A "Mystery" or a Fundamental Truth?

Sometimes, it can help to boil a "problem" down to the simplest case. Suppose we want to measure the spin of an electron, or even suppose that we will have a device that will beep if it's "spin up" or "spin down" (minds are not part of the mystery):

AI*:The "collapse of the wave function" is a concept in quantum mechanics that refers to an abrupt change in the state of a quantum system when it is measured or observed. According to the Schrödinger equation, which describes the wave-like behaviour of quantum particles, a particle can exist simultaneously in a superposition of multiple states until it is observed or measured. However, upon observation, the wave function describing the particle's state collapses into a single definite state. This collapse is often described as the moment when the particle's properties become well-defined, such as its position or momentum. The exact mechanism or interpretation of wave function collapse is a topic of ongoing debate and one of the fundamental philosophical questions in quantum mechanics.

Down at the level of the electron, the simplest of particles, we know that one of its "simple" properties does not exist unless measured. This has been experimentally proven. It drops out of the math we know that describes the basic features of the universe (Schrödinger equation). That "math" is a description - a mental construct. Those of us who have been fortunate to understand both math and physics understand that math exists in a reality of its own. It can be used to describe the world. The fact that math was so powerful a tool in this respect astonished Einstein*** and led him to what might be called a quasi-religion.

Paradoxically, math (logic) can be used to prove that math itself contains mysteries and contradictions (Godel**). I am not aware of anyone "mapping" such mysteries to the mysteries of the Universe itself, so I'm left with an analogy: the Universe itself is unknowable,  in the sense that any description of it will contain paradox and self-contradiction.

That's my guess.

On a more mundane level, we can never remove the distinction between the observer and the Universe itself. More precisely, any finite information system about the world will never completely describe any aspect of the Universe. This is because, as experiments prove, all properties of the Universe exist only when measured.

This applies to "consciousness", a special case of a finite information system, and the brain, a physical phenomenon with an imprecise relationship with "consciousness," including such elements as language. This views consciousness as a dynamic (and extremely fallible) state of information about the world,  "minds" are typically far from the theoretical limits of "aboutness" since there is no reason why the state of an information system should have anything at all to do with the "real" world.

It's easy to get this wrong:

Galileo, an Italian astronomer and physicist, says, “Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe".

In this metaphor, mathematics (an information system) gives us special insight into the mind of God. This mixes up the ability of information systems to model the world (predict the outcome of experiments and/or observations) with final knowledge of the Universe. "Final knowledge" would be something that nobody could challenge by "Why is it that way?" Mathematics is a language uniquely immune to such questions, but it turns out to be based on ordinary logic, which is itself violated by quantum mechanics. This is illustrated by one of the favourite projects of physics, which attempts to answer the question, Why is the "standard model" what it is?

We go down the rabbit hole to find ourselves in the dark in a pile of shit.

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*AI is a contribution from CHAT-GPT 4, used as a tool to summarize conventional understanding of an issue. I use AI to avoid "spinning" definitions and concepts to support my case.

** Godel

AI: Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two famous results in mathematical logic, discovered by Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel in 1931. They establish fundamental limitations on the completeness and consistency of formal systems of mathematics. 

The First Incompleteness Theorem states that in any consistent formal system of mathematics that is sufficiently powerful to capture arithmetic, there will always be true statements about numbers that cannot be proven within the system. In other words, there will be mathematical truths that are undecidable, meaning no proof or disproof can be derived within the system.

The Second Incompleteness Theorem builds on the first one. It states that if a formal system is consistent, it cannot prove its own consistency. In simpler terms, if a system is strong enough to represent basic arithmetic and is consistent, it cannot prove that it is free from contradictions within its own structure.

These theorems revolutionized the field of mathematical logic and had significant implications for the foundations of mathematics. They showed that no formal system can simultaneously be complete, consistent, and powerful enough to capture arithmetic. Consequently, Gödel's incompleteness theorems pose fundamental limits to what can be achieved through formalization and mechanization of mathematics.

*** Einstein

AI:Albert Einstein believed that mathematics is a fundamental tool for understanding and exploring the world. He famously remarked, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." Einstein saw mathematics as a language that could describe and explain the laws of nature. He believed that the universe is fundamentally structured orderly and logically, and that mathematics is the key to unlocking these underlying principles.