I'll not take a backseat to anyone when it comes to slooooow thinking. { 8^)
"That the Observer Problem" is not confined to matters scientific, as you and others (A-G) have noted, is a happy event for those of us who do not possess a strong background in science, because it permts us to relate to the concept by way of our understanding of its application in other disciplines. Such as history:
Whenever we undertake to study historical events or the acts of historical figures, we are "privileged" (as the historian Bernard Bailyn is wont to describe it) to know of subsequent events and outcomes, of which those earlier figures had no more than a glimmer, if even so little as that. This is true whether we are dealing with the past of, let us say, a mere 241 years ago, or of a much greater length of time, for example as in 3,500 years ago. If we study and judge events and human actions out of the context of their particular historical time and not on their own terms, then that is an observer problem which must lead to error. As one evidence of the Observer Problem in historical matters, it might be noted that, in a peculiar variation on Branden's Falacy of the Stolen Concept, on occasion we are so influenced by some events and figures that our grasp of their significance can be considerably effected.
The aforementioned Bailyn (Considering the Slave Trade: History and Memory, The William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 58, No. 1, Jan 2001), describes the historical Observer Problem in these terms: "As historians we shrink from telescoping past and present, hoping to explain the things that happened for their own sakes and in their own terms. And we select from the documentation what seems to illuminate the outcomes, which we, as opposed to the people in the past, are privileged to know. But we do so critically, skeptically, because we know that we can never recapture any part of the past absolutely and completely. So we keep our distance from the past, from the stories we tell, knowing that facts may be uncovered that will change our stories; other viewpoints may turn us away from what we now think is relevant, and other ways of understanding may make us reconsider everything."
So it follows that I'm inclined to think, as Ive always been inclined to think, that the 'Observer Problem' is indeed a problem for the observer, and that the Universe not only has no problem with it, but in fact takes no notice of it. The Universe, like 'Ol Man River', just keeps rolling along, knowing everything and knowing nothing. But, unlike 'Ol Man River,' we are obliged to take notice.
So that brings us to you and A-G (and others), who have engaged to enter into discussions with The Masters of the Universe over their 'tendency to deny the 'observer problem' and to indulge in philosophical speculations 'under the color of science.' I understand you are presently on vacation, but upon your return, I look forward to benefitting from a continuation of those discussions, and in the hopes that I may make some small contribution on the rare occasion.
What a fascinating aspect it is - and every bit as relevant to the historical sciences such as anthropology, archeology, Egyptology and evolutionary biology. In these fields, the investigator may be working mostly with physical fragments of the past with little or no recorded language to "frame" the evidence. Even so, they attempt to reconstruct what likely happened in an environment which is not always "information-rich".
Nevertheless, as your except noted "So we keep our distance from the past, from the stories we tell, knowing that facts may be uncovered that will change our stories; other viewpoints may turn us away from what we now think is relevant, and other ways of understanding may make us reconsider everything."
IMHO, that is the responsible way to deal with the observer problem in looking at the past.
Here's another example in play: "After a heated debate, 2,500 scientists and astronomers voted at the International Astronomers Union General Assembly that Pluto, which has been called a planet since being discovered in 1930, would be put into a category of planets called "dwarf planets".
Hi YHAOS! Sorry for my tardy reply; have been on a splendid vacation where excellent things happened, even when it rained. :^)
It happens I'm a great admirer of Bernard Bailyn. His Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and the Ideological Origins of American Politics are cherished volumes on my bookshelf.
You wrote: "the 'Observer Problem' is indeed a problem for the observer, and that the Universe not only has no problem with it, but in fact takes no notice of it. The Universe, like 'Ol Man River', just keeps rolling along, knowing everything and knowing nothing."
Deeply perceptive IMHO my friend.
"Ol' Man River" in this context is the totality of God-ordained Being. The "Observer problem" goes to epistemology: "What can we know about this Being, and how do we know it? And how do we know we know it?"
In short, we are dealing with questions of ultimate truth, and how truth can be accessed and understood by human minds. Fortunately, as we have been told before now in holy scripture, the "imago Dei" which is man, as the image or reflection of the divine, a creature of reason and free will, was set up in the beginning to understand such things.
Which understanding probably is the reason why systematic science arose only in the Western cultural tradition. If the East ever got a hang of it, is was only through cultural borrowing from the West.
But I digress. To get back to the point at issue: The Observer problem putatively is not restricted to problems in science, in particular to relativity and quantum theory, but is a fundamental issue in observations of our own space-time experience, a la Newton and classical physics.
I'd just have to agree that this is manifestly true, with ample historical backing evidence.
It was Laplace who indicated the full extent of the ambition of classical physics:
“The Marquis Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827) was known as the Isaac Newton of France. A brilliant mathematician and wily politician, he’s an almost perfect embodiment of the arrogance of the ‘Age of Enlightenment.’Well, that may all be well and good as far as it goes. But human beings fully live "in spirit" as much or more than they live "in matter." It seems Laplace, in consigning God and spirit to the ash heap of history, cut man down to sub-human level.“[For Laplace said:] ‘Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis … to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eyes.’
“This mechanistic view was a dream of many, starting with the ancients who talked about the ‘music of the spheres’ as they envisioned the universe as a series of interlocking crystalline spheres spinning inside each other.
“[But it might be objected:] ‘This “intelligence” of yours, would it be the author of the universe, who I note you left out of your book Méchanique Céleste?’
“Hmph. I know what you’re driving at, sire, but I have no need of this … ‘God’ hypothesis.”
[Mon Dieu!] :^) [Ottaviani and Purvis, Suspended in Language, 2004]
Which, it seems to me, makes him a far less capable truthful "observer" than were he to be left with his original divinely-ordained legacy still intact, in faith and reason....
Thank you so much, YHAOS, for your beautiful essay/post!