Yes I am K’s husband, and co-author of Pendulum of Justice, a thriller. Have you read it?
An absolute is a fact of reality but that does not mean that its magnitude and direction cannot change. A constant is something that does not change in magnitude or direction. We know that as you accelerate an object its mass increases exponential as you approach the speed of light. That is an absolute, but it is not a constant. We know that the frequency of a wave changes to an observer based on whether the source is approaching or moving away from the observer. That is an absolute, but the amount of frequency change varies, so it is not a constant. The speed of light is both a constant (in a closed system vacuum) and an absolute. In everyday language it might be acceptable to use the two terms interchangeably, but in physics or philosophy they are not the same.

Observation: Absolutely observation is essential, but reason is the tool for organizing the multitude of facts we are presented. For instance, a door shuts unexpectedly. That is a fact, but how you interpret and organize that fact is based on reason or the lack thereof. If you use reason, you notice that the trees are blowing outside and the wind blew the door shut. If you renounce reason you attribute it to a spirit or a ghost and ignore the tree blowing outside your window.
I believe the logical positivist attempts to use reason divorced from observation to understand reality. Rand discussed this superficially and stated that some philosophies attempt to understand the world by only immediate perceptual events (empiricism at its philosophical extreme) and others attempt to understand the world by reason without any reference to observation (rationalism, I suppose, at its philosophical extreme).

Sorry, I am not familiar with all these paradoxs you cite, but I am very familiar with Schrodinger’s Cat(there are at least a couple of posts in the gulch which spend a fair amount of time on this). First of all, there is still a debate about the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics. Second of all Schrodinger’s Cat confuses cause with effect. It suggests that the state of the cat is only determined once the observer opens the box. This is based on a misinterpretation of the uncertainty principle, which is that only by observing do we determine the state of a quantum mechanical system. There is nothing in the math or experimental evidence that suggests this idea. However, the math does not demand the opposite conclusion. Recent advances in physics have shown that the uncertainty principle is the result of the wave nature of matter and the whole observer determining the state of a quantum mechanical system is incorrect.

Quantum mechanics (QM)s: There is a lot of hand wringing about where physics (I can point you to several books) is going and whether it has lost its path. While I studied physics in grad school and I have my opinions, I do not have enough evidence (skill) to prove my point of view. Nothing in Schrodinger’s equation suggests that it is a statistical evaluation of a where a point particle might be, it is a wave equation. Schrodinger, Einstein and many others never bought the point particle statistical interpretation of QM. However, they lost the argument among most physicists. But now the problems with point particle statistical (PPS) interpretation of QM are rearing their ugly heads. For instance, there has never been any conceptual explanation of the wave particle duality; spin is incorporated into QM particles, but point particles can’t spin; the electric force of a point particle goes to infinity as you get close to the particle – this is papered over with some renormalization mathematical trick. Several physicists are suggesting that the PPS approach to QM needs to be revisited including Carver Meade. Most of these people are suggesting a wave approach to QM. One interpretation is that an electron is a spherical standing wave. Feynman worked on this approach with some success, but then dropped it. Other people are picking up where he left off. They clearly do not have all the answers, but this approach eliminates a number of problems with PPS approach to QM including Schrodinger’s cat. In my opinion, we are going find out that everything is a wave, but that our math was not up to solving the wave equations and therefore the approximation of the PPS approach, while wrong allowed us to move forward. I think the fact that we have run into a number of problems in physics indicates we are the verge of discovering many new and interesting things.
What I think is interesting as I revisited this subject recently is that the physicists’ metaphysical philosophy clearly affected whether they went down the wave approach to QM or PPS approach to QM. I would say that those physicists with an Aristotelian metaphysics were more inclined the wave interpretation of QM, while those physicists with a Kant-Hegel point of view were more likely pushing the PPS interpretation of QM.

Von Mises & Austrian Economics: I am guessing that some of your ideas are being shaped by Von Mises/Austrian economics. Many Austrian Economists including Hayek are metaphysically and epistemological more aligned with Plato, Kant, and Hegel than Aristotle, Locke, and Rand. Hayek basically argues that we need free markets because our knowledge is limited, not just today but inherently. See this excellent paper by David Kelley on point http://www.atlassociety.org/hayek-ayn-ra.... Thus to Hayek freedom is the result of the limit of our ability to reason, to Rand freedom is the necessary condition for a rational animal and she does not accept any (that may be a bit strong) limits on our ability to reason. Because of this Austrian economists tend to emphasis the limits of our knowledge. When they see that physics has run into a problem, they don’t see it as an opportunity to learn more, but a failure of reason. They tend to see Einstein’s theory of gravity as in complete contradiction with Newton and showing Newton had no idea what he was talking about, for example. That is not the way a real science works. Newton and Einstein’s theory of gravity completely agree within certain limits; that is part of how we know Einstein’s theories were correct (at least within certain realms). Austrians tend to emphasis the subjectivity of pricing in the market and the social nature of economics. However, new research in economics broadly called “new growth theory” shows that Rand was right and economics can be based on an objective basis that does emphasize the social nature of economics. Specifically, new growth theory shows that all real per capita increases in wealth (income) are the result of increases in our level of technology, i.e., our mind, not from increases in capital, land, and labor. It also points to the objective approach to economics, which is that economics is study of how humans create the things necessary for their lives. This points to an objective approach to how prices are set and shows economics applies outside of any social interaction.