Interesting article, @madrush. Sobering perhaps, too, although physics has hit such snags before and come through. Regarding the earlier issue of consciousness inside the theories, the problem at the quantum level is that, for example, although Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle seems to involve an “observer”, and the so-called “collapse” of the wave function, for example, when the Schrodinger Cat’s box is opened (remember, the cat is assumed be both alive and dead before the box is opened, due to the peculiar design of the poison delivery system) seems to require the action of someone, neither of these phenomena seem to require an “intelligent” observer, instead, they seem to require a “perception process”, that is, an “act of perception”. This seems closer in principle to what Whitehead or William James was talking about, that is, that the universe includes processes that can be associated with either living or non-living entities (Whitehead) and which can be viewed as “perceiving” - what Whitehead calls “prehension”, or that the universe is made of “pure experience” (James) so that so-called inanimate objects have experiences the same way humans do (well, with some differences). I have started reading James’ Essays in Radical Empiricism after spending years promising myself to do so, and the first thing he does, in the first two pages, is to throw out the idea that something called “consciousness” exists! Instead, he suggests that “conscious function” exists, but there is no distinct entity called “consciousness”. It is a startling but intriguing position to take, and one followed up by Whitehead and Deleuze/Guattari later on. Food for thought.