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stevendaryl said:Okay, if you want to conflate the macroscopic/microscopic distinction with the conscious/nonconscious distinction, then I agree with you. But the reason I like the macroscopic/microscopic distinction is that it doesn't rely on unmotivated distinctions between say, a conscious human and an unconscious recording device. I don't think that distinction serves any purpose. You can replace a human observer by a machine, and nothing about QM changes, as far as I can see.
On the other hand, I see the macroscopic/microscopic distinction as unsatisfying, for other reasons. For one thing, the cutoff is pretty arbitrary.
Yes. Actually, Landau and Lifshitz are closer to your view, and they don't like to state the measurement problem using the term "observer". They prefer to say QM assumes the classical world, and so it is no longer true in QM that we have a most fundamental theory from which the less fundamental theory emerges, rather the classical world is fundamental although it is also a limit of quantum mechanics.
I don't object to that. However, using the "observer" to formulate the measurement problem is also traditional. I don't think there is much difference between titling the thread "QM and Consciousness" or "QM and the Observer" or "QM and Common Sense" or "QM and the classical/quantum cut".