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Is observation creating reality — or creating an intersection? (www.researchgate.net)

submitted 1 day ago by Laura@lemmy.ml to c/philosophy@lemmy.ml

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In my previous post, I asked: Can questions or observation create reality?

Lately, I’ve been thinking that observation may not be a cause, but an intersection.

In quantum theory, the observer and the observed cannot be fully separated. But this does not necessarily mean that observation commands reality to change.

Rather, when perspectives intersect, a certain reality temporarily emerges.

If this is the case, subjectivity may not be something confined inside the brain, but a property that appears within relationships.

A question, then, is not merely a tool to obtain answers, but an act that creates an intersection.

Seen this way, reality is not something already complete, but something that arises—slightly delayed—through moments of encounter.

Where do you feel observation happens?

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[–] aleph@piefed.social 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Is observation creating reality — or creating an intersection?

If I understand the gist of the paper you linked and the concepts you mentioned correctly, aren't they effectively the same thing?

As in, reality (as we perceive it) essentially arises from the intersection (or perhaps, interaction ) between observer and observed.

Side note: I find it interesting that the latest research emerging from theoretical physicists is increasingly reinforcing ideas that Buddhists and Vedic philosophers have argued for centuries. Namely, that the existence of individual selves is an illusion, and that all things are essentially temporary manifestations of the same, unifying, cosmic substance.

[–] Laura@lemmy.ml 1 points 22 hours ago

Thanks for the thoughtful comment — I think you’re pointing to an important tension.

I agree that, at a high level, what I’m calling intersection overlaps with long-standing relational and non-dual traditions, including Buddhist and Vedic thought, where reality as we experience it arises through relation rather than from isolated entities.

What led me to emphasize intersection rather than simply saying “observation creates reality” comes from the paper I linked. In that work, nonlocal correlations are reported, but causal claims are explicitly avoided. Observation is not treated as something that produces reality in a directive sense, nor is everything collapsed into a single underlying substance.

Instead, what struck me is that reality appears to stabilize at the point of relation, without requiring either: • a strong causal role for the observer, or • a metaphysical move toward total ontological unity.

In that sense, I’m less interested in dissolving the observer into a single cosmic substance, and more interested in how distinct perspectives remain distinct while still participating in a shared emergence.

So I see a subtle difference: • non-dual traditions often resolve the problem by emphasizing unity and illusion of separateness, • whereas this framing leaves room for relational emergence without erasing plurality.

I’m still working through this distinction, but that’s where the paper nudged my thinking.

So I’d be curious to hear your take on this paper specifically. How do you interpret its implications?