What is Matter?

Do materialist explanations solve mysteries?

Quantum Theory illustrates the point that just because science has found a materialist explanation for something, we don't know what matter is. Saying something has a material explanation does not get rid of the mystery. For what is matter? Although we take it for granted, no-one knows what matter is. If everything is made of molecules, what are they made of? - Atoms? But what are they made of? Electrons and quarks? No-one know what they are. We know how they behave but what they are remains a mystery. If matter is made of particles what are they made of? If matter is a wave or force, it is a wave or force in what medium? Leibniz in using similar reasoning said matter is made of non-material entities. Quantum theory exposes the mystery. Although we should be surprised by quantum theory, I don't think we should be surprised that we are surprised.
 
I close with a quote from Bertrand Russell.

Nothing whatever in theoretical physics enables us to say anything about the intrinsic character of events. … All that physics gives us is certain equations, giving abstract properties of their changes. But as to what it is that changes, and what it changes from and to – as to this, physics is silent.[1]

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[1] My Philosophical Development, page 13. 

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