Here is an interesting excerpt from "http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/mind&mat.htm":
"In the last century when the atom was still intact and considered irreducible, one could still imagine a physical world composed of tiny solid pieces of matter having shape and existing in their own rights. This was so even after the atom's real nature was revealed to be not solid but consisting of energy - electrons, protons and so on. The old view, although illogical, persisted, at least amongst the general public. But with the advent of quantum mechanics in the first part of this century, the situation changed. Scientists discovered that they could no longer predetermine the position in space at a given time of certain subatomic particles since, until observed, these could exhibit either wave or particle characteristics. The idea that some 'thing' cannot be observed without interacting with it and thereby determining its nature, seemed the final nail in the coffin of materialism, even if, at least for the moment, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was acknowledged to apply only at subatomic level. Disconcerting as this principle may seem to confirmed materialists, they may even come to realise that the theory of quantum mechanics is not so bizarre as some of them imagine. Their observations require a certain input from themselves without which these cannot even be registered as observations, not only at microcosm level but also at the level of the macrocosm. In that the same principle obtains for both macrocosm and microcosm, it may even be a step in the search for the Grand Unified Theory which otherwise seems so elusive. ...
The philosophy outlined above requires from us a great leap of faith. Yet, in an age which has witnessed the creation of the hologram and cyberspace, is it easier to believe that in the beginning there was a pinpoint of matter so dense that, on exploding, it gave birth to the whole universe including ourselves and all life forms; or, alternatively, that our universe is a gradual evolution of consciousness, a response to the Unknown (or whatever other name we choose to give it - God, Nature, Life Force, Energy or ... ?) And are we merely discovering the secrets of a static once-and-for-all created universe or are we co-creating a dynamic, developing and perhaps holographic one?
As a philosophy it is a strongly anthropic since, whatever the underlying condition of its manifestation, our universe does not exist unless it is realised or made real by us. Each one of us creates, or rather, co-creates his or her own reality - a reality which we can do no more than assume is the same for all."
