That helps a little, but I remain confused. You say that particles (for example) exist, but that the function of the mathematical objects we use to characterize them (wave functions, etc.) “is not descriptive but prescriptive”. OK, sure — but then how *can* one (literally, accurately, and completely) describe these particles (if I should even understand that word, “particles”, literally — and if I shouldn’t I want to know what I should say instead)? If something really exists, shouldn’t it be possible in principle to provide a description of it? And shouldn’t a supposedly fundamental physical theory, about these things, provide such a description??
It just seems that what you are saying comes down to renouncing the goal of saying what physical reality is actually like on the micro-level, and instead adopting some kind of instrumentalist/operationalist view of the goal of physical theories. Maybe that’s it and our “metaphysical prejudices” (i.e., our ideas about what the goal of a scientific theory should be) are just different.
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