In the previous posts, I asked whether questions or observations can create reality, or whether they instead form an intersection where reality appears.
I now want to sharpen the issue.
Many discussions seem to assume that there is a fully formed, objective structure of reality “out there,” and observation merely reveals it.
But what if objectivity itself is not prior to observation, and instead emerges through repeated, shared intersections of perspectives?
In that case, observation would not be a causal force, nor a passive recording device, but a stabilizing process.
My question is simple but uncomfortable:
Can we meaningfully talk about a “purely objective structure” without already presupposing a standpoint from which it is identified as such?
I’m curious where others locate objectivity: before observation, after it, or nowhere at all.
If objectivity requires the removal of all standpoints, who or what is left to recognize it as “objective”?
I take a similar position of the philosopher Jocelyn Benoist and the physicist Francois-Igor Pris, which is the view that reality is deeply contextual. That means it makes no sense to make ontological statements that are independent of some sort of real-world context. If I point to a tree and identify something in reality as a tree and we can go look at that tree over there and agree it is tree, that is very different than talking about trees in the abstract. The real tree is something we can really observe in a real-world context under which it is identified. An abstract (metaphysical) tree is the “tree in itself,” a tree considered in complete isolation independent of any real-world context under which it is identified, which we deny such a thing meaningfully has ontology.
The problem with idealists is that they conflate contextuality with subjectivism. An observer in a moving train and one beside it on a bench watching it fly by will observe it to travel at different velocities. These differences are clearly not subjective as they have real-world consequences. If they both had a radar gun they would literally measure different velocities. If both are in the same path of the train, only one would get harmed. There is clearly nothing subjective about the differences in what they observe.
Two observers observe different things velocities for the same train because they are observing it under different contexts. Velocity is a property that does not even make sense without specifying the context under which it is being talked about, but velocity also is not subjective nor is it dependent upon conscious observers or whatever. You can talk about velocity in relation to inanimate objects as well, like a camera left beside the track. You can later collect the camera, look at its footage, and talk about what the velocity of the train that past by on the footage would have been in relation to the camera.
We need to separate subjectivism and contextuality and realize that just because something differs between observers does not mean it is “subjective” or inherent to conscious observers. Things can differ between observers because reality itself is just deeply contextual. In a sense, yes, what we observe is reality as it exists independent of conscious observers, but not independent of the context under which we make our observation.
Bizarrely, people find this concept intuitive in Galilean and Einsteinian relativity, but when they come across quantum mechanics, which is also a deeply contextual theory but in a slightly different way, their brains explode. You have people like Wigner who pointed out that two different observers will give different mathematical descriptions of the same system in his famous “Wigner’s friend” paradox, and concludes therefore quantum mechanics has something to do with “consciousness.”
It’s a bit strange to me. Why do people’s heads explode when going from the contextual nature of relativity theory to the contextual nature of quantum mechanics? Just accept that the natural world will be described/accounted for differently under different contexts then all the “mystery” goes away. Quantum mechanics is indeed a description of the world as it exists independently of conscious observers, but not independently of the context. If you just accept that and move on then quantum mechanics stops being such a mysterious theory.
The measurement/observation is absolutely passive and cannot be said to be active in any way (such as “stabilizing” something). I just wrote up a long discussion on this here. This is the core of the measurement problem which most people seem to misunderstand, which is two conflicting statements that the measurement appears to be perturbing in some experiments (like double-slit), yet if you introducing an active (perturbing) measurement then you must inherently contradict with the mathematics of orthodox quantum theory.
You thus have to abandon the idea that the measurement is active if you want to remain consistent with the orthodox formulation of quantum theory. Assuming that is something you actually desire to do. Personally, I am more of a philosopher than a physicist so I do not feel it is my job to replace the mathematics of the theory with another one, and so I try to remain within the orthodox formulation in my interpretation, which requires me to abandon the notion of an active measurement process, no matter how counter-intuitive that may seem, as it is the only way to resolve the measurement problem within the orthodox framework.
Reality does not “arise” during observation, it just is. What “arises” is our identification of something within reality within that real-world context. “Standpoints” don’t in any sense imply subjectivism. A “standpoint” is just the context under which you identify something in reality, i.e. the real-world situation in which those things you identified in reality were actually realized. The fact nature is fundamentally “standpoint” dependent says nothing about consciousness or subjectivity or minds like idealists try to make it out to seem.
