The Role of Consciousness

Classical physics made great progress for many years, all the while insisting on a total separation between observers and the reality they observed. Objective reality was everything that existed apart from the observers, stuff that would exist and would have the same properties whether or not anyone was around to see it. But with quantum uncertainty and wave functions, we have learned that the act of observation seems to have a major effect on what is observed. This implies that a conscious, self-aware observer has a crucial role in defining the nature of reality itself.