Many physicists understand quantum mechanics as a theory that ushers in a showdown with respect to the understanding of reality offered by classical physics. These people point to quantum mechanical concepts like ‘quantum state’, ‘entanglement’, and ‘decoherence’, which they think truly represent reality very different from the one subscribed to in classical physics and everyday life. The chapter begins with a presentation of what these various concepts mean and of how the relatively new concept ‘decoherence’ is thought to stand for the dynamics which can account for the quantum–classical transition. Some claim based on a particular interpretation of decoherence, that the classical world—and thereby the manifest image—is a mere illusionary appearance. Where Bohr saw quantum mechanics as a theory concerned with atomic entities as they appear to us, many contemporary physicists believe that quantum mechanics represents the world as it is in itself. The chapter discusses both views in detail and then argues that any viable ontology must also account for the existence of alleged simulacra as parts of reality. How the macroscopic world appears to us is also a fact of the world which quantum mechanics cannot explain, and which cannot be ignored if the scientific image should be a complete representation. Quantum mechanics cannot account for qualitative appearances (neither dependently nor independently of human consciousness) or the nature of consciousness as such. This excludes it from representing the whole reality.