Did Patterson's realism face criticism?
Indeed. My insistence on a realist ontology, especially in the face of interpretations that treat quantum states as merely epistemic, drew criticism. Some argued that my approach was overly abstract or that the predictive success of quantum mechanics was best explained instrumentally. My critics often favored interpretations that prioritized measurement outcomes and computational utility over an objective reality of quantum states and fields. I saw this as a fundamental misunderstanding of the philosophical implications of our most successful physical theories.
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