To introduce my background, I am a physicist by training, geophysicist by profession. In general Radagast, I have agreed with your position in this discussion. Mr. Merton doesn't quite understand quantu. However, Any piece of equipment won't do as the observer. There are three reasons for this. First the von Neumann chain.
"In his rigourous 1932 treatment, The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechannics, John von Neumann showed that quantum theory makes physics' encounter with consciousness inevitable. He considered a measuring apparatus, a Geiger counter, for example. It is isolated from the rest of the world but makes contact with a quantum system, say, an atom simultaneously in two boxes. This Geiger counter is set to fire if the atom is in the top box and to remain unfired if the atom is in the bottom box. Von Neumann showed that if the Geiger counter is a physical system governed by quantum mechanics, it would enter a superposition state with the atom and be, simultaneously, in a fired and an un fired state. (We saw this situation in the case of Schrodinger's cat.)"
"Should a second isolated measuring apparatus come into contact with the Geiger counter-for example, an electronic device recording whether the Geiger counter has fired-it joins the superposition state and records both situations existing simultaneously. This so-called "von Neumann chain" can continue indefinitely. Von Neumann showed that no physical system obeying the laws of physics (i.e., quantum theory) could collapse a superposition state wavefunction to yield a particular result."
"However, when we look at the Geiger counter, we will always see a particular result, not a superposition. Von Neumann concluded that only a conscious observer doing something that is not presently encompassed by physics can collapse a wavefunction. Though for all practical purposes one can consider the wavefunction collapsed at any macroscopic stage of the von Neumann chain, von Neumann concluded that only a conscious observer can actually make an observation." Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 184
My guess is you are a decoherence advocate given your view that any machine will suffice to act as the observer. The second reason is that even the founders of decoherence view don't believe it solves the observer problem. Schlosshauer has an interesting paragraph in this in his article It is a quotation down to the double asterisks:
"In his monumental book on the foundations of quantum mechanics (QM), Auletta (2000, p. 791) concludes that
the Measurement theory could be part of the interpretation of QM only to the extent that it would still be an open problem, and we think that this is largely no longer the case.
This is mainly so because, according to Auletta (2000, p. 289),
decoherence is able to solve practically all the problems of Measurement which have been discussed in the previous chapters.
On the other hand, even leading adherents of decoherence have expressed caution or even doubt that decoherence has solved the measurement problem. Joos (2000, p. 14) writes
Does decoherence solve the measurement problem? Clearly not. What decoherence tells us, is that certain objects appear classical when they are observed. But what is an observation? At some stage, we still have to apply the usual probability rules of quantum theory.
Along these lines, Kiefer and Joos (1999, p. 5) warn that
One often finds explicit or implicit statements to the effect that the above processes are equivalent to the collapse of the wave function (or even solve the measurement problem). Such statements are certainly unfounded.
In a response to Anderson’s (2001, p. 492) comment, Adler (2003, p. 136) states
I do not believe that either detailed theoretical calculations or recent experimental results show that decoherence has resolved the difficulties associated with quantum measurement theory.
Similarly, Bacciagaluppi (2003b, p. 3) writes
Claims that simultaneously the measurement problem is real [and] decoherence solves it are confused at best.
Zeh asserts (Joos et al., 2003, Ch. 2)
Decoherence by itself does not yet solve the measurement problem (...). This argument is nonetheless found wide-spread in the literature. (...) It does seem that the measurement problem can only be resolved if the Schrodinger dynamics (...) is supplemented by a nonunitary collapse (...)."
Maximilian Schlosshauer, Decoherence, the measurement problem, and interpretations of quantum mechanics
https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0312059.pdf, p. 2,3
**
The third reason that decoherence won't work is that it has been experimentally disproven. Decoherence says that the particle interacts with its environment and the coherence is lost by these interactions. But this doesn't happen in practice. The experiment with buckeyballs, put into a quantum state (C60 and C70). In order for them to be put into the quantum state, unlike almost all other experiments, they must be heated to high temperatures before they go through the apparatus. In this state, they have an average of 3-4 emissions and absorptions each, meaning 6-8 total interactions with with photons prior to their passage through the apparatus. Furthermore the buckeyball molecule itself has 174 degrees of freedom and large number of vibrational modes are what decoherence uses to 'collapse' the matrix. If decoherence worked, these two things should prevent there being any quantum effects after that much interaction. As Leggett says:
"Let us now try to assess the decoherence argument. Actually, the most economical
tactic at this point would be to go directly to the results of the next section, namely that it is experimentally refuted!" A. J. Leggett, Testing the Limits of Quantum Mechanics: Motivation, state of Play, Prospects," J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14 (2002) R415–R451, R429
Of course, people don't pay attention to this detail like they should, and continue to believe decoherence replaces the observer. In Leggetts article he gives a lot of examples of experimental refutation of decoherence, mostely using squids, josephson junctions etc.
I have come to be a firm believer that quantum proves the existence of the immaterial soul. It does NOT prove what metaphysics or theology goes with that immaterial soul. It could be that it is one universal soul, although I don't believe that option.
There is absolutely NO way to formulate quantum without having humans involved in it. I think this is God screaming at us that we are very special objects in this universe. Two Nobel prize winners also say humans are essential to quantum.
"When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena, through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again: it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics
in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness. Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, in Eugene Wigner, Philosophical Reflections and Syntheses, Springer, 2012, p. 172
"Fundamentally, I have an ideal of what a physical theory should be. It should be something that doesn't refer in any specific way to human beings. It should be something from which everything else--including anything you can say systematically about chemistry, or biology, or human affairs--can be derived. It shouldn't have human beings at the beginning in the laws of nature. And yet, I don't see any way of formulating quantum mechanics without an interpretative postulate that refers to what happens when people choose to measure one thing or another." Steven Weinberg cited by Tim Folger, How Does the Quantum World Cross Over?, Scientific American, July 2018, p. 32