materialists definition of "exists"

[raw_thought]

Since materialists say that massless and volumeless (no volume) particles exist, what does it mean to say that something exists physically?

[Cerveny]

Since materialists say that massless and volumeless (no volume) particles exist, what does it mean to say that something exists physically?

You can see massless particle rather as an event/phenomenon/act/effect: something somewhere, sometime happens... for example due to some (over) strong physical fileld or due to (too) weak bindings... They say: It has been a photon (for example)

[raw_thought]

Are you saying that when physicists say that a particle has no mass or volume, they are actually saying that a field surrounds such a point?
In other words, for a physicist particles are not particles but the imaginary point at the center of a field?

[Cerveny]

Are you saying that when physicists say that a particle has no mass or volume, they are actually saying that a field surrounds such a point?
In other words, for a physicist particles are not particles but the imaginary point at the center of a field?

Consider a boat with a man on the sea. At one moment one of stronger wave hit the system (boat-man) so that such system decay into two parts: boat with opposite "spin" and a man We can say: It was an interaction of two partices "phlonon" and a boat-man.

Btw: I consider elemetary particle as a structural defect in regular structure of physical space that mostly generates strain (field) around itself