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johnclark comments on Were atoms real? - Less Wrong
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Are atoms real? Whatever the answer to that question is imagine if it were exchanged, that is suppose that magically the reality of atoms became unreal or the reality of atoms became real, would the world be in any way different as a result? I think the clear answer is no, therefore regardless of what the status of atoms may ultimately be, the question "Are atoms real?" is not real because real things make a difference and unreal things do not.
John K Clark
If I thought that atoms were unreal, I would not expect to be able to photograph them. I also wouldn't expect a single atom to be capable of casting a shadow. That's some ways (and there are many more) that I could be wrong about atoms being unreal mere pedagogical tools.
Could you give me an example of something that is real?
Whatever substrate supports the computation inscribing your consciousness would be necessarily real, under whatever sense the word "real" could possibly have useful meaning. ("I think; thinking is an algorithm; therefore something is, in order to execute that algorithm.")
Interestingly, proposing a Tegmark multiverse makes the deepest substrate of consciousness "mathematics."