Although the numerous physicists of the Copenhagen school do not believe in deep reality, they do assert the existence of phenomenal reality.  What we see is undoubtedly real, they say, but these phenomena are not really there in the absence of an observation.  The Copenhagen interpretation properly consists of two distinct parts:  1) There is no reality in the absence of observation; 2) Observation creates reality.

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Amoung observer created realists, a small faction asserts that only an apparatus endowed with consciousness (even as you and I) is privileged to create reality. The one observer that counts is a conscious observer.  Denis Postle examines reality-creating consciousness in Fabric of the Universe.  I include this quantum reality not only because it is so outlandish but because its supporters are so illustrious. Consciousness-created reality adherents include light/matter physicist Walter Heitler, Fritz London famous for his work on quantum liquids, Berkeley S-matrix theorist Henry Pierce Stapp, Noble laureate Eugene Wigner, and world-class mathematician John von Neumann.

(other theories are discussed such as the multiple universes interpretation, quantum logic, and neorealism)

The ancient philosophers faced a similar reality crisis. For instance, three ancient realities – 1. The world rests on a  turtle’s back. 2. The world is bottomlessly solid; 3. The world floats in an infinite ocean – led to identical consequences as far as anyone could tell at that time.

Likewise modern physicists do not know how to determine experimentially what kind of world they actually live in. However, since “reality has consequences”, we might hope that future experiments, not bound by our current concepts of measurability, will conclusively establish one or more of these bizarre pictures as top-dog reality.  At present, however, each of these quantum realities must be regarded as a viable candidate for “the way the world really is”.  They may, however, all be wrong.

Physicists reality crisis is twofold: 1) There are too many of these quantum realities.  2) All of them without exception are preposterous.

Nobody knows how the world will seem one hundred years from now.  It will probably appear very differently from what we now imagine.  Here’s what John Wheeler, a physicist actively concerned with the nature of quantum reality, imagines when he looks into the future:

“There may be no such thing as the ‘glittering central mechanism of the universe’ to be seen behind a glass wall at the end of the trail.  Not machinery but magic may be the better description of the treasure that is waiting.”

ref: Herbert, Nick (1987). Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics. Anchor Books, New York.