I just got done reading Hugh Everett III’s, innovative and adventurous dissertation about the “Many Worlds” interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. It’s quite a refreshing and modern interpretation that has no problem at all incorporating “spooky” phenomena like remote viewing, telepathy, channelling, ghosts, and UFOs. In fact, these things are par for the course in the Many Worlds model. In Everett’s view, it’s not the observer that collapses the wave function, but the wave function that entrains and correlates the observer. Read his thesis here: “The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.” Note: this contains lots of math and but he does a good job explaining what it all means. Everett’s ideas were not well received at the time in early the 1950’s, and the Copenhagen physics gang were especially hostile to him. He left academia to work for the U.S. government in the area of war games simulations and only had some attention paid to his ideas at physics conference in Austin in 1977. A very complete summary of his life can be found here.
A relatively recent book by Peter Byrne goes into more details about Everett’s ideas and life, and the many challenges he faced presenting his point of view to the world’s physics community. And also check out this well-done and heartbreaking documentary created by his son, the musician Mark Everett, which also features astrophysicist Max Tegmark.