Hi Devac,

I'm the author of the blog post in question. I am not a physicist, and I wouldn't claim to know that much about physics. However, in this case I'm not entirely ignorant.

As John von Neumann, Erwin Schrodinger, David Bohm, Scott Aaronson, Max Tegmark, Anton Zeilinger and many others have noticed, the ontological issues with quantum mechanics are much more serious than a problem of interpreting complex mathematical constructs with brains that are "unequipped to that type of thinking."

While I'm sure your knowledge of physics is superior to mine, knowing how to do physics doesn't guarantee knowledge of the bigger questions that surround it -- a fact that is much less obvious but just as true as the reverse. Even professional physicists are not necessarily aware of the philosophical problems with quantum mechanics (though that wasn't always the case. See this paper from European Journal of Physics for an interesting look at perspectives on the subject among the originators of quantum theory). For an overview of these questions from a philosophical perspective, see the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on the topic.

If I understand correctly, I think you took my comments about ontological issues and QM working "for all practical purposes" as referring to whether approximations are required, or the relationship between QM and relativity. This wasn't my intention. Instead, I was referring to what I think you called, rather charmingly, "technicalities about measurement". In other words, the measurement problem, which is a key motivation for the many conflicting interpretations of QM.

The various interpretations are really not "just interpretations", or epistemic claims. They are mutually incompatible accounts of what really exists in the physical universe. Everett's "many worlds" interpretation, for example, says very different things about the nature of physical reality than Bohmian Mechanics or Penrose's Objective Reduction account. These are called "interpretations", but they imply greater uncertainty about the fundamental facts of the universe than most other questions that are considered to be within the domain of science. That's what I mean by an ontological discontinuity in the basement of physics. It's ontological because it has to do with the nature of existence. It's a discontinuity because there's no generally accepted and principled way to reconcile reality as described by unitary evolution of the wavefunction and reality as observed and experienced. And it's in the basement because many people, even in physics, aren't aware of it or would prefer not to think about it (also because it's connected to the research area known as "quantum foundations").

Anyway, I hope this rather late reply at least convinces you that I've read something other than Wikipedia on this topic :)