In the particular context of quantum mechanics, the problem is this: quantum measurement devices are not black boxes, scattered across the desert by benevolent aliens or deities. They are complicated physical devices, built to interact in complicated ways and relying, themselves, on the principles of quantum mechanics. We cannot understand what a measurement device is or what it is measuring, or even if it is measuring anything at all, unless we understand its workings—in which case we need a way of understanding quantum mechanics in order to do so, and on pain of circularity that ‘way of
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