[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
Because I'm essentially an empiricist, and based on what we know of physics and my interpretation of that, it seems that the universe is really just a big vibrating field. It's hard to know how or even if it can be legitimately separated. If it can be separated, this is only true to the level of fundamental particles.

Everything we interact with, everything the universe is composed of, is at its most discrete a particular configuration of fundamental particles. Therefore, any identity we ascribe to something above the level of fundamental particles is contingent - the question of whether the identity persists when the configuration of particles changes depends solely on the standard according to which the "identity" of the group of particles is evaluated.

(Note that I suspect that even fundamental particles aren't discrete and that even their "identities" are basically contingent at a physical level. Thus only the universal field can be said to have persistence, but time itself is a property of the univsersal field, so it doesn't really have persistence either.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I am very sympathetic to the claim that everything in the universe is composed of fundamental particles. So let us suppose that everything in the universe is composed of fundamental particles.

Those who believe in the existence and persistence of macro physical objects need not deny this (and probably most often do not), since composition is not the same relation as identity.

So how do we get from the claim that everything is composed of fundamental particles, to the claim that nothing persists that isn't at the level of fundamental particles?

It seems like you are, in fact, saying that persistence is incompatible with change. Is that the problem?

It also looks as though you aren't just making a claim about the persistence of objects, but also about the existence of objects. Is your view that the only objects that really exist are the fundamental particles (assuming they can be 'separated'), or the universe as a whole (if it's all just a big vibrating field, and the fundamental particles cannot be separated)?