In contemporary physics, particles are not treated as fundamental objects. Within quantum field theory, what we call a “particle” is understood as an excitation of an underlying field. The field is primary; the particle is a localised mode of activity within it.
This framework is articulated rigorously in standard formulations of quantum field theory and synthesised in texts such as Quantum Field Theory by Michael E. Peskin and Daniel V. Schroeder.
The ontological shift is precise: what appears as a discrete object is, formally, a structured excitation of a continuous field.
Field Primacy
For each type of particle, there exists a corresponding quantum field. The electron field, for example, permeates spacetime. An “electron” is not a tiny billiard ball embedded in this field. It is a quantised excitation of that field.
Remove the excitation, and nothing remains at that location except the field in its ground state. The field does not disappear when particles vanish. It is the condition of their possibility.
The structure is therefore:
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Field as structured potential
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Excitation as localised actualisation
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Persistence as dynamical stability
No external instruction produces the excitation. It arises according to the dynamical equations governing the field.
Excitation as Stabilised Mode
An excitation is not arbitrary fluctuation. Most perturbations dissipate. Only certain configurations satisfy the stability conditions defined by the field’s dynamics and symmetries.
The particle is thus:
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A permissible mode of oscillation
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Quantised by the structure of the field
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Persistent relative to surrounding fluctuations
It is a stabilised relational configuration.
Importantly, this is not metaphor. It is formal physics. The particle has no independent ontological status apart from the field. Its properties — mass, charge, spin — are parameters of the field’s structure and symmetry group.
What persists is not substance, but patterned excitation.
Thickening Without Anthropomorphism
A relational description may cautiously observe structural resonance here.
If a field is structured potential, and if excitation is a localised, dynamically stabilised mode of that potential, then persistence emerges from the internal dynamics of the system rather than from imposed external design.
Again:
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No blueprint
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No instruction
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No representation
Only lawful dynamical evolution.
However, strict limits are required.
Quantum field excitation is governed by mathematical symmetries and interaction terms specified in Lagrangians. It does not involve selection in the biological sense. It does not involve value modulation. It does not involve construal. It is entirely non-semiotic.
The resonance with neural selection and cosmological filament formation lies solely in structural pattern:
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A field of possibility
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Differential stabilisation
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Emergent persistence
Beyond that, the domains diverge.
Where the Resonance Stops
Quantum fields are not metaphors for ontology. Nor is ontology reducible to physics.
The claim is narrower.
Physics itself now treats what appears as discrete substance as dynamically stabilised excitation of an underlying field. Objecthood is derivative. Field structure is primary.
That formal move — from substance to structured potential — is ontologically significant.
Persistence, again, is stabilised relation.
Meaning does not arise here. Construal is absent. This is a non-symbolic domain. But it demonstrates, with maximal austerity, that discrete endurance can emerge from structured potential without external instruction.
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