[drdeca]

Sometimes nature tells us that the questions we are inclined to ask, are flawed questions.

The “What path did the photon take?” question is one of those times. The answer to the question is Mu.

Similar to the questions “How much phlogiston is there in iron?” or “Does sulphur have more earth than air, or more air than earth?”.

[albatross79]

But the question is "what is the universe made of?", and the answer given is "mathematical abstractions that fit the data".

[drdeca]

Asking what it “is made of” seems like a somewhat ambiguous question to me. Still, the answer would not be “mathematical abstractions that fit the data”, but “these mathematical abstractions”. (And, there is a lot of meaning behind these “abstractions”. For example, there is a close correspondence between the Higgs mechanism for mass and superconductivity.)

Really, what possible answer could you ask for that wouldn’t be of this form?

When you describe an idea sufficiently precisely, you do mathematics; that’s almost what mathematics is.

It feels to me like complaints like yours tend to derive from an unwillingness to believe that things aren’t at their core made of solid objects or fluids or other stuff which behaves like macroscopic objects we have everyday experience with.

Can you describe an explanation that wouldn’t be like that but which (if it were true) you would find satisfying?

If you can’t describe how an explanation could (if it were true) satisfy you without being like that, then, if the universe isn’t like that, you have to be disappointed. And, in that case, again, I have to say, take it up with God.

On the other hand, if you can describe how an explanation (if it were true) could possibly satisfy you without saying “at its core, the universe works based on [behavior that you have plenty of physical intuition for based on your everyday interactions with macroscopic stuff]”, I would very much like to hear it.

[squeefers]

exactly. i yearn for more.