<b>[rderosa] "... I'm having trouble with is understanding what the controversy is."</b>
For everyday, human scale things and actions there will probably not be much that changes. This is theoretical stuff that makes a difference in the back ground. Kind of like SR, GR and QM. We know about Einstein, and some theoreticians claim he is important, but most of us still use Newton to organize our lives.
Bumper sticker version - Einstein is important. Newton is IMPORTANT
As I said, I brought it up when you asked about the definition of 'real'. So to apply this to our discussion here, think about the pattern of light and dark material on the Moon that we all see as 'the man in the Moon'. It would be more accurate to say this pattern is physical than to say it is real. It is both, of course, but real is a larger set than physical and thus could, but does not necessarily, open the door to some ambiguity.
Such ambiguity is one of the reasons we are still arguing about relativity. Relativity is real - but is it physical or conceptual? Or perhaps some of it physical and the rest is conceptual?
This distinction becomes more useful when talking about stuff like the difference between space (a concept) and a meter stick (physical) or between time (a concept) and a clock (physical). Meter sticks and clocks are real. Space and time are real. But in different ways.
Without a consciousness, a conceiver, there would be no pieces of wood that had been turned into meter sticks because, in part, the concept of space would not exist. So, would/does space also exist physically? Stay tuned.
