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> most physicists do believe that quantum fields are the most basic building block of our world Do they? Maybe most theoretical physicists, because that's what
by effie 4y ago
> most physicists do believe that quantum fields are the most basic building block of our world
Do they? Maybe most theoretical physicists, because that's what they work with, they often are platonists and there is no better model. I doubt the rest, in particular experimental physicists, have even solid one or the other way opinion on this. Ontology is too much philosophy and too little physics.
- bowsamic 4y agoThey do. Just because it's philosophy and not physics doesn't mean that they don't have a philosophical opinion on it. I agree it's not physics, doesn't mean people don't believe in it
- Eupraxias 4y agoAgreed, ontology is philosophy, not physics. It asks, what kinds of things exist? It straddles the line of the empirical and the conceptual, asking, do 'facts' exist, and can there be 'moral facts'? Here be dragons, and epistemology is the treasure. Physics reports observations of experiments and theoretical work, but wisely leaves epistemology to philosophers - a hard learned lesson. Einstein was ridiculed for his ontological realism, and the trend has been in the opposite direction ever since. I am interested in brave physicists who have stood up to the epistemologers, and are willing to make ontological commitments. In my understanding, historically, this attitude poses risks to one's career in physics.