Exactly. I liken things most often to metaphors. I believe
   humans only understand things via metaphors layered on top of
   metaphors.

   The more metaphors (or analogies) we use, the more we're able to
   comprehend.

   Good metaphors/analogies are functional; they "do stuff'.
   Numbers are a GREAT metaphor for stuff; they're very flexible
   and can describe many things very well.

   Words are great metaphors for stuff, also very flexible and can
   describe many things very well.

   So for me, in that sense, "all is metaphor" works, keeping in
   mind that being a metaphor does not make it "unreal" or
   "untouchable" or "unusable" or "invisible", rather, it
   acknowledges that our human understanding is completely linked
   to our perceptions of reality, and the better the metaphor, the
   more repeatable it becomes, making it something useful we can do
   stuff with.

   It's not that we "create reality"; we're not that amazing.

   But it's the map vs territory thing: we map the territory as we
   go along and can ONLY understand the Universe via the maps we
   use. They're forever linked together, both in ourselves and in
   the machines we create with those metaphors, like computers and
   such. Functional, useful, practical, physical. Still metaphors.
   Still useful.