Last time I had time to write a detailed physics post, I got to the point of declaring fields as the fundamental entities of nature. Since we can get particles from quantizing (certain kinds of) fields, and since the pointlike particles are confusing and paradoxical, we don’t really need them. Our basic theory of nature is then a (quantum) field theory.
Now, if you are contrarian, which I think everybody should be, you probably immediately think this is a rather dogmatic statement. We don’t really have a complete theory of nature yet, we haven’t unified gravity with quantum mechanics or explained consciousness, not to mention even finding the Higgs. As far as we know the universe may well be a computer, or it is human shaped, perhaps it is elephants (or turtles) all the way down, or angles dancing on a head of a pin. Wasn’t there also that theory of everything, something with a letter and a number? Once we get foundational and stuff, the possibilities are endless really…
Shores of the Dirac Sea 