Does observing something change it? (the observer effect)
Observing changes a quantum system's next answer when the question asked cannot share a record with the answer it held, and no clumsy probe is involved. Send silver atoms through a magnet pointing up and keep the ones that went up. Pass them through a sideways magnet, keep those that went left, and ask the up question again. Half come out down. Remove the middle magnet and every atom comes out up, every time. Gentler magnets have been tried at every scale anyone can build, and the result never improves. Up-or-down and sideways are questions whose two orders of asking differ, so no record can hold both answers, and writing the second overwrote the first. The observer can be a photographic plate or a thermostat. Consciousness plays no part.
Also in Chapter 3: Why Would a Universe Need Anybody In It?.
This answer comes from OPH, Observer Patch Holography. OPH is a rigorous, consistent and complete description of the unified, self-creating computational Universe we inhabit. Its consistency is machine-checked: the fixed point at its core is constructed explicitly, and a theory with a model contains no contradiction.
To understand OPH and check every step yourself, start with the free book Reverse Engineering Reality. It builds the theory from the ground up, and the OPH Notebook answers your questions while you read.
read the free bookask the notebookor ask sage:read chapter 19: Why Can't You Ask Everything At Once?watch a universe make its own particles