Dear Mauro
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. I would like to answer your questions and make some clarifications about your comments. Perhaps our views are not so different in principle.
You: which definitely is not a debate... ...opinion of two matter-realistic persons.
Indeed, it was never meant to be a debate between two opposite views because, as you can see, Alice has a few knowledge of the topic, actually she's not a physicist. In this sense she just represents an ordinary layman as one of the 7 billion on this earth and therefore she is an ordinary realist who thinks that physicists are getting out of their minds believing that the universe is only a huge computer dealing with bits. However, as any other layman who has vague ideas of how science is done, she keeps her mind open to probably accept these unusual ideas insofar as they sound "reasonable" (of course, if her knowledge of the topic is poor, they would not sound reasonable). On the contrary, Bob is a professional physicist who knows how both theoretical physics and science are done. He doesn't swallow all that he hears in the media or even among his colleagues. Although he is open minded, he is also very critical. He then exposes a general point of view of the case. Since what matters in contemporary physics is not to find physical descriptions of observations that satisfy our intuition but only to quantitatively reproduce data with mathematical models, he thinks that whether information or matter are considered as fundamental ingredients of the universe is just a matter of semantics or of convention, or even of commodity. He thinks that information (and even the whole of math) is just another sort of ontology, another mental tool among the myriad of options. However, as many other physicists, he's really worried about the present situation, because he understands that the way (pragmatic) physics has been done in the last century has led physics to an apparent dead end. He reflects that the old way of doing physics, based on ontologies, was so successful and he doesn't find any reason to discard it from science. So he thinks that is worth keeping with this tradition. Since for him, the "it from bit" approach is just another approach, he thinks that is worth continuing with the "bit from it" approach. And to show the power of such approach he gives an example that seems to be promising not only to get out of the present conundrum but also to build a theory that is in agreement with "common sense". The latter offers the advantage that is easily accessible to Alice (and the other 7 billion) because there is no need of changing her mind. So when you say: From this I infer that there is little hope of convincing you. I can only reply that I concur with Bob's view. As you can see he's not realist, he's scientist and open minded. He only sees that the "bit from it" approach has more potential to solve the present problems.
You: What we observe IS NOT what... ...we believe is outside the cave.
In seems that in essence we are in agreement, I'd like to add my view just for completeness. We should recognize that the ontology is constructed in the mind of a person based on the "shadow" alias "raw data". And as I said before, raw data can have many interpretations which depend in general on the theoretical framework where we situate the data. But without a doubt the theoretical framework is constructed from ontologies and/or abstract objects such as math. That's why math is also some sort of ontology. The theoretical framework has no meaning if it has no relation to observations, this is why physics is considered a factual science, otherwise it would be pure philosophy or applied math. The previous lines remind me of the famous subject-object problem from the theory of knowledge which can be summarized as follows: The knowledge of an object is subjected to the appreciation of the subject. In order to know the object the subject has to observe it and the process of observation (as quantum mechanics teach us) affects the pristine state of the object. At the end what we observe is not the object (i.e. reality) but the outcome of the interaction with the object (raw data). Therefore observations (the shadow) constitutes our reality (ontology, whether "real" or "abstract").
You: The shut up and calculate is on the opposite side of operationalism. Thanks for clarifying, I apologize for this, I misunderstood operationalism and confused it with pragmatism.
Thanks for the book recommendation. Indeed, I agree that the notion of particle is expiring and perhaps the quantum cellular automaton extension to QFT is a feasible solution but as I said that doesn't mean that we have to replace the "it" for the "bit". And I would like to insists that it is not necessary to throw out the baby with the bath water. That the notion of the particle needs some amendments is clear but from this it doesn't follow that we have to give up the idea that matter is the essential substance of the universe. I'd like to make clear that although particle is by definition related to matter the opposite is not in general true.
You: About "common sense"... ... explanation of the entanglement.
No yet, but the reconceptualization of particle offers a solution that will eventually lead to a general consensus. Some colleagues are working on this, you'll hear about it soon.
You: Yes, the quantum system--the qubit--is an abstract notion, as it the notion of bit. But nowadays, in the everyday life, it seems more practical than the notion of particle, don't you think?
If we leave the notion of particle untouched, the answer is yes, otherwise it's no.
Finally, I'd like to congratulate you in advance because I'm sure you are again one of the winners.
Best Regards
Israel