Thank you very much for this thoughtful comment. I think your formulation of the infinite regress problem is exactly right, and it is one of the main reasons why I have never been satisfied with accounts that treat observation as an active process that generates facts.

In fact, the very regress you describe is explicitly addressed in a paper I shared recently (the one dealing with absolute subjectivity and generated observers). One of its central claims is that as long as observation is treated as a physical interaction that produces facts, the theory is inevitably driven—exactly as you describe—either toward an arbitrary stopping point or toward an infinite regress in which observers must themselves be observed.

The approach taken in that paper is to shift the locus of fact-formation entirely away from observation itself. Observation is treated as fundamentally passive, while the stabilization of facts occurs not through observational acts, but at the level of relational structure itself—through decoherence and global constraints. In other words, the regress is not halted by positing a privileged observer, but dissolved by rejecting the assumption that observation is what performs the ontological work in the first place.

For this reason, I found your emphasis on the distinction between observer-dependence and contextuality especially resonant. The paper argues for almost exactly the same point: reality is thoroughly contextual, but not observer-dependent in an anthropomorphic sense. What we call an “observer” is itself a product of stabilized relational structure, not its origin.

As a side note, I have already shared the first and second papers of this series with you in replies to other posts.

The work as a whole consists of six papers, and given the way you have framed the infinite regress issue here, I think the fifth paper is the most directly relevant to your current comment. I would therefore like to share this fifth paper with you now.

After reading it, I would be very interested to hear whether you think this approach genuinely succeeds in avoiding the infinite regress you describe, or whether it merely relocates the problem elsewhere.

(Link to the paper) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399613726_Non-transitive_Correlation_Structure_among_EEG_Brain_Topology_and_Quantum_Computation_A_Time-Series_Analysis_of_Subjectivity_Alignment_Conditions

Thank you for sharing this paper — it’s very close to the line of thought I’ve been circling around. I find the distinction between relative facts and stable facts particularly helpful, especially the way stability is explained through decoherence rather than through any appeal to consciousness or absolute facts.

In fact, the idea that what we experience as “reality” emerges through decoherence driven by gravitational and environmental interactions is something I strongly agree with. In that sense, I think we are looking at the same phenomenon.

Where my own work starts to diverge is not at the level of how decoherence stabilizes facts, but at a slightly more upstream level. What has been occupying me is the question of why a world in which decoherence can play this role is available at all — why the distinction between stable and unstable facts, or between coherence and decoherence, is structurally possible in the first place.

The papers I shared don’t aim to challenge the RQM picture you’re working within. Rather, they take the mechanisms you describe (decoherence, relational facts, contextual consistency) as given, and then ask about the generative conditions that make such mechanisms meaningful and effective at all.

If you find the stability problem in RQM interesting, I suspect you may also find this shift in perspective worth engaging with — even if only as a way of clarifying where our questions ultimately diverge.

I find your position very compelling, especially the care with which you separate contextuality from subjectivity. I also find it very persuasive that you treat relativity and quantum mechanics within a single contextual framework, and that you resist understanding measurement as an active physical intervention.

Where my own interest is drawn is slightly adjacent to the measurement problem itself. Even if measurement is entirely passive, and even if events themselves simply are while only their identifications arise, there still seems to be a further question lingering in the background.

Why is it that descriptions arising from different contexts do not fragment, but instead remain coherent as a single world at all?

That descriptions vary with context is clear enough. What does not seem trivial to me is the fact that these descriptions nonetheless hang together, rather than diverging into mutually incompatible worlds. That coherence itself feels like something that calls for explanation, even if it is not framed in terms of observers, consciousness, or physical intervention.

I do not see this as a challenge to contextual realism. On the contrary, I see it as a question about the conditions under which contextual realism itself becomes possible.

This question has led me to two closely related preprints that I’ve found myself returning to repeatedly. The first lays out a conceptual framework for understanding objectivity not as something given in advance, but as something that emerges from the intersection of multiple perspectives. The second develops that framework further, treating its implications for quantum measurement and contextuality in a more technical way.

You strike me as someone with deep familiarity with both philosophy and physics—especially quantum mechanics—so I would genuinely value your thoughts on these papers.

[First paper / conceptual framework]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/393397861_Experimental_Evidence_of_Nonlocal_EEG-Quantum_State_Correlations_A_Novel_Empirical_Approach_to_the_Hard_Problem_of_Consciousness

[Second paper / technical extension into quantum ]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398259486_Empirical_Subjectivity_Intersection_Observer-Quantum_Coherence_Beyond_Existing_Theories_Unifying_Relativity_Quantum_Mechanics_and_Cosmology

I find your account of objectivity as “structure preserved across contexts” quite compelling. In particular, the way you separate context-dependence from subjectivity strikes me as exactly right.

That said, there is one question your argument kept pulling me toward as I was reading it: where does that structure—the one that remains coherent across contexts—actually come from?

