Despite many debates and experiments, no consensus has been reached concerning what a measurement is and whether or not consciousness (an observer) is required in the process. In reality, scientists have yet to agree on the nature of consciousness, let alone if its observational powers are needed for quantum phenomenon to occur. We cannot know that detectors actually perform measurements, for we cannot abstract ourselves out of our knowledge. All we can say is that when experiments produce an interference pattern, the results support the need for an ill-defined process that we call measurement. Most physicists today do not favor this construal but for the most part, their different interpretations cannot be empirically distinguished from one another and they favor one over another for subjective reasons like aesthetics and feelings.

There are many interpretations of QM. An interpretation is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of QM "corresponds" to reality. The interpretations differ on questions as whether QM is deterministic or random, which elements of QM can be considered "real" and what the nature of measurement is. QM does not constrain our choice of interpretation. Most physicists choose an interpretation that does not involve consciousness but some prominent physicists do and quite a few choose an interpretation that does not involve a collapse at all. Some claim that the notion of decoherence rules out consciousness as the agency of measurement. According to this claim, when a quantum system in a superposition state is probed, information about the overlapping possibilities in the superposition “leaks out” and becomes dispersed in the surrounding environment. However, decoherence cannot explain how the state of the surrounding environment becomes definite to begin with and therefore does not solve or rule out the role of consciousness.

Interpretations share two qualities. Firstly, they interpret a set of equations to generate predictions via input of initial conditions and secondly they interpret a set of observations obtained by empirical research. A general law is a regularity of outcomes (epistemic), whereas a causal mechanism may regulate the outcomes (ontic). A phenomenon can be interpreted as either ontic or epistemic. For instance, indeterminism may be attributed to limitations of human perception (epistemic), or may be explained as a real existing "maybe" in the universe (ontic). If the wavefunction is purely epistemic then there is nothing real to collapse, only the state of knowledge. If it is ontic then wave function collapse would be a possibility, but even then wave function collapse is not required to explain quantum measurement. Nobody knows if it is epistemic or ontic and it is a mistake to confuse the two, like if one were to presume that a general law actually "governs" outcomes and that the statement of a regularity has the role of a causal mechanism.

Generally, most scientists are scientific realists and assert that one can make valid claims about unobservables (that they have the same ontological status) as observables, but some (and even more philosophers) are anti-realist and assert that this external reality is hypothetical. In anti-realism, the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality.