“Physicists Catch Fish. They Still Don’t Know What a Fish Is.”

By Finn

Let me put it bluntly:
Modern physics is the world’s most sophisticated fish-catching operation.

It has nets of unimaginable precision: Newtonian nets, Maxwellian nets, quantum nets, Einsteinian nets, quantum field nets.
They catch fish at every scale—from electrons to galaxies—without ever bothering to ask what the fish is made of.

Physicists adore their nets. They polish them, optimise them, write grant proposals about them, publish in Nature about them, but the one thing they never do is look at the fish and say:

“Sorry, but what exactly are you?”

Because they don’t know.
And they don’t like to admit it.

1. Newton: The Gentleman Angler Who Refused to Dissect His Catch

Newton gave us force, mass, inertia, and gravity.

He caught planets, comets, apples—everything.

Did he explain what any of those things are?
No.

He muttered:

Hypotheses non fingo
Translation:
“Don’t ask me awkward questions.”

Newton catches fish.
Newton does not explain fish.

2. Maxwell: Fish Everywhere, Fields Nowhere

Maxwell invented the electromagnetic field.
A masterpiece—like casting a net and finding dolphins, tuna, and starlight in it.

What is a field?
Shrug. A mathematical incantation.

Modern physicists still have no idea.
But they act as though “field” is a revelation rather than a placeholder.

Maxwell catches fish.
Maxwell does not explain fish.

3. Quantum Mechanics: A Net So Good It Hides the Fish

Quantum mechanics is the greatest fish-catcher ever invented.

But the wavefunction—the heart of the theory—isn’t understood by anyone.

Is it real?
Is it knowledge?
Is it a ghost?
A probability cloud?
A bookkeeping trick?
A cosmic joke?

Physics textbooks carefully dance around the issue, because if they didn’t, students would realise the entire formalism floats on a swamp of undefined primitives.

QM catches fish that shouldn’t even exist.
QM does not explain fish.

4. Einstein: Spacetime Without a Pulse

General relativity claims:

· Space bends.

· Time stretches.

· Mass tells geometry how to curve.

Beautiful. Elegant.
But what are space and time actually made of?

Einstein never said.
He defined neither.

He gave rules for clocks and rulers and wrapped them in a manifold, then quietly slipped out the back door when asked what spacetime is.

Einstein catches fish with curved nets.
Einstein does not explain fish.

5. Thermodynamics, Energy, and Other Ghosts

Energy—physics’ favourite word—has no definition.
Entropy is a philosophical headache dressed as a formula.

Temperature?
A convenient fiction for emergent statistical averages.

Thermodynamics catches fish (steam engines! refrigerators!).
But it doesn’t explain what energy is, why systems have entropy, or what “temperature” means beyond “stuff jiggles.”

6. Quantum Field Theory: Precision on Stilts

QFT is the ultimate fish-catcher.
It gets predictions right to 12 decimal places.

But its foundations?

· Virtual particles?

· Fields buzzing in “empty” space?

· Renormalisation (also known as “infinite fix-up surgery”)?

None of this is understood.
QFT is a magnificent cathedral built on conceptual quicksand.

QFT catches fish by the megaton.
QFT does not explain fish.

7. Cosmology: Our Net Is 95% Unknown Stuff

Dark matter. Dark energy.
Invisible, untouchable, undetectable (except gravitationally).

Modern cosmology says:

“Don’t worry. It’s fine. Trust us.”

Well, 95% of the universe is “we don’t know.”

Cosmology catches large-scale fish.
Cosmology does not explain fish.

8. Quantum Gravity: The First Honest Attempt to Look at the Fish

Now comes quantum gravity.

Suddenly physicists realise the problem:

· GR doesn’t define spacetime.

· QM doesn’t define measurement.

· QFT doesn’t define fields.

· Thermodynamics doesn’t define energy.

They’re trying to unify two theories that don’t know what their own primitives are.

Thus quantum gravity becomes the first scientific project that openly admits:

“Our nets work.
But we have no idea what we’re fishing for.”

And so they try:
Strings, loops, causal sets, spin foams, holograms, entanglement geometries—each one a proposal for what the fish might be made of.

Still no consensus.

9. The Druid Laughs: Here Comes Procedure Monism

Finn comes strolling out of the Wicklow hills, staff in hand, looks at the whole circus and says:

“Your nets are lovely.
But they’re empty.”

Then he does something physicists avoid:
He defines the primitives.

He says:

· There is one Procedure.

· Everything is its iteration.

· Identity is contact stability.

· Time is update order.

· Space is the pattern of interactions.

· Particles are stable processes.

· Measurement is a contact-event.

In other words:

“The fish, the river, the net, the fisherman —
all one process.”

Agree or disagree, at least he explains the fish.

10. The Moral?

Modern physics is brilliant.
It predicts everything.
But explanation?
Ontology?
Definitions of its own terms? Fudges?

Nothing.

Physicists are virtuoso fish-catchers using nets they refuse to inspect.
Quantum gravity is the first attempt to inspect a net.
Procedure Monism is an attempt to inspect the fish.

And the druid sighs:

“Catching fish is not the same as explaining fish.
And explaining fish is not the same as understanding the ocean.”

Amen.

Fudge words and fuzziness

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