>>13760155>>13760185I think there is a bigger problem here:
>physical meaningPhilosophically, the physical universe doesn't give a shit what you think it "means". It is, and it moves. And it can kill you if you fuck around.
In physics, it doesn't matter what's "there", or what "exists", much less what "meaning" some theory has. All that matters is, that in your experience, you can correctly identify (usually) when a concept/theory is applicable, and thus make predictions with it. That is the entire point of physics as a field, and QFT is just a sub-field of that. There is no distinction to be made between "shorthands" that are part of some algorithm, or "actual", "real", "primitive" values that, in some sense, "directly" represent some "component". The study of physics and the theories we describe it with are practically nothing more than the refined perception of its scientists, and a body of literature documenting the refined perception of even more scientists.
To try to meaningfully distinguish between the "actual" physical world, and the gestalt that is physics as a field, has proven to be futile. Such distinctions are not only poorly defined: they are poorly conceived. In particular, ideas never have shown any sort of intrinsic physical "validity", and yet these particular ideas make that very assertion about themselves. This is an irreconcilable contradiction, and theories WITHOUT contradictions have consistently proven to be better at predicting the world, for some reason.
If you want to learn about QFT, or anything in physics, you ultimately need to be open to an arbitrary conception of how the world works. If you get caught up in details about "physicality", "terms" and "meaning" instead of focusing on letting it shape your expectations of how you experience reality, you're gonna have a bad time.
