The thing I say is "what underlying reality?" If you can't measure it, how can you make a theory out of it or research it (or publish papers on it unless you're a string theorist)? If something is not measurable, then how can you claim it exists or not?

Whenever people ask me these "deep questions" after I tell them I'm a physicist, I tell them that. Science is all about the reality you can measure, not about meaning and what lies "deeper".

I take it you are a fan of the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. its the right answer for making calculations. but how do come up with a new theory? you have to tell a story or envision an underlying reason to justify it. new theories dont come out of nowhere.

this is also like saying the universe in the time of newton consisted of only newtons laws, which is untrue. if the universe is science, then you have to say the universe is changing as science changes. unless the universe really is just made of published journal papers.

"model vs reality" implies a very clear delineation between theory and data. Bayesian models muddle that up - particularly with (based on my understanding of) the standard model. (Insert the classic statistical decision theory debate about classic/Bayesian models here.)

What I really wonder about is how, if ever, we will refine our abilities to observe the finer grains - and to what extent that's possible. I remember physicists discussing the observations possible given particle accelerator size from lectures in undergrad. The future was not very bright.