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Catching Without Explaining On the Undefined
Primitives of Physics and the Ontological Demand Behind Quantum Gravity By Bodhangkur Abstract Modern
physics exhibits a paradoxical character: it produces predictive structures
of unsurpassed accuracy while systematically refusing to define the
primitives upon which these structures depend. From Newtonian force to
Einsteinian spacetime and the quantum wavefunction, the constitutive terms of
our most successful theories remain undefended and undefined. Theories
“catch” the behavioural regularities of nature but do not “explain” the
nature that behaves. This essay analyses the structural incompleteness of
major physical theories, argues that the central project of quantum gravity
is the demand for ontological grounding, and considers how a monist
procedural ontology—represented here by Finn’s “Procedure Monism”—illustrates
what an explanatory framework would require. 1. Introduction: The Distinction Between Behavioural
Models and Ontological Accounts Philosophy
of science has long distinguished empirical adequacy from ontological
completeness. A theory may predict all observable outcomes while failing
to articulate what the theory is about. Bas van Fraassen’s
constructive empiricism sharpened this distinction, yet physicists have
tacitly operated with it for centuries. This
distinction is captured metaphorically as follows: ·
Catching a fish = producing correct
predictions of observable behaviour. ·
Explaining a fish =
providing an account of what the “fish” (the underlying physical reality) is. Most of
physics is dominated by the former and systematically silent about the
latter. The silence is neither accidental nor provisional; it is structural. 2. Newtonian Mechanics: Precision Without Ontology Newtonian
physics is the paradigmatic behavioural theory. It provides: ·
The second law: ·
A universal law of gravitation: ·
Solutions to planetary motion accurate to
arc-seconds over centuries. Yet
Newton refuses to define its primitives. Force, mass, inertia, and
gravitational action-at-a-distance are treated as givens. Newton
explicitly rejects ontological explanation: Hypotheses
non fingo — “I frame no hypotheses.” He
“catches the fish”—predicts motion, acceleration, force interactions—but he
does not “explain the fish”—define the nature of force, mass, or space. This
incompleteness is more than a philosophical curiosity: Newtonian gravity
cannot be quantised precisely because it lacks an underlying mechanism. Its
primitives are empirically constructed but ontologically vacant. 3. Maxwell and the Field Concept: A Formal Success
Without Substance Maxwell’s
equations provide a deeper unification than Newton’s laws, reducing
electricity, magnetism, and optics to a single field concept. But again: ·
What is a field? ·
How can empty space possess energy? ·
What is the “medium” of propagation? The
field, as fuzz word, is introduced
axiomatically. Its “existence” is a formal placeholder, not an
ontological commitment. Maxwell’s theory, later reinterpreted in terms of Lagrangian densities, still leaves its primitive
undefined. Thus Maxwell’s electrodynamics
catches fish (light, radiation, induction) with unprecedented accuracy but
provides no anatomy of the fish. Fields remain undefined structures whose
behaviour is known but whose nature is unspecified. 4. Quantum Mechanics: Predictive Omnipotence and
Ontological Silence Quantum
theory intensifies the pattern. The wavefunction ·
predicts interference, entanglement, spectra, and
tunnelling; ·
is experimentally “perfect”; ·
but has no agreed interpretation. Is The most
honest statement is still Feynman’s: “Nobody
understands quantum mechanics.” Quantum
mechanics is the most powerful net ever constructed—capable of predicting atomic
transitions to twelve decimal places—yet the nature of its “fish,” the
quantum state, remains wholly unresolved. The
measurement problem exists precisely because the theory has no ontological
primitives. 5. General Relativity: Geometry Without Substance Einstein’s
General Relativity (GR) is often taken as an ontologically robust framework:
spacetime curves in response to mass-energy, and matter follows geodesics. Yet
Einstein does not define “space” or “time.” Thus the words are fudges/fuzzy! This
metric is assumed, not explained. Einstein's
own later writings attest to his unease: “Time and
space are modes by which we think, not conditions in which we live.” Thus even GR—our best
description of gravity—catches the motion of planets and black holes but does
not explain the substance of spacetime itself. 6. Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics: The
Problem of Energy Thermodynamics
introduces energy, entropy, temperature, and heat as primitives. “Energy” is
defined circularly as “the capacity to do work.” Entropy resists ontological
grounding despite Boltzmann’s statistical interpretation. Energy,
the most central quantity in physics, lacks an ontological definition. Even
in Noether’s theorem, “energy conservation” is a statement about symmetry,
not about the thing that is conserved. Thus thermodynamics and
statistical mechanics predict macroscopic phenomena but do not say what
energy is. 7. Modern Quantum Field Theory: Renormalised Precision
on an Ontological Void Quantum Field
Theory (QFT) is the most exact theoretical framework ever created. Yet its
primitives—fields, vacuum, virtual particles—are all undefined.