Even if the context under which I make an observation by definition includes “I” and thus by definition it has dependence upon myself, that does not prove conscious beings are fundamental to reality as a whole, nor does it even prove my observation is “subjective,” because I am also real and so taken into account my own reality is considering the real-world as it really is. If the context under which I make a particular observation includes that of my real physical brain or the structure of my real physical eyes that play a role in what I perceive, then those are real physical parts of reality just as much as anything else and what I observe.
I like to give an analogy of a painter painting a flame. Is there any arrangement of the paint he can make that is so accurate to a real flame that the paper it is written on suddenly bursts into flames and becomes a physical flame? Of course not. Any arrangement of the paint will always still just produce a painting. Rearranging the medium cannot transcend the medium. No rearrangement of reality my brain or eyes could make can possibly transcend reality and become something not real. They are all part of the very real processes that shape the context of what I really perceive in reality, as it really is, without any veil or barrier.
I find your position very compelling, especially the care with which you separate contextuality from subjectivity. I also find it very persuasive that you treat relativity and quantum mechanics within a single contextual framework, and that you resist understanding measurement as an active physical intervention.
Where my own interest is drawn is slightly adjacent to the measurement problem itself. Even if measurement is entirely passive, and even if events themselves simply are while only their identifications arise, there still seems to be a further question lingering in the background.
Why is it that descriptions arising from different contexts do not fragment, but instead remain coherent as a single world at all?
That descriptions vary with context is clear enough. What does not seem trivial to me is the fact that these descriptions nonetheless hang together, rather than diverging into mutually incompatible worlds. That coherence itself feels like something that calls for explanation, even if it is not framed in terms of observers, consciousness, or physical intervention.
I do not see this as a challenge to contextual realism. On the contrary, I see it as a question about the conditions under which contextual realism itself becomes possible.
This question has led me to two closely related preprints that I’ve found myself returning to repeatedly. The first lays out a conceptual framework for understanding objectivity not as something given in advance, but as something that emerges from the intersection of multiple perspectives. The second develops that framework further, treating its implications for quantum measurement and contextuality in a more technical way.
You strike me as someone with deep familiarity with both philosophy and physics—especially quantum mechanics—so I would genuinely value your thoughts on these papers.
[First paper / conceptual framework]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/393397861_Experimental_Evidence_of_Nonlocal_EEG-Quantum_State_Correlations_A_Novel_Empirical_Approach_to_the_Hard_Problem_of_Consciousness
[Second paper / technical extension into quantum ]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398259486_Empirical_Subjectivity_Intersection_Observer-Quantum_Coherence_Beyond_Existing_Theories_Unifying_Relativity_Quantum_Mechanics_and_Cosmology
I’d say it’s ultimately because not all things are relative. Some things do acquire consistent values in different perspectives. Velocity of a train might be relative but acceleration is not, it’s an absolute property which everyone can agree on who is accelerating and who is not. These absolute properties exist sort of as anchor points that make perspective transitions consistent between one another. Quantum mechanics is relative/contextual for all the variable properties of particles, but the intrinsic properties are absolute, like charge and spin, which again serves as an anchor point.
This paper also goes into detail on how the logic of quantum mechanics also pushes relative facts to become “stable” facts on macroscopic scales through the process of decoherence. The logic of the theory guarantees that even if you are making a purely relative prediction you will always predict that if you observe something and immediately ask someone else to observe it then they would perceive the same thing, and so the more things that “observe” it (not necessarily people but even the environment interacting with it) causes the relative property to become more stable among all observers involved.
Thank you for sharing this paper — it’s very close to the line of thought I’ve been circling around. I find the distinction between relative facts and stable facts particularly helpful, especially the way stability is explained through decoherence rather than through any appeal to consciousness or absolute facts.
In fact, the idea that what we experience as “reality” emerges through decoherence driven by gravitational and environmental interactions is something I strongly agree with. In that sense, I think we are looking at the same phenomenon.
Where my own work starts to diverge is not at the level of how decoherence stabilizes facts, but at a slightly more upstream level. What has been occupying me is the question of why a world in which decoherence can play this role is available at all — why the distinction between stable and unstable facts, or between coherence and decoherence, is structurally possible in the first place.
The papers I shared don’t aim to challenge the RQM picture you’re working within. Rather, they take the mechanisms you describe (decoherence, relational facts, contextual consistency) as given, and then ask about the generative conditions that make such mechanisms meaningful and effective at all.
If you find the stability problem in RQM interesting, I suspect you may also find this shift in perspective worth engaging with — even if only as a way of clarifying where our questions ultimately diverge.