quantum computation and not other people, who are much closer.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I was wondering about that too.
From what I understand, it’s not that they’re picking one brain wave out of many. It seems more like they apply the same rule to the EEG data each time and extract a pattern from it.
So it’s less “choosing what looks good,” and more like “running the same process and seeing what comes out.”
Also, it’s not simply that “someone thinking hard” affects the system. Even if there are other people in the same room, the correlation only appears in the EEG of the person who is actually part of the measurement setup.
So it doesn’t seem to be about distance or physical proximity.
That’s why the paper seems to treat it not as a causal influence, but as something related to the structure of observation itself.
The theoretical side of that experiment is discussed in this paper, if you’re interested:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398259486_Empirical_Subjectivity_Intersection_Observer-Quantum_Coherence_Beyond_Existing_Theories_Unifying_Relativity_Quantum_Mechanics_and_Cosmology
Looked at the paper and now I’m completely sure that the author is either a schizo or a fraud. This paper claims to explain relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology and even life and consciousness, does not provide anything to that effect except barely math-flavoured bullshit and it is painfully obvious that the author does not understand relativity or quantum mechanics beyond school-level summaries. I checked the author’s website and it is a weird one-page website that is not reassuring at all that the author is a serious researcher and not a hack.
It’s fair to be skeptical, especially given how broad the claims are.
But if we dismiss everything without engaging with the specific arguments or data, we might miss the actual point.
At least to me, the interesting part is whether the reported correlations and experimental setup can be independently tested.
If those don’t hold up, then the whole framework falls apart — but that’s something that should be examined, not assumed.
I’m not an expert — just a regular office worker in Japan — but you seem very knowledgeable about the theory.
If you don’t mind me asking, what field are you in?