Abstract

How can quantum mechanics be (i) the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics and (ii) a probability calculus that presupposes the events to which, and on the basis of which, it assigns probabilities? The question is answered without invoking knowledge or observers, by interpreting the necessary distinction between two kinds of physical quantities - unconditionally definite quantities and quantities that have values only if they are measured - as a distinction between the manifested world and its manifestation.(The arXived version contains an Appendix which the version published at Cosmology.com lacks. While the latter touches on various ways in which quantum mechanics does not have to do with consciousness, the Appendix concerns what quantum mechanics has to do with consciousness.)