Necessary Thing

[downbeatplumb]

Sure, OK thanks. This explains a lot about why I couldn't understand earlier.

Well, I couldn't possibly say. As far as I know quarks are the smallest component, although I think it's the case that ultimately everything exists as a probability field, as per quantum mechanics. When you get down to the real small parts, things stop being so clear cut as just "stuff" and start becoming increasingly abstract and weird. I don't have a great grasp of QM but we have plenty of people here who do. There's also wave/particle duality and such.

Can you keep on going, indefinitely? Maybe you can. Maybe reality is like a fractal. Again, I don't think you can rule this out. You'd be assuming some sort of "end point", without ever being able to test that it really is an end point and not just the limitations of your technique.

My objection though is that you're ignoring the possibility that a potential "smallest thing" could still have some indirect dependency on something else. Let's say item A1 has a corresponding object A2 in a parallel reality or something; and if object A2 were to be destroyed, this would cause object A1 to also be destroyed. So even if it's not dependent on anything in the manner you describe, we can't rule out some sort of weird dependency like this.

We have no reason to necessarily rule it in, either. But if you're making general statements of fact, you need to be able to exclude all alternatives with certainty. Science doesn't ever deal with certainty, because it's not a useful concept. It deals with conclusions that appear to be true beyond reasonable doubt.

There is also evidence required to support any idea, saying that something is "needed" requires some sort of proof to justify it. I have said that time and space are needed, we know that both of these things exist. The problem starts when people try to infer something that has no supporting evidence is a thing and shoehorns that into a view of reality. I am thinking here of anything that calls on the supernatural, gods, ghosts, souls or any other such nonsense, none of which has any evidence backing them up.