Beyond the quark what else is there? Is a pure physicalism condemned to spiral down infinitely into an abyss of relatively more physical particles/structures/strings? What becomes of substance in such a scenario? Is there a "stuff" that everything is made of, or is everything made up of geometrical patterns in a 4D spacetime? We need an ontology of pure pattern--of structure or order imposed on the nothingness of an infinitely insubstantial void. Mathematics? Pure physicalism = idealism? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
We need theories that accord with the results of experiments. That's science. Everything beyond that is metaphysics.
There is only energy and time. Matter is energy. Space without time does not exist, nor does space exist as we understand it for energy. Time does not exist without the continuous motion of virtual energy and fields of the vacuum. String theory tried to avoid infinities associated with certain parts of quantum physics and in doing so left behind all bindings to scientific reality that could ever be subject to experimental verification. They gained the ability to explain anything and everything they want simply by tweaking a few free parameters, but so what? Any fortune teller can perform the same basic trick, with the same general technique; start with what you know is true and work backwards. This isn't science. It's a variant of a mathematical technique that used to be called "checking your calculation by using a different method." A scientific theory of how the universe works needs bindings to reality precisely because mathematics has no obligation either to observe or require such limits. I think I would have preferred Zweig's "aces" or Feynman's "partons" instead of "quarks" too, but for whatever reason, Gell-Mann and James Joyce won the right to name them.
Setting eternalism aside (i.e., presentism is the reigning philosophy of time dogma that the person on the street wallows in, so why bother examining the situation from a rival perspective...) "Stuff" was originally derived from the felt, extended, manifested, qualitative material (physical phenomena) that disappears after the cessation of cognition and sensory affairs (death). So perhaps this is a consciousness agent's way of concretely / tangibly representing and mapping those rule-following influences or environmental energies that affect it (powers, forces, fields, etc). The latter thus normally without such shown evidence and minus descriptive, reasoned evidence; and supposedly constantly at work in the otherwise mind-independent nothingness. Philosophically, "substance" is something that subsists in itself, that relational / contingent affairs (accidents, attributes) can inhere in. As far as naturalism goes, the only substance which is so free from interdependence seems to be the whole of nature itself considered as a self-contained system. The ultimate indivisible monad which perversely does have hordes of discriminated and decomposable items within itself, however; or at least as experienced in perception / intellect. Julian Barbour: "My laws make more precise Carlo Rovelli’s two principles: time does not exist, space does not exist. He argues that the universe is a network of relations and not a game played out on some invisible arena of absolute space and time such as Newton postulated. I agree but believe it is important to formulate precisely the manner in which the universe is relational." http://edge.org/responses/whats-your-law
LONDON: Until 2012, nobody was certain it existed till the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced they had found the God Particle. Scientists now say that it is more likely than ever now that there must be particles smaller than Higgs particle "Nobody has seen them yet; particles that are smaller than the Higgs particle. However theories predict their existence, and now the most important of these theories have been critically tested," they said. The result: The existence of the yet unseen particles is now more likely than ever". The Higgs Boson is central part of the Standard Model of particle physics that describes how the world is constructed. According to the Standard Model, everything, from flowers and people to stars and planets, consists of just a few building blocks: matter particles. These particles are governed by forces mediated by force particles that make sure everything works as it should. The entire Standard Model also rests on the existence of a special kind of particle: the Higgs particle. This particle originates from an invisible field that fills up all space. Even when the universe seems empty this field is there. Without it, we would not exist, because it is from contact with the field that particles acquire mass. On 4 July 2012, at the CERN laboratory for particle physics, the theory was confirmed by the discovery of a Higgs particle. CERN's particle collider, LHC (Large Hadron Collider), is probably the largest and the most complex machine ever constructed by humans. Last year, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics to Peter Higgs after whom the particle is named. But in a new twist, Thomas Ryttov, particle physicist and associate professor at the Centre for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology refers to the theories, that over the last five years have been put forward for the existence of particles in the universe that are smaller than the Higgs particle. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...woD4Dg&usg=AFQjCNHuBBjg5Bdyry8zZSVG-DTt71Ud-A
