But waves do break down coastal bluffs. It's exactly the correlated motion of water molecules that is breaking up the correlated spatial relationships between molecules in the bluffs as the total force of all collisions from water molecules exceeds the total binding forces of the atoms of the bluff to each other (along some surface).

Isn't that a purchase on reality? But where is the observer? If there is an "observer" of the correlations in ocean waves, it seems to be (the correlation structure of) the bluff itself, inasmuch as we can call crumbling and falling an "observation".