this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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I've never understood what counts as 'observing' in this context... Just looking at the thing, perhaps with some kind of microscope/tool? Does it have to be a person who observes it? How about a dog? Or a paramecium?
I think I'm missing some important piece to this.
It's any interaction that counts. That could be with your eye, but it's usually with any other particle that needs to know the position of another. That could be part of a measuring device, or anything else. If information is needed to "do physics" with it then the waveform collapses so the interaction can be performed.
It has absolutely nothing to do with consciousness.
I might be talking out of my ass a bit, but if I remember it correctly the "observer" part was about it being impossible to measure velocity and observe a location of a thing (electron, photon etc. I think) at the same point in time. I don't think it actually had an effect on the particle, i remember there were some bad experiments where the measurement influenced the the thing because the measurement itself like taking a photo or whatever they did was enough to disturb... stuff.
It's because in order to measure it you need to see it. If you can see it then light is bouncing off it it and these particles are so small that the energy of a photon bouncing off of it will move it.