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Two features of QT are commonly taken to be fundamentally non-classical: the absolute randomness of single events in the atomic regime, and the need for a permanent record of the experiment obtained using a macroscopic experimental arrangement…QT can also be applied to the larger system consisting of the original atomic system plus the macroscopic experimental arrangement. In this case, however, the larger system needs to interact with another stage of macroscopic recording. Since this procedure can continue ad infinitum, and is decisively terminated only when the result of an experiment is interpreted by a conscious observer, some noted quantum theorists have promoted the view that the quantum theory has some nexus with the consciousness of the observer...
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Ravi Gomatam's paper "How do Classical and Quantum Probabilities Differ?", delivered at the conference on Foundations of Probabilities and Physics - 6 (FPP-6), Vaxjo, Sweden, June 13-17, 2011.

 

Ravi Gomatam

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The Schrödinger equation, which is at the heart of quantum theory, is applicable in principle to both microscopic and macroscopic regimes. Thus, it would seem that we already have in hand a non-classical theory of macroscopic dynamics, if only we can apply the Schrödinger equation to the macroscopic realm. However, this possibility has been largely ignored in the literature because the current statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics presumes the classicality of the observed macroscopic world to start with. But the Schrödinger equation does not support this presumption. The state of superposition never collapses under Schrödinger evolution.

 

Ravi Gomatam

 

In the new pattern of thought we do not assume any longer the detached observer, occurring in the idealizations of this classical type of theory, but an observer who by his indeterminable effects creates a new situation, theoretically described as a new state of the observed system. In this way every observation is a singling out of a particular factual result, here and now, from the theoretical possibilities, therefore making obvious the discontinuous aspect of physical phenomena.
Nevertheless, there remains still in the new kind of theory an objective reality, inasmuch as these theories deny any possibility for the observer to influence the result of a measurement, once the experimental arrangement is chosen. Therefore particular qualities of an individual observer do not enter into the conceptual framework of the theory.

 

Wolfgang Pauli

 

Certainly we do not need quantum mechanics for macroscopic objects, which are well described by classical physics – this is the reason why quantum mechanics seems so foreign to our everyday existence.

 

Alain Aspect

 

To remove these one had to account for an “observer” (that is at least for one subject):
(i) Observations are not absolute but relative to an observer’s point of view (i.e., his coordinate system: Einstein);
(ii) Observations affect the observed so as to obliterate the observer’s hope for prediction (i.e., his uncertainty is absolute: Heisenberg).
After this, we are now in the possession of the truism that a description (of the universe) implies one who describes it (observes it).

 

Heinz von Foerster

 

In this sense, we agree with Gomatam (1999) who argues for a revision of our notion of macroscopic objects in accord with quantum non-separability. Indeed, the key to progress in quantum gravity may lie in a willingness to abandon stalwart concepts of dynamism such as energy, momentum, force, and even causation at the fundamental level of modeling.

 

Ravi Gomatam