I'm a master student in theoretical physics and the reason why I choose this career is far more related to the "philosophical beauty" of physics, than to my personal ability or skills.
This, in some way, can justify my question... that I hope won't be too much off-topic.
According to what I heard from my professors and to what I read (a little), after the “assumption” of the Copenhagen interpretation, the common point of view of physicists went mainly toward the instrumentalism side, well summarized in the Bohr's quote:
"There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature..."
Anyway, many physicists seemed to be undecided between instrumentalism and realism (e.g. Einstein had a much more realist conception of the world).
Now, as a student in physics (and not in philosophy), when I'm studying physics I almost never think about whether I'm using a realist or an instrumentalist interpretation; nevertheless, when I’m trying to understand or explain, is much more effective to think about "real" electrons, protons, fields, etc.
The problem in modern physics is that we are dealing with things that are not directly related to our senses, and I think that in the connection between an experiment and the tangible result something about the interpretation can maybe be lost.
My question is, since I don't know anything about the contemporary debate in epistemology (and even if I would, the official philosophical position is not the effective thought of the physicists), which are the actual feelings of physicists/professors/researchers (or whatever you are) about this?
Is it just mathematical models or there is something that we can call real?
I don't know if this issue will appear a bit obsolete and my question too unclear, anyway, please, enlighten me.
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