[deleted]
An current emergency escape for theoretical physics is 'emergent properties':
A short message I posted in the 'Time to go Retro' blog for the purpose of adding it to my effort to unseat 'emergence' in place of cause from physics theory:
"...emergent properties -- derived from but more than the sum of the parts of the underlying substrates -- are just as 'real' as the components of the substrate. "
I would say more real than its components. The supposed emergent property is pointing us back to our lack of sufficient knowledge of its supposed components.
Nothing emerges without justification. Gifts are from the God's. They should be intolerable in physics. The shortcut of 'emergent properties' taken by theoretical physicists is added to a line of previous shortcuts that have become so ingrained that they are now foundational shortcuts passed off as foundational facts. My definition of shortcut is for the theorist to give a name to an unsubstantiated property supposedly responsible for making it unnecessary to admit the lack of explanation for cause. Give the cause! That is what I think.
James