Monstrosity of Quantum Mechanics 6: Collapse of Wave Function

Is quantum mechanics a physics beauty contest with all possibilities collapsing into one actuality upon observation? Who would you choose?

Since the multi-dimensional wave function of quantum mechanics is supposed to represent a probability distribution over all possibilities, the high dimensionality has to be drastically reduced to become an actuality of some interest.

This is supposed to happen in an interaction with an observer, referred to as collapse of the wave function, where the observer somehow picks one of all the potentialities and makes it into an actuality, as when Miss America somehow is chosen among many candidates by some educated physics observers.

Is then quantum mechanics a beauty contest? Well, ask your favorite physicist about the nature of the collapse of the wave function. Is it real? What is collapsing? Physical reality or our knowledge about reality.

Or is it quantum mechanics itself which collapses upon critical observation?