International Journal of Advance Research Publication and Reviews

International Journal of Advance Research Publication and Reviews
Peer-Reviewed | Multi-Disciplinary Journal

ISSN: 3049-0103 (O)

Impact Factor: 4.33

Substrate-Flexible Informational Quantum Mechanics: QBism, RQM, and the Question of Non-Human Epistemic Systems

Author

Ian Staley

Abstract

 The QBist and Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) informational readings of quantum theory have been developed across two decades without a clear position on what kind of physical system qualifies as an agent or observer for the formalism. Fuchs, Mermin, and Schack write as if the agent is a human physicist; Rovelli writes as if any physical system can play the relational-observer role; Healey deflates the agent into an abstract Bayesian without specifying its substrate. This paper argues that the informational reading is substrate-flexible: any physical system whose input-output statistics admit characterization through quantum-probability structure with non-trivial Contextuality-by-Default signatures resistant to simplex-embeddable ontological models is a candidate epistemic agent. The non-triviality requirement is necessary but not sufficient for agency, which additionally requires an input-output architecture capable of state-sensitive updating across measurement contexts. The thesis preserves the QBist objection to view-from-nowhere framings while removing the requirement that agents be human or conscious, and it disciplines Rovelli's permissive claim with a precise empirical test. Engineered cortical wetware preparations provide a non-human, controllable testbed for the question. Classical AI architectures admit simplex-embeddable models for their token-generation processes and therefore fail the requirement; substrate flexibility is narrower, not wider, than recent proposals.

Keywords

QBism; relational quantum mechanics; agency; contextuality; ontological models; organoid intelligence

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