The Death of Objective Reality Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Those of us who take the time to at least scan the news sources available will have learned that objective reality has been thrown into doubt.  Those who scan more thoroughly will have learned, also, that it has supposedly been thrown into doubt by an experiment made upon photons, based on a thought experiment created by a physicist named Wigner, and called "Wigner's Friend."  Well, someone who is not Wigner and someone who is not Wigner's friend (and presumably others) decided to depart from the world of thought and thereby managed to cast doubt upon objective reality.  Or did they??

I'm quite ignorant of quantum physics and I suspect many others, including some of those who wrote the articles which proclaim that there is no objective reality on which we may rely, or fondly believe exists, due to this experiment.  Nonetheless, I suspect that right now, at least, there isn't much to worry about.

Clearly, much depends on what we mean by "objective reality."  If it consists of the (observation?) of the behavior of photons under the circumstances of the experiment, that is one thing.  If, instead, what is called "objective reality" is the world in which we strive, and fail, and succeed, and build, and design, and work, and play, and eat, and drink, and take vacations, and watch the caperings of our fellows and those others that we encounter day by day and hour by hour, that is another.

What little I know of quantum physics is that it is almost mystifyingly different from the "macro" world in various respects.  So for me, at least, it comes as no surprise that in this particular experiment, the someone who isn't Wigner and the someone who isn't Wigner's friend "observed" different things about the photons in question; even "irreconcilable" differences (on which many a divorce is based).  Things certainly are wacky among those photons, and we've apparently recognized that for quite some time.  Why assume that what takes place among photons will alter in any significant sense the reality in which we live?  It certainly hasn't done so until now.

However, life goes on, as it has for many, many years.  And, unless you're wedded to the conception of "objective reality" as being immutable, eternal and absolute, you've come to recognize that we poor creatures live in a world of probability, and make judgments and decisions based on generally, if not absolutely, reliable "facts" about who or what we interact with, successfully.  We can predict what will take place in most cases, "to a reasonable degree of (insert word like "engineering" or "medical" as we lawyers must have it) probability."  And you've also come to know that we manage to get things done although our knowledge is not absolute.  It's to be hoped that you've even come to recognize that you are a part of objective reality, not something distinct from it, and that because of that it isn't something separate and distinct from you, but that you're included in it.  Reality is objective enough.

It may be that we humans, having evolved in a "macro" world, lack what's needed to fully understand the quantum world.  Perhaps we simply don't yet know enough about the quantum world to explain the outcome of this experiment.  Perhaps there are multiple, alternate universes.

"The universe is change."  So said Marcus Aurelius, long ago.  Maybe this experiment will change the world in some way yet unknown.  But I doubt it will fundamentally change the reality in which we live unless we somehow undermine that reality, or someone or something else does.  Until then, reality will remain objective enough., for and with us.