Stopping Time. Why Observation is More Than Merely Interaction

This link from Inverse offers a lovely bit of contmplation on the importance of the "observer" in the grand scheme of things. The assertion is that, because observation interrupts the flow of "everything thats possible" in superimpostion for a given aspect of a particle, constant obervation would hold that particle in a state of no time; kind of like a picture freezes a moment of some area's visible spectrum interactions.

When I read something like this I always go back to wondering about what constitutes an "observer," as well as: as in how what that agency does goes about making it different from mere interaction.

On the one hand, we can have some confidence that observation is a type of interaction, but on the other that interaction itself may not neccessarally be observation at all. Pretty straight forward on the face of it, but if it is true than what special characteristic of the observer makes for the difference?

You could imagine a rock, on any planet capable of rocks, and then contemplate all of the interactions that might involve it durring any particular time period. And certainly there would be many types of electromagnet, geophysical, and atmosphereic interactions that could come to mind; all of which would involve possible energy exchange both in and out of the rock. In that instance, is the rock an observer? Does the mere fact that the rock is passive (to the extent of offering no actual agency to the interaction beyond the fixed characteristics of its chemical and atomic structure), in the process of interaction, make it only another aspect of the total channel matrix of exhange in a vector of association?

If that is the case then you have to start giving a great deal more attention to what constitutes the special nature of an "observer." For my part, of course, this is exactly why the layering of objectification which creates a meaning processor is so important. And this is so because it is not just that a "measurement" can be made by such a processor, it is that the principle thing for which "agency" can be distinguished in the first place, choice, can be expressed in the what and how of a measurement.

Just a thought.

The Quantum Zeno Effect Explains How You Can Stop Time Using Physics