A drastic resolution of the quantum paradoxes is proposed, combining (I) von Neumann's postulate that collapse of the state vector is due to the act of observation, and (II) my reinterpretation of von Neumann's quantal irreversibility as an equivalence between wave retardation and entropy increase, both being “factlike” rather than “lawlike” (Mehlberg). This entails a coupling of the two de jure symmetries between (I) retarded and (II) advanced waves, and between Aristotle's information as (I) learning and (II) willing awareness. Symmetric (...) acceptance of cognizance as a source of retarted waves, and of will as a sink of advanced waves, is submitted as a central “paradox” of the Copernican or Einsteinian sort, out of which new light is shed upon previously known paradoxes, such as the EPR paradox, Schrödinger's cat, and Wigner's friend. Parapsychology is thus found to creep into the picture. (shrink)

The world appears causal in the sense that the result of a measurement may depend on the past history of the observed system, but not on what the experimenter will do with the system after the measurement. This raises the question whether noncausality at a macroscopic level would necessarily lead to an “unreasonable” world. The study of a model world with axiomatically well-specified properties shows that noncausal systems can be discussed in a logically consistent manner so that noncausality might well (...) exist in the real world as a weak, but so far overlooked, effect. (shrink)