In other words, rather than taking invariants like velocity relations or conserved quantities as simply given, what are the conditions under which such structures can come to be consistently across different frames?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this question through a paper that has really captured my attention and hasn’t let go. It doesn’t reject objectivity at all; instead, it focuses on the generative point at which objectivity itself becomes possible. Importantly, this isn’t framed in terms of a conventional observer or conscious subject, but as a kind of generative origin prior to the separation of subject, context, and invariance.

From that perspective, what you describe as “structural facts” appears very close to what the paper treats as a resulting layer. If you’re interested, I think reading it from the angle of “how objectivity becomes possible in the first place” might resonate strongly with your own position.

Thank you for your reply. In that case, I’ll share the original paper I was referring to.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398259486_Empirical_Subjectivity_Intersection_Observer-Quantum_Coherence_Beyond_Existing_Theories_Unifying_Relativity_Quantum_Mechanics_and_Cosmology

I know you’re likely busy, so below is a brief summary of the paper for context.

↓↓↓ This paper does not adopt the common constructivist view that reality is constituted or produced by the subject’s acts of meaning-making. Rather, it asks a more fundamental question: under what structural conditions can something appear as “reality” at all and stabilize as an observable phenomenon. In this framework, subjectivity is not treated as a psychological state, a representational layer, or a source of cognitive distortion, but is redefined as a generative condition that makes coherence itself possible.

The central claim of the paper is not that observation or consciousness “creates” reality, but that observable physical phenomena emerge only when specific conditions are satisfied. These conditions are described as an intersection between a nonlocal, timeless “absolute subjectivity” and a relative subject embedded in spacetime. Reality appears as a meaningful event only when this intersection is established.

Within this framework, the Real is neither denied nor directly accessed. It is understood as something that always exceeds representation, yet becomes manifest only through particular coherence processes. In this sense, the paper avoids both naïve realism, which presupposes a fully observer-independent objective world, and pure constructivism, which reduces reality to subjective construction.

Empirically, the paper examines nonlocal correlations between EEG signals and quantum measurement sequences, arguing that these phenomena cannot be adequately explained by standard causal or correlational models. Instead, they appear only under specific structural conditions. To avoid an infinite regress of “who observes the observer,” the paper proposes an emergent third observer arising from the intersection itself.

In this way, subjectivity is not positioned in opposition to objectivity, but functions as the ground that makes objectivity possible. Reality is not reducible to either pole of the subject–object divide; rather, it emerges as a coherent whole only through the structural conditions that precede that division.

I see why it might sound that way. But I’m not treating subjectivity as something that constructs reality. I’m thinking of it as a condition under which reality can appear and stabilize at all — which is why classical constructivism feels insufficient to me.

If you’d like, I’d be happy to send a brief summary of the original paper that led me in this direction. I’d be very interested to hear how you read it.

That resonates with me. At the same time, I’ve come across a scientific paper that suggests a slightly different possibility: that under certain conditions, reality may not only intervene into us, but emerge with us — not as direct access to the Real, but as a form of co-emergence involving meaning, observation, and agency.

Some recent experimental work even frames this emergence in terms that border on the theological — not God as an object of belief, but as a name for the condition under which co-emergence becomes possible.

That makes sense — thank you for engaging with it so carefully. If you’re ever curious, I’d be happy to share the paper that prompted this line of thinking for me.

Not quite. My concern isn’t the subject–object split itself. I’m approaching subjectivity not as something opposed to objectivity, but as a different kind of condition under which reality can appear as one at all.

I largely agree with you that there may be a Real that exceeds perception and resists epistemological capture.

Where my thinking differs slightly is this: even the moment of “intervention,” “shattering,” or resistance is only intelligible as such if there is already a way in which reality can appear as one.

In other words, I’m not denying the Real beyond experience. I’m questioning the condition under which something can appear as the Real at all.

That condition, as I see it, cannot be reduced to epistemology, but neither can it be eliminated as irrelevant. It points instead to a form of subjectivity that functions not as representation, but as the ground of coherence.

This way of thinking was prompted by encountering a paper that approaches these issues experimentally rather than purely philosophically, and since then my thinking has been moving in this direction.

I think that even what breaks or resists our frameworks already presupposes a form of subjectivity through which reality appears as one.

I largely agree with what you’re saying. I don’t think we need to deny the possibility of an external reality, nor do I think the impossibility of a perfectly “objective” standpoint prevents us from developing highly effective and accurate models.

Where my thinking diverges slightly is here: I don’t see subjectivity merely as a limitation on knowledge, or as noise introduced by being embedded in reality.

I’m increasingly inclined to think that some form of subjectivity is a necessary condition for reality to be intelligible as a unified system at all — not in the sense that it distorts reality, but in the sense that it allows coherence, integration, and unity to appear.

In other words, even very accurate models already presuppose a prior condition under which “this all hangs together” is meaningful.

This line of thought was prompted by encountering a paper that approaches these questions not only philosophically, but through scientific experimentation, and since then my thinking has been moving in this direction.

