<i>One of the problems is that quantum theory is obscure (to say the least) regarding what it claims about the nature of the world when no one is looking. Is the involvement of a consciousness required for the theory to make sense, and if so, does that include a mouse’s or a fly’s? In particular, the specification of what constitutes a measurement is irreparably vague. Perhaps all that’s needed is a large enough apparatus. But what’s large enough? And what happens at the boundary? These issues are referred to as the measurement problem.</i><p>In my utterly uninformed imagination I've reconciled this by defining observation as the point where the observer (whether it be a simple apparatus like the sensor on a photon counter, or a complex and squishy one like my consciousness) becomes "intertwined" with the observation. i.e. Once the information has reached some particle, that particle's view of the waveform/event has collapsed.<p>It's easy to forget the actual conveyance of the information has some physical manifestation (photons hitting my retina, electrons bumping against transistors in an IC and eventually manifesting as dots on a screen which send out those photons) and I picture those causal steps as propogating constraints through the universe. Light speed sets a maximal boundary on how much of the universe may be "intertwined" with the observable, but even if the data is sitting on the computer next to me, until I take a peek (or otherwise subject myself to any consequences stemming from them) those constraints haven't yet permeated any of the bits of the universe that make up me.<p>Akin to how relativity permits two different observers to hold differing views of some phenomena (eg. silmultanaety) this worldview allows me to imagine the cat is both dead and alive even though my computer or the Geiger counter may know the correct answer.<p>I'd love to hear from real quantum physicists whether this interpretation is bunk or has some validity (and if so, whether someone else arrived at it before me and gave the theory a name).