It looks like the "shut-up and calculate" school is the one with most adepts. It's also very zen-like to me (or I completely don't understand what zen is, not an unlikely alternative).

The problem is that the imaginary journalist has an agenda and will completely ignore any "shut-up and calculate" answer. The author really needs to make a better case about the interpretations having different empirical outcomes, because it's not obvious at all.

I don't think you are wrong at all in fact I think you are very much correct in the sense that the answer can't be formulated in language other than one closer to what it is and there mathematics is closer than english.

Problem is that mathematics isn't enough to make it useful (i.e. predictable) you need a combination of math and experiments to turn it into something that can be used.

Hum, the "shut-up and calculate" idea is that the theory works, people've tested it. Now you either use it, or go find empirical flaws, so people can improve the theory. But thinking about the reasons your math looks like that has no use, unless you get something with observable consequences, don't waste the time.

There's nothing in it about math being a perfect language, or experiments not being necessary.

Yes thats we have scientist and mathematicians for. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try and also see if we can put it in different perspectives that help us understand the field.

If you want to shut-up and calculate by all means. That doesn't mean I or others have to. After all we are humans.

No, I don't want you to follow it. In fact, my personal ideas are a bit different too.

But it is the most usual approach (or, at least, almost everybody works under it almost all the time - but people may identify with somehting else), and the article didn't make a good claim for why we shouldn't just shut-up and calculate.

Thats a completely fair point, however I wasn't basing it on this alone :)

some words for whom Feynman's imperative is not enough:

A paradox is just a scenario that betrays the subject's lack of, or inappropriate, context. They are a perceptual phenomenon. Indeed, language and imagery will not explain QM and there is no problem with that. The only philosophy required is that which understands that different tools are needed to work appropriately with different layers of complexity and scale; the proven appropriate tool for the apparently most basic layer is math.

Thats one perspective yes, but you aren't the only one with both knowledge and an opinion on that of course.

It sounds like you might enjoy "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra. There's a free PDF version online.

so you're saying they should give up?

I am saying they should change the question.