But it still hurts when you kick a rock.<p>The article is trite hand waving. Of course we parse the world through symbols, but the symbols are shorthand for consistent, predictable experiences.<p>Does it matter if the physical experiences are created by physical objects in the Newtonian sense, or by quantum fields?<p>Not at all. Because if you drive a car into a wall fast enough you&#x27;re still going to die. And so is everyone else who drives the same kind of car into the same kind of wall at the same speed.<p>If it turned out that the knowledge that your experience of reality is symbolic gave you the power to shape quantum fields directly, that would be an interesting thing.<p>Most humans don&#x27;t experience reality in that way. (Writers of New Age books try to say otherwise, but there&#x27;s no evidence they&#x27;re right.)<p>The casual arrow of symbolic perception goes in one direction, from outside to in. So unless you have some way to hack the symbols and the experience they create, this kind of &quot;explanation&quot; is irrelevant.