On Observing - The Power of Timeless Art and Artifacts

Why do people come away from certain objects altered, and unable to name by what? A bronze Buddha and a figure of Christ above a city hold the same strange fact between them. A scientist reads the workmanship and follows the material backward to the dying stars; the faithful need none of that rope, and the message lands whole. The essay argues that both are true — borrowing the shape of the relational and QBist readings of quantum mechanics while marking, in a long note, exactly where that borrowing stops and philosophical perspectivism takes over. It gathers Benjamin's aura, the Colossus that sang at dawn for two centuries, and the glare of a self leaning forward to be right, and closes on an observer who would not have to choose: every observer completes it truly, in their own key.