Err no! He says that ‘real’ means something like causally accessible from where we are.
Yes. He has several paragraphs where he points out that the usual understandings of ‘real’ are incoherent in his ‘equations’ framework, and only then goes on to suggest a new and entirely different sort of ‘real’, which isn’t quite causally accessible (since remember, he’s previously arguing for a Parmenidean 4D block-universe) but more one of definition:
Most importantly, they would think and say so for the same sort of reag
son as we do, a reason that must be rooted in the equations themselves
(because the equations themselves ultimately specify every detail of those
thoughts and words), without recourse to any spark of existence. And
even if we did not carry out the computation of what the alternative equa-
tions specify—even if those equations were left out in the cold, unnoticed
and unexamined—those equations would still be specifying a universe in
which intelligent beings perceived and spoke of what they thought is a
spark of existence, just as we do, and for the same reasons.
As with the gravity hypothesis in the mirror-asymmetry paradox back in
section 1.2.3, it becomes superfluous to hypothesize a spark of existence,
that is, some kind of grounding that distinguishes a real universe from an
unrealized set of equations. It is superfluous because the ungrounded equa-
tions must already specify organisms who perceive their universe as real
(i.e., who perceive the apparent spark), just as we do, and for the same rea-
sons that we do. Those perceptions are already inherent in the equations
themselves.
Yes. He has several paragraphs where he points out that the usual understandings of ‘real’ are incoherent in his ‘equations’ framework, and only then goes on to suggest a new and entirely different sort of ‘real’, which isn’t quite causally accessible (since remember, he’s previously arguing for a Parmenidean 4D block-universe) but more one of definition: