Dear Tejinder
Thank you for an excellent, interesting, informative and eminently sensible essay, well organized and written in a clear easily read style.
I agree that only considering outcomes is wrong, although partly for different reasons. If a measurement is an *output* then surely it must also provide information on the input, which we may obtain only if we understand the complete process. Is the lack of that understanding itself not then the real problem?
Of course the detection and measurement process (observation) must have some effect on the output. I suggest then that just 'bombing Copenhagen off the map' may also destroy some innocent truths about an essential component in a coherent process? While the 3 alternatives you brilliantly describe each have something to offer, none can offer a solution. This is not so much criticism of you essay, which I have marked down for a well deserved top score, but of all current theory; quantum, relativistic, and the 'chasm' (Penrose) between them.
So I agree your finding 'bit from it' but suggest Wheelers suggestion is naive, perhaps intentionally, because our comprehension of the physical process is entirely inadequate. Why then do we not test mechanisms? I hope you may read my essay as I use the mechanistic approach and logically define detection, computation and measurement as distinct elements of observation. CSL is a key process, and ALL matter qualifies in the role of 'detector' but not all is a 'measurer'. I construct an ontology describing probability, decoding a Bayesian distribution of noise between binary 0 and 1. A powerful new model seems to emerge to overcome the "severe difficulties" and fill the chasm, which I very much hope you can study and comment on for me. Be warned - the odd radical finding emerges!
But thank you and very well done for your own excellent and important contribution to the process of improving understanding that is 'science'.
Best wishes and very best of luck in the results. I hope to see you back up in the top 10 as last year.
Peter