Why Some of the Most Persistent Questions in Physics May Not Be Physical Questions

Abstract Contemporary physics is extraordinarily successful across a wide range of domains. Yet a small class of foundational questions—concerning the beginning of time, cosmological origins, the status of probability, or the relation between quantum theory and relativity—has proven remarkably persistent despite decades of theoretical progress. This essay argues that such persistence need not primarily indicate incomplete physics. Instead, it may reflect a systematic misaddressing of questions beyond the conditions under which physical description is applicable. Building on recent analyses of applicability conditions and levels of description [1,2], the present contribution articulates the programmatic and methodological implications of an explicitly non-ontological boundary perspective, referred to here as pre- physics. Pre-physics is not proposed as a new theory or metaphysical framework, but as a diagnostic stance that clarifies when physical questions retain, and when they lose, physical meaning. The central claim is that explicit boundary clarification can both reduce systematic expenditure of intellectual resources on structurally non-resolvable problems and provide a clearer foundation for future conceptual advances in fundamental physics. Keywords: prephysics, applicability conditions, boundary questions, foundations of physics, philosophy of physics, cosmology, beginning of time, probability, quantum theory, relativity