>QM doesn't even pretend to tell us how reality actually is. That's what the various interpretations do
Isn't that backwards? QM, without "interpretation" tells what outcomes of experiments should be. That's reality.
The interpretations are interchangeable, so even if there was some oracle to tell us one of them was better, it wouldn't tell us anything about reality.
No, this is a non-standard definition of reality [1]. QM does not give us an ontology, i.e. a specification of what exists. That's what the interpretations do.
A well known definition of reality is "what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it".
If you stop believing in QM, everything happens just as before and if all knowledge was lost, the theory could be recreated.
But if you stop believing in the Copenhagen interpretation, and start believing in many-worlds, or you say "the hand of God directs things", nothing changes. If all knowledge of those ideas vanished, nothing would ensure it was recreated.
Your new explicit definition of reality is different than your old implicit definition of reality. There are presumably more things that "don't go away when you stop believing in them" than "what outcomes of experiments should be."
What people want to know is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. What you've claimed so far is that the results of experiments (i.e. effects) don't go away if you stop believing in them. This isn't controversial; however it is incomplete. It doesn't tell us what caused the effects. If many-worlds, for example, is true, then when you stop believing in it then its branching and branches will not go away. If pilot-wave theory is true, the pilot waves do not go away when you stop believing in them. If objective collapse theories are true, wave functions spontaneously collapse whether you believe so or not. You, on the other hand, are only accounting for effects and models, not causes and what is modeled.
>There are presumably more things that "don't go away when you stop believing in them" than "what outcomes of experiments should be."
If so, I don't know what.
Anyway, I think you're implicitly privileging one abstraction, called an "interpretation" over "just the plain math". But if they're equivalent, what is real about choosing one or the other, let alone between different "interpretations"?
Why is an "interpretation" a real thing and not the equations?
This seems structurally similar to a classic theological argument between theist and atheist; ok, you believe in a god, but why that particular god? And if there's no reason for a particular god, why bother with any?
Isn't that backwards? QM, without "interpretation" tells what outcomes of experiments should be. That's reality.
The interpretations are interchangeable, so even if there was some oracle to tell us one of them was better, it wouldn't tell us anything about reality.