By this point in the series, a pattern should be visible. Quantum mechanics functions impeccably as physics. The unease surrounding it arises when physicists ask what it says about reality. Ontological commitments are made without being acknowledged as such. Philosophy is practised while being disavowed.
In this post, we turn to one of the most powerful—and least examined—sources of confusion in these debates: the concept of reality itself.
“Reality” functions as an unmarked term. It is invoked constantly, relied upon heavily, and almost never analysed.
1. The Authority of an Undefined Word
In discussions of quantum foundations, appeals to reality carry immediate rhetorical force. To say that an interpretation is “about reality,” or that another “fails to describe reality,” is to claim decisive ground. The term appears to settle arguments before they begin.
Yet despite this authority, “reality” is rarely defined. Its meaning is assumed to be obvious, shared, and stable.
This assumption is false.
2. Sliding Senses of Reality
A closer look reveals that physicists routinely slide between different senses of reality without marking the transition. Among them:
Reality as measurement outcomes: what is actually observed and recorded.
Reality as mathematical structure: the formal entities of the theory treated as what truly exists.
Reality as underlying mechanism: a hidden process or structure producing observable phenomena.
Reality as observer-independent substrate: what exists regardless of any interaction or description.
Each of these senses carries distinct ontological commitments. None is forced by experiment. Yet debates routinely proceed as if “reality” named a single, determinate target.
When disagreement arises, it is often unclear whether the parties are even talking about the same thing.
3. The Myth of the View from Nowhere
Underlying many appeals to reality is the belief that there must be a single, perspective-free description of the world—a view from nowhere that captures what is really the case.
Quantum mechanics unsettles this belief. Its formalism ties predictions to experimental contexts in ways that resist detachment from conditions of measurement. Rather than prompting reflection on the belief itself, this resistance is often interpreted as a shortcoming of the theory.
The expectation of a perspective-free reality is not an experimental demand. It is a philosophical inheritance.
4. Reality as a Silent Arbiter
Because “reality” is left unanalysed, it functions as a silent arbiter in foundational debates. Competing interpretations are judged not by empirical success—they all share that—but by how well they align with an implicit picture of what reality ought to be like.
This picture is rarely articulated. It is felt.
As a result, arguments take on a familiar form: one interpretation is dismissed as “unreal,” “extravagant,” or “unsatisfactory,” while another is praised for being “closer to reality.” These judgments masquerade as conclusions, but they are expressions of prior commitments.
5. When Reality Does the Work of Argument
Treating reality as an unmarked term allows it to do argumentative work without scrutiny. It becomes a substitute for justification.
Instead of asking which ontological commitments are being made, or whether they are coherent, debate stalls at the level of intuition. Preferences harden into positions. Disagreement persists because its source is never identified.
What appears as deep metaphysical conflict is often simply a clash between different, unacknowledged construals of reality.
6. Marking the Term
The remedy is not to abandon talk of reality, but to mark it—to recognise that any appeal to reality already presupposes a way of carving up the world.
Once this is acknowledged, several consequences follow:
Ontological claims can be compared rather than asserted.
Disagreements can be located rather than endlessly rehearsed.
The demand that quantum mechanics deliver a single, literal picture of reality can be seen for what it is: a philosophical requirement, not a physical one.
Reality ceases to function as an unquestioned standard and becomes instead a topic of inquiry.
7. Preparing the Next Cut
If reality is not a neutral backdrop but a concept deployed within particular perspectives, then the question shifts. The issue is no longer which interpretation captures reality as it really is, but how different construals organise possibility, explanation, and understanding.
In the next post, we will examine how this shift reframes the proliferation of interpretations themselves—and why their persistence is not a failure to converge on reality, but a predictable outcome of leaving “reality” unmarked in the first place.
Quantum mechanics does not confront us with an unknowable reality.
It confronts us with our habit of treating a concept as if it were a given.
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