For this reason, many people confuse the Heisenberg uncertainty relation with the “observer effect,” as it has become known, in quantum mechanics. But, as the example I have given should demonstrate, inherently the Heisenberg uncertainty principle has nothing to do with observation at all. To paraphrase a friend of mine, if consciousness had anything to do with determining the results of quantum physics experiments, then in reporting the results of physics experiments we would have to discuss what the experimenter was thinking about—for example, sex—when performing the experiment. But we
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