  Dealing with Eugene Wigner's ideas on the measurement procedure in quantum
physics and unearthing the controversy that pitted him against supporters of
the interpretation of complementarity, I will show how Wigner and his followers
contributed to the defeat of a seemingly unshakeable consensus. In fact,
although he intended to defend what seemed to him to be orthodoxy, he himself
became a heterodox. I suggest that Wigner's conjectures on the role of
consciousness in physical phenomena were not fruitful and were discarded, being
today part of the history of physics rather than physics proper. However, his
ideas and actions left an indelible mark on the physics of the second half of
the 20th century. Namely, he formulated his ideas in opposition to the
Copenhagen monocracy, which held a stronghold on the interpretation of quantum
physics until the late 1960s; he stressed the unsolved status of the
measurement problem; and he effectively defended his ideas and supported those
who were willing to investigate the foundations of quantum physics. He thus
contributed to the creation of a new field of physical research, that of the
foundations of quantum physics, which attributed a higher scientific status to
the old controversy on the interpretations and foundations of this theory. This
new field has had to deal with important theoretical, experimental, and
philosophical issues, and significant repercussions have arisen in the last
decades.
