Raphael nicely avoids many of the confusions by introducing a refined version of the complementarity principle, the so-called observer complementarity… If I add some “foundations of quantum mechanics” flavor to the principle, it says:

Quantum mechanics is a set of rules that allows an observer to predict, explain, and/or verify observations (and especially their mutual relationships) that he has access to.

An observer has access to a causal diamond – the intersection of the future light cone of the initial moment of his world line and the past light cone of the final moment of his world line (the latter, the final moment before which one must be able to collect the data, is more important in this discussion).

No observer can detect inconsistencies within the causal diamonds. However, inconsistencies between “stories” as told by different observers with different causal diamonds are allowed (and mildly encouraged) in general (as long as there is no observer who could incorporate all the data needed to see an inconsistency).

…

Bohr has said that physics is about the right things we can say about the real world, not about objective reality, and it has to be internally consistent. However, in the context of general relativity, the internal consistency doesn’t imply that there has to be a “global viewpoint” or “objective reality” that is valid for everyone.

— Raphael Bousso is right about firewalls

— Lubos Motl

2016.07.27 Wednesday ACHK