Such “broadening” must have a inductive justification. If one follows this reconstruction through the perceptual origins/context of the concepts used in physical theories today one will find there is no justification inductively for such “widening” of the concepts and that the actual context the concepts were formed in pressuposes matter-entities always. Edit: added “entities”
In 1906 Lord Kelvin wrote:
"Young persons who have grown up in scientific work within the past fifteen or
twenty years seem to have forgotten that energy is not an absolute existence.
Even the Germans laugh at the “Energetikers”. I do not know even if Otswald
knows that energy is a capacity for doing work; and that work done implies
mutual force between different parts of one body relatively moveable or between
two bodies or two pieces of matter ,or between two atoms of matter,or between an
atom of matter and an electron,or, at the very least between two electrons"
Edit(the concept) material hierarchally is founded on matter.
I’d be interested in any inductive support for such “widening”. I haven’t been able to find anything but folks accepting “widened” concepts and declaring that the equations demand them.
Edit: also that entities are discreet is a consequence of identity. An unbounded entity is a contradiction.
Just wanted to add that divorcing a concept from it perceptual origin (the first level) is not a widening but a removal from context and ultimately reality.
The inductive justification would be the experimental evidence for non-locality in tests of Bell’s inequality, quantum tunneling, Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence, and the Pauli Exclusion Principle (and hence all of chemistry).
An entity is not unbounded when its existence asymptotically approaches zero at great distances.
From Dr. Peikoff, from my Notes on “Induction in Physics and Philosophy” Lecture 6:
From previous lecture, Occam’s Razor - “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” Utterly invalid. Versus “Concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” Rand’s Razor is epistemological while Occam’s is metaphysical. Concepts are tools that serve the purpose of cognition, choose to create a new tool only when that purpose is advanced. But Occam says “something doesn’t exist if something simpler can exist” ex. “there are no epicycles because we can get along without them” But foisting a criterion of simplicity upon reality is primacy of consciousness.
. . .
Q: Can philosophy say anything positive in physics? {Entity ontology?}
A: No. Entities are perceptually given but that does not imply that entities are the ultimate constituents of matter. There must be something, an existent, but that says very little.