“Sometimes scientific communities use words in highly distinctive ways (‘molecule’, ‘gene’, ‘wave’, and so on). If a scientist points out that these are the things that ‘exist’ according to her theory, then this is just the right way to talk given the practices of the scientific community, practices that are especially rigorous and that demand a strong empirical sanction for using words in that sort of way. But for anyone—scientist, philosopher, or layperson—to go a step further and claim that the ‘fundamental nature’ of reality is revealed by a scientific theory is to make a dangerous and unnecessary metaphysical move. So talk of the superiority of one theory’s ontology over another’s that appeals to some altogether hidden order of reality—such as the realm of private, inner experience—is doubly misplaced.”

–Murray Shanahn, Embodiment and the Inner Life: Cognition and Consciousness in the Space of Possible Minds