My approach is that everything is equally real, just not everything is equally useful. In a meta level, talking about what’s more real is not useful outside a specific setting. Unicorns are real in MLP, cars are real in the world we perceive, electrons are real in Quantum Electrodynamics, virtual particles are real in Feynman diagrams, agents are real in decision theories, etc.
My approach is that everything is equally real, just not everything is equally useful. In a meta level, talking about what’s more real is not useful outside a specific setting. Unicorns are real in MLP, cars are real in the world we perceive, electrons are real in Quantum Electrodynamics, virtual particles are real in Feynman diagrams, agents are real in decision theories, etc.