It appears to me that Grey and Ken G are dancing back and forth across this fuzzy border between (frontier) physics and metaphysics, with regards to the "nature of reality". In general, from my experiencing the natural world as a scientist I fall behind Grey's point of view. Whatever an electron or proton or photon "really is", there are physical phenomena which behave and interact as these "things" do. At the same time, it is a virtual certainty that we will learn still more about their natures in the future.

To a physicist (or scientist in general), reality is what kicks back when we kick it. With our physicist hat on, we don't care what "reality really is" beyond our ability to build a model that accurately predicts how nature behaves (kicks back). Metaphysicians (or philosophers) delve into questions of "well, but what does it mean?" or "what is it, really?" or even wonder whether such questions are meaningful in the universe we live in. However, as noted by Ken G (if I understood correctly), most people who aren't scientists don't understand that these really are separate issues. So I think he is "raising the consciousness" here on this forum. Those are cool questions to wonder about as long as you don't go too far overboard "waxing Platonic" (unless you don't believe in any semblance of objective reality). And one should also keep in mind that metaphysicians don't have laboratories.