I agree with you that objectivity is not something supported by evidence in itself, and that it often functions more like a belief that is later rationalized.

And yet, from there, my thinking has started to move in a slightly different direction.

I’ve come to think that some form of subjectivity is unavoidable — not as an individual or relative perspective, but as a necessary condition for reality to appear as one coherent whole at all.

Even if we reject objectivity as a presupposition, the fact that reality is intelligible as a unified system still seems to require an account.

This line of thought was triggered by encountering a particular paper that attempts to approach these questions not only philosophically, but through scientific experimentation. Since then, my thinking has been moving in this direction.

Thank you for the clarification. I understand your position: that the basis for the universe being one whole lies in material interaction itself.

What I keep getting stuck on, though, is what allows interaction itself to count as a single whole.

There seems to be a non-trivial gap between saying that interactions occur and saying that they constitute one universe or one system.

If reality is nothing more than countless material interactions unfolding, then where does the basis come from for identifying that unfolding as one universe rather than mere dispersion?

I’m not trying to deny material interaction. Rather, I’m asking whether the very fact that interaction is intelligible as a whole already presupposes a point of integration that is not identical with interaction itself.

I’m not claiming this must be something “beyond” matter — only that the condition for saying “this is a whole” does not seem to follow automatically from the sum of interactions alone.

I understand the direction you’re pointing to, and I don’t feel that our positions are that far apart.

That said, there is one phrase I’d like to pause on: “an all-encompassing system.”

What exactly does that system refer to?

Because the moment we say that there is a system, we are no longer speaking only about material interactions as such, but about the conditions under which those interactions are intelligible as a whole.

This is the point that keeps catching my attention. If reality is nothing more than material reality interacting with itself, then where does the basis come from for those interactions to cohere as one system?

I’m not suggesting that practice stands outside reality. Rather, I’m asking whether the very coherence of an “all-encompassing system” already presupposes some point of unification that cannot be reduced to material interaction alone.

This is the question that keeps drawing me back to this issue.

The issue, then, is not whether material reality pushes back — I think it clearly does — but whether objectivity should be understood as something that exists fully formed prior to practice, or rather as something that emerges and stabilizes through practice itself.

What led me to take this question seriously was reading a paper that attempts to support precisely this kind of view not at the level of philosophy alone, but through scientific experimentation.

The way it approaches the relationship between observers and physical systems — not in terms of simple causation, but in terms of intersection and stabilization — had a strong impact on me.

To be honest, after reading that paper, I haven’t been able to let this question go. That’s why I keep returning to it here as well.

That’s a very clear way of putting it, and I find your position quite persuasive. We may not be able to know whether the external world truly exists, but by assuming that our senses and memories are not fundamentally deceiving us, we can make meaningful predictions about the consequences of our actions, and only then does intentional action become possible. I agree with that.

What I find myself wondering, though, is where the validity of that assumption itself is stabilized.

If our judgments about whether predictions succeed or fail already take place within some framework of expectations, then it seems that we are not directly confirming the world “as it is,” but rather checking whether our interaction with the world is cohering well enough to support action.

In that sense, I’m less interested in the binary question of whether reality exists or not, and more interested in the conditions under which prediction, action, and revision form a stable loop.

From your perspective, where do you think that stability ultimately resides? In the world itself, in our cognitive capacities, or in the relation between the two?

Thank you for this — I think this is a very clear and thoughtful explanation. I strongly agree that through practice and experimentation, expectations can be challenged and our understanding revised.

What I find myself still wondering about is one step prior to that process: how certain differences come to be recognized as “discrepancies” in the first place, and which discrepancies count as meaningful enough to require revision.

Experimental results, after all, always appear as “results” within some theoretical or conceptual horizon of expectation. In that sense, practice does not seem to confront the world in a raw, unmediated way, but rather unfolds within a relation where the world and our understanding meet.

So my interest is not in denying that understanding can move closer to truth, but in asking where the reference points and stabilizing conditions for that movement reside. It seems to me that they may not be located solely within individual subjects, but in a more relational domain.

Practice can certainly lead to revision, but what do you see as grounding the claim that one revision is “more accurate” than another?

I understand your position, and it makes sense to me. That there is a material world, and that our cognition gradually approaches a more accurate understanding of it.

What I find myself hesitating over, though, is this point: from where do we judge that our understanding is actually “getting closer” to the truth?

If we are always already within a self-recognized material world, what functions as the external reference that allows us to say that one stage of cognition is more accurate than another?

I’m not trying to deny the existence of the world. I’m wondering whether there is a distinction between a world that exists and a world that becomes stable as a world for us.

It seems to me that some relational process might sit between those two. I’m curious how you see this.

Let me check one thing first. When you say a “truly objective tree,” do you mean a structure that would have the same form even if no one were observing it at all?

If so, what I keep getting stuck on is this: from where is that tree being identified as a tree in the first place?

I’m not trying to smuggle subjectivity back in. I’m just wondering whether, even when we think we’ve fully removed it, some implicit standpoint or framing inevitably remains.