Modern Physics = Obsession with Measurement. Why?

The previous post Newton's Mechanics Does Not Require Absolute Space and Time recalled Newton's warning to physicists in the introduction to Principia Mathematica:

• Do not confound confound real quantities themselves with their relations and vulgar measures.

Modern physics has done the opposite in both theory of relativity and quantum mechanics as its two pillars. 

Einstein focussed in his Special Theory of Relativity SR from 1905 on coordination of measurements of space and time in different inertial coordinate systems moving with constant velocity with respect to each other, using rigid rods and standard clocks as devices, and discovered entirely new phenomena of space contraction and time dilation never heard of before. 

Bohr reduced quantum mechanics to what can be measured and then faced a seemingly unsurmountable  measurement problem. 

So both Einstein and Bohr focussed on (vulgar) measures of quantities and not quantities themselves in direct negation of Newton's warning. 

Newton viewed physics to be independent of human measurements in an understanding that the Moon follows its path around the Earth even when we cannot see it. That the world/mother continues to exist even when eyes are closed, is something a child gradually discovers. 

But Bohr can only speak about things he can measure and says that anything beyond that is hidden to our perception and understanding. An electron is not in any specific state before measurement, which in fact decides the state after measurement (like spin up or down). 

How is it possible that Bohr's view is passionately embraced by modern physicists, when it is so utterly childish? Of course the world in general goes around without any human observation/measurement.

Of course a "quantities themselves" must have a meaning in the sense that this is needed to make the world evolve from an interplay of quantities, without assistance of human observers. 

The idea of quantum mechanics that atomic reality is decided by measurement originates from the fact that the very act of measurement has an impact on the state of an atom, as a form of destructive test. In macroscopic physics this effect can usually be discarded making measurement non-destructive. 

Quantum mechanics comes with another confusing element in the shape of a multi-dimensional wave function, which has no direct physical meaning, only some statistical meaning. Measuring the wave function is thus impossible and so according to Bohr we would not be able to speak of it, but this is the favourite theme of a modern physicist. 

We recall that a mathematical model describes some physics in concise terms, like Newton's Law of Gravitation studied in recent posts:

•  $\Delta\phi =\rho$,                           (NG)

where $\phi$ is gravitational potential and $\rho$ mass density. (NG) connects two quantities which are quantities themselves (potential and mass) and we can speak about these quantities without having to measure them (which can be difficult). Physical laws thus involve quantities themselves with measured quantities being secondary. 

But we can compute quantities themselves by solving equations like (NG), and so discover their nature without measurement. Computing can be seen as a form of non-destructive testing. An obsession with computing could then be productive. But the many-dimensional wave function is uncomputable.

Paraphrasing Bohr we can say that we can only speak about quantities which can be computed. 

Real Quantum Mechanics gives a new formulation of quantum mechanics in terms of quantities themselves in the form of charge densities and potentials, which are computable.  

Many-Minds Relativity gives an alternative to SR which conforms to the SI standard of meter and second.

PS The ultimate expression of obsession of measurement is the proclaimed detection of gravity waves by LIGO (Nobel Prize in Physics 2017) resulting from the most violent physical event possible (collision of two black holes) supposed to send an echo reaching Earth 1.3 billions of years later, a signal so faint that detection required an accuracy smaller than the width of a human hair over the distance from Earth to the nearest star!