  To what extent does the black hole information paradox lead to violations of
quantum mechanics? I explain how black hole complementarity provides a
framework to articulate how quantum characterizations of black holes can remain
consistent despite the information paradox. I point out that there are two ways
to cash out the notion of consistency in play here: an operational notion and a
descriptive notion. These two ways of thinking about consistency lead to (at
least) two principles of black hole complementarity: an operational principle
and a descriptive principle. Our background philosophy of science regarding
realism/instrumentalism might initially lead us to prefer one principle over
the other. However, the recent physics literature, which applies tools from
quantum information theory and quantum computational complexity theory to
various thought experiments involving quantum systems in or around black holes,
implies that the operational principle is successful where the descriptive
principle is not. This then lets us see that for operationalists the black hole
information paradox might no longer be pressing.
