The Observer as a Cosmically Enclosed Phenomenon; A Radical Revision of Determinism, Time, Free Will, and Scientific Positionality
Berry Aarts
This dissertation formulates a closed world in which the observer, in whatever capacity, does not stand outside the universe but is intrinsically part of it. Biologically formed or not.This position is often misunderstood in classical science. You observe something while you yourself are part of what you observe. This becomes evident at the quantum level. The debate between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein revolved around this for decades, and continues to this day. Likewise, there are many discussions about the role of the observer, such as in the Double Slit Experiment. There it becomes clear that the observer perceives something different from the underlying reality. It is well known that it matters whether you observe or not.This dissertation explains clearly that this position of an external observer, present in both of these examples, is impossible to maintain within classical science. It also assumes that everything in the universe, even at the quantum level or smaller, proceeds according to strict rules. No process in the universe can escape them. It may seem that as a human being (or as another biological or non‑biological entity) you possess free will because of your mobility and mind, but even that can be traced back to a universal process that adheres precisely to the same rules from which everything is built. Nothing in the entire universe can escape them. This is reinforced and clarified by the central thought experiment used here: the frozen universe. It reveals that time, change, and free will do not exist in reality but only as experience. Time is a concept from point A to point B within which change occurs. Because of this, we are accustomed to process thinking. In a static universe, this is impossible. It then becomes apparent that things we consider normal—even at the scientific level—manifest themselves in a completely different way. This dissertation on the frozen universe therefore has major consequences. As a result, Einstein’s block universe can no longer be taken as a starting point—something on which many theories are based—and the debate between Bohr and Einstein on determinism and indeterminism becomes largely redundant. The Schrödinger equation and numerous scientific publications are thereby put under pressure, precisely because everything unfolds according to the fixed, universal, continuous process over which one has no influence. As humans or observers, we live in our world while continuously being part of that same process and of how that universal process unfolds. As a human being, you have only the freedom to experience the human world. Therefore, free will and time should be regarded as separate from all universal processes, because these human processes—also applicable to other biological beings—experience a different world than the universal process of which they are part.In short: we live in an illusion of our reality that does not align with the universal processes that have existed as long as the universe itself. This also shows that everything is determined according to the rules that unfold continuously within the one‑direction continuum, and that nothing can be changed about it. It is thus a framework in which reality, perception, and causality converge into one closed, relational whole. In doing so, it forms a conceptual bridge between physics, philosophy of mind, consciousness studies, and epistemology, and provides a foundation for a new, reflexive scientific method. It is also a bridge between classical science—from Newton to contemporary quantum theory.
•Jan 1, 2026•0 citations