WHEELER’S DELAYED-CHOICE EXPERIMENT AND THE THEORY OF OBJECTIVITY

This article develops an expanded critical–propositional analysis of Vincent Jacques, E. Wu, Frédéric Grosshans, François Treussart, Philippe Grangier, Alain Aspect, and Jean-François Roch’s 2007 experiment, “Experimental Realization of Wheeler’s Delayed-Choice Gedanken Experiment,” published in Science, in systematic dialogue with the Theory of Objectivity (TO) developed by Vidamor Cabannas and Denivaldo Silva. Jacques et al. implemented an almost ideal version of Wheeler’s delayed-choice thought experiment using single photons emitted by a nitrogen-vacancy center, a 48-m two-path interferometer, a quantum random number generator, and a fast electro-optical output configuration. The choice between an open interferometer, permitting unambiguous which-way information, and a closed interferometer, producing interference, was relativistically separated from the photon’s entry into the apparatus. The experiment reported high interference visibility in the closed configuration and essentially complete path information in the open configuration. These results are examined not as a direct proof of the complete ontology of TO, but as a particularly strong operational domain for confronting its Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Absolute Truths, its non- anthropocentric concept of observation, its notion of boundaries and interfaces, its concept of non-simultaneity, its phenomenic treatment of light and electromagnetic processes, and its claim that information generated in atomic relations is equivalent, within the TO framework, to atomic radiation. Special attention is given to the Fifth Absolute Truth, according to which an element has logical existence when it is observed by, or lies within the frequency of, at least two other elements, with “observation” understood as an objective relation among physical elements rather than human consciousness. The article distinguishes three epistemic levels: modal necessity internal to TO, operational compatibility with experimental physics, and genuinely discriminating empirical confirmation. Jacques et al. provide substantial indirect corroboration of relational and non-anthropocentric operational bridges compatible with TO, while leaving the specifically modal, cosmogonic, and field- individualization claims of the theory untested. A research program is proposed for converting TO’s relational axioms into quantitatively discriminating experiments. The final assessment assigns the Jacques et al. experiment a dialogue score of 8.6/10 with TO: very high conceptual and operational relevance, but not exclusive confirmation. Keywords: Theory of Objectivity; delayed choice; Wheeler; wave–particle duality; com- plementarity; quantum foundations; relational observation; information; modal necessity; photon; interferometry; empirical testability.