Renormalisation, the process required to make calculations finite, is
mathematically ambiguous and physically opaque. QFT
achieves absolute precision, but its ontological status is: ·
provisional, ·
heuristic, and ·
structurally incomplete. It
catches fish with total reliability but cannot describe a single fish’s
composition. 8. Cosmology: Predicting on Unknown Substrates Cosmological
models rely on: ·
dark matter (~27%) ·
dark energy (~68%) These are
placeholders for unknown entities. The ΛCDM model predicts large-scale structure,
CMB fluctuations, and expansion history but presupposes two undefined
components that constitute 95% of the universe. We catch
cosmic fish, but we do not know the species. 9. The Central Problem: Undefined Primitives Make
Unification Impossible The
pattern across physics is clear: every major theory introduces undefined
primitives—mass, force, field, wavefunction, energy, spacetime metric—and
builds predictive formalisms atop them. Quantum
gravity seeks not merely to unify GR and QM mathematically but to replace
undefined primitives with ontological structure. Without
defining: ·
what spacetime is, ·
what quantum states are, ·
what measurement is, ·
what matter is, the two
theories cannot be reconciled. Their primitives are incompatible
placeholders. Thus quantum gravity is not just
a further attempt to “catch fish”; it is the first serious attempt to explain
what fish are made of. 10. Procedural Ontology as an Illustration: Finn’s
Procedure Monism Although
physics traditionally avoids ontological grounding, a coherent ontology can
be proposed. Finn’s “Procedure Monism” is one example of such an attempt. It
is not invoked here as authoritative but as a clear illustration of what
ontological grounding could look like. Procedure
Monism posits: 1. A single
universal procedure (UP) that generates all identifiable entities. 2. Emergents (particles, fields,
spacetime intervals) as transient iterations of that procedure. 3. Time as the
ordering of procedural updates. 4. Space as the
differentiable structure created by interaction constraints. 5. Matter as
locally stable configurations of the procedure. 6. Measurement as a
contact event between procedural states. This
framework defines what other theories leave undefined. It provides: ·
an ontological substrate, ·
a definition of identity, ·
an account of measurement, ·
a grounding for spacetime and quantum behaviour. The point
is not to defend Procedure Monism but to note: It offers
the type of ontological specification that physics lacks
and quantum gravity seeks. Procedure
Monism does not simply catch fish; it defines the fish, the water, and the
net as manifestations of a single, rule-bound process. 11. Conclusion: Predictive Power Without Ontological
Clarity Physics
has produced a succession of extraordinarily successful theories—each capable
of catching fish with increasing finesse. Yet none has defined: ·
the nature of space, ·
the nature of time, ·
the nature of matter, ·
the nature of energy, ·
the nature of information. Quantum
gravity is the conceptual reckoning with this fact. It is the shift from
operational prediction to ontological explanation. Thus the state of contemporary
physics can be summarised: Physics
predicts impeccably how the universe behaves, And in
this silence lies both the crisis and the promise of future theory. Catching (Observing) not Explaining |
