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In interpretations of quantum mechanics there are two types of physicists: those who care about ontology and those who don't. The ontologists, or realists, want to know what is the world made of. The non-realists, on the other hand, think that this question is not relevant to physics.
Usually the two types of physicists don't understand each other. A realist can't understand how a physicist may not care about what is the physical world made of. A non-realist, on the other hand, can't understand how a serious scientist may care about the metaphysical notion of "reality" that does not have any practical consequences.
To help mutual understanding between the two types of physicists, I would like to propose an analogy, or at least a good metaphor. The two types of physicists are somewhat like the two types of computer scientists; those who care about hardware and those who don't.
Suppose that you ask how a computer program works. There are two kinds of explanation one can give to you. One explanation is something like - there is an electric current flowing through the microchip, which consists of many transistors, where each transistor is made of silicon in a pnp configuration, ... This explains how the computer works at the hardware level. The other explanation, on the other hand, will completely ignore the hardware and explain you the algorithm of the specific computer app; it explains how the computer program works at the software level.
The software guy will tell you that it is the computation algorithm that really explains how the program works, while the hardware implementation is not really important for understanding from the point of view of computation theory. The hardware guy will tell you that only understanding the hardware gives you the true understanding how the computer really works. The hardware guy gives you an ontological explanation, while the ontology is irrelevant to the software guy.
Of course, both the hardware guy and the software guy are right in some sense. And more importantly, there is no really any controversy about that, it's not that hardware guys and software guys don't understand each other. They only put more emphasis on different aspects of computation theory, which are complementary to each other.
Likewise, I believe, that two ways of thinking in quantum foundations are also complementary to each other. Realists and non-realists in quantum theory are analogous to hardware guys and software guys in computation theory. I believe that this way of thinking about realists and non-realists can help in better mutual understanding between them.
Usually the two types of physicists don't understand each other. A realist can't understand how a physicist may not care about what is the physical world made of. A non-realist, on the other hand, can't understand how a serious scientist may care about the metaphysical notion of "reality" that does not have any practical consequences.
To help mutual understanding between the two types of physicists, I would like to propose an analogy, or at least a good metaphor. The two types of physicists are somewhat like the two types of computer scientists; those who care about hardware and those who don't.
Suppose that you ask how a computer program works. There are two kinds of explanation one can give to you. One explanation is something like - there is an electric current flowing through the microchip, which consists of many transistors, where each transistor is made of silicon in a pnp configuration, ... This explains how the computer works at the hardware level. The other explanation, on the other hand, will completely ignore the hardware and explain you the algorithm of the specific computer app; it explains how the computer program works at the software level.
The software guy will tell you that it is the computation algorithm that really explains how the program works, while the hardware implementation is not really important for understanding from the point of view of computation theory. The hardware guy will tell you that only understanding the hardware gives you the true understanding how the computer really works. The hardware guy gives you an ontological explanation, while the ontology is irrelevant to the software guy.
Of course, both the hardware guy and the software guy are right in some sense. And more importantly, there is no really any controversy about that, it's not that hardware guys and software guys don't understand each other. They only put more emphasis on different aspects of computation theory, which are complementary to each other.
Likewise, I believe, that two ways of thinking in quantum foundations are also complementary to each other. Realists and non-realists in quantum theory are analogous to hardware guys and software guys in computation theory. I believe that this way of thinking about realists and non-realists can help in better mutual understanding between them.