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StrangeQuarkMatter

To be clear, I am not asking whether or not atoms exist. Of course what we call "atoms" exist, what do you think I am? Some kind of drooling, mouth breathing troglodyte cretin dullard? No, I am talking about the idea that the fundamental nature of reality consists of quantifiable units, of particles or strings rather than fields. Are these things oscillations of the field or is the universe just a bag of magic teleporting particles? Is mother nature a cross eyed, deranged crack head with a bag of magic particles that appear and dissapear at random and a calculator or is it the FIELD that is fundamental?

Fredsnephew

The existence of matter, cannot explain the nature of reality.

Whereas knowing the nature of reality, would explain the existence of matter.


At this moment in time the nature of reality, remains a magical mystery.

StrangeQuarkMatter

@Fredsnephew
I like your response, good answer. 

EmeryPearson

I would say any theory of thought which excludes a possibilities isn't a good tool for discovery.

I would take the Scientific Method over Atomism.

MayCaesar

The idea that the world consists of atoms is a model, a way to represent the observable phenomena in a concise and consistent way that can be easily parsed by a human mind. I do not think how "fundamental" it is in nature is a reasonable question to ask: any fundamentalism in nature is necessarily connected to our thinking process. Nature is what it is, it is the categorization of it performed by our brains that gives it a describable representation.

If there is another species somewhere else in the Universe, with a completely different society and completely different brains, then it is very possible that they do not see the world as consisting of atoms; they might have a completely different model that still gives accurate practical predictions. For example, they could immediately jump at a superstring-like theory, bypassing the atomic science entirely. Or maybe their scientific progress went in a way that cannot be easily understood by our human brains. In any case, I do not think "fundamental" properties of the world exist on their own; they need a thinking observer to be categorized as such.