Dear Alan,
I was delighted by your response to my essay. Yes, you do understand me correctly, all physical theories are dead like a dodo, so to speak.
But first let me comment on your essay. Maybe you are right and it is possible to model quantum mechanical phenomena with solitons. But does that mean that the mathematics is less abstract? You seem to imply that (mechanics of particles/solitons in 'real space') = (mathematics mirroring reality)=(real analysis of differential equations of particles and fields). Likewise you imply (quantum mechanics)= ( abstract mathematics in Hilbert space)= ( no direct correspondence to physics in 'real' space).
In my opinion this is a false distinction, a false dichotomy. For starters, 'real' physical space is a very abstract concept. It took 2000 years to develop this concept (Greek Atomists to Newton) and since then the greatest physicists try to get rid of this overly abstract concept ( Leibniz, Mach, Einstein,..).In my judgement Hilbert space is far less abstract than 'real' space or concepts such as 'local reality'.
I am an adherent of Relational Quantum Mechanics (see Rovelli/Smerlak : EPR in Relatinal Quantum Mecahnics)),which is considerably weakens the concept of reality.
Coming back to the dodo and my thesis that physics evolves in a way similiar way as biological species evolve. All evolution is locally adoptive only.'The survival of the fittest' means the enhanced probability of passing on once genes to the next generation by the individual best adapted( best fitting) to the local environment. As a consequence all evolution, biological or cultural, will approach a dead end. Put differently, there is simply no (biological or otherwise) mechanism to adopt to a meteor impact from outer space. Similarly, all of physics is only local physics, describing local environments, such as classical point particle, quantum particles, fields etc. If this picture is right, there is no such thing as a 'Theory of Everything', but just many 'Theories of Something', connected by an evolutionary tree-structure.
regards
Frank