Reality exists when observed, but who is the observer?

[danR]

Well, to my understanding, Bohmian Mechanics has never been falsified. It appears John Bell thought it was valid:

(Bell 1987, p. 160):

"But in 1952 I saw the impossible done. It was in papers by David Bohm. Bohm showed explicitly how parameters could indeed be introduced, into nonrelativistic wave mechanics, with the help of which the indeterministic description could be transformed into a deterministic one. More importantly, in my opinion, the subjectivity of the orthodox version, the necessary reference to the ‘observer,’ could be eliminated. ...
But why then had Born not told me of this ‘pilot wave’? If only to point out what was wrong with it? Why did von Neumann not consider it? More extraordinarily, why did people go on producing ‘‘impossibility’’ proofs, after 1952, and as recently as 1978? ... Why is the pilot wave picture ignored in textbooks? Should it not be taught, not as the only way, but as an antidote to the prevailing complacency? To show us that vagueness, subjectivity, and indeterminism, are not forced on us by experimental facts, but by deliberate theoretical choice?"

In my own humble opinion, I believe that until these latest experimental results came out, the "pilot wave" was considered a falsified crackpot theory. Now we have the opportunity to revisit this piece of work in light of experimental trajectory data almost perfectly agreeing with Bohmian Mechanics. I expect lots of pushback from those who have devoted their lives to statistical QM, but if de Broglie-Bohm is valid, the truth has a way of eventually coming to light. This method of weak measurement is very new, having only developed over the last 5 years or so.
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I've just posted a new question on Bohm and Quantum Computing as an imminently practical test of de Broglie/Bohm. It seems to me that if they actually made a working QC, Bohm would be spectacularly falsified. QC's presuppose the Copenhagen interpretation. I've been harbouring for many years the suspicion that they will never actually produce a QC because it requires for it's ability to solve otherwise theoretically intractable problems, an underlying superposition of all states condition that actually doesn't exist.

 

[IllyaKuryakin]

I've just posted a new question on Bohm and Quantum Computing as an imminently practical test of de Broglie/Bohm. It seems to me that if they actually made a working QC, Bohm would be spectacularly falsified. QC's presuppose the Copenhagen interpretation. I've been harbouring for many years the suspicion that they will never actually produce a QC because it requires for it's ability to solve otherwise theoretically intractable problems, an underlying superposition of all states condition that actually doesn't exist.

I hope someone else has posted a better answer to your question by now, because mine is still very conditional. If a quantum computer works under statistical Quantum Mechanics, then it must also work under the Bohmian Mechanics for Bohmian Mechanics to be valid. My understanding at this point is that Bohmian mechanics reproduces all the same non-local phenomena as statistical Quantum Mechanics. If someone has a better answer, I hope they will share.