Maybe I shouldn't comment because I only read the abstract. My reaction was, "This isn't anything new. This is exactly how fields are interpreted." I appreciate the comment here because this is just a matter of semantics, at least from the reading of the abstract.
I am sure the author knows the subject very well. I see it is written in the area of History and Philosophy of Physics, so I assume it is there to clarify this for the non-experts, which includes many physicists who are not into the philosophy of quantum mechanics. I think that is why they wrote this article. I believe it is not intended as a physics discovery.
Quantum mechanics is very complex, at least when you try to relate it to the real world. I think the language in the early years of learning is to help gradually introduce the subject to students, and it can possibly be misleading as to what is meant by a particle. At a higher level, meaning someone who really studies quantum mechanics like an older theoretical physics graduate student, how quantum mechanic works is more clear.
Here is the way I view fields and particles: a wave function for the field (not to be confused with the field itself) has a number of energy eigenstates. These eigenstates correspond to the existence of a number of particles. The simplest example is a simple harmonic oscillator in Schroedinger's equation. The discrete energy states correspond to: 0 particles for the ground state, 1 particle for the first excited state, 2 particles for the second state, and so on. This simple harmonic oscillator is also an example of a field theory where space has only a single point. Normal field theory corresponds an equation like this at each point in space (an infinite number of points). It includes an interaction between neighbouring points. This version of a harmonic oscillator at each point in space corresponds to a simple scalar field with a mass. This field theory can be solved exactly using Schroedinger's equation, though this is seldom done. I find this calculation to be very instructive.
The idea of "particles" in the simple harmonic oscillator is very trivial, with a one to one mapping between the number of particles and the energy state. In a non-interacting field theory, there are many different states related to a single particle, with the momentum being involved. Particles are less clear in an interacting theory. We usually only consider the states where the particles are far apart and effectively non-interacting. When particles are close together, meaning the wave function has a significant contribution from the interactive terms in the field equation, we have trouble understanding this and we consider it transient states that we call the interaction (or collision in particle accelerator).
Obviously I am not capable of describing this in a simple sentence or two. I am sure others could. But to me at least it is a complex idea.
Oops, there is an important omission in my above comment. I spent a lot of time talking about what a particle is and didn't say what a field is. Whereas particles are related to energy eigenstates, the field is related to eigenstates of the field value. These are two very different things and I think they are both valid, depending on what you are considering.
To me this is what it means to be both a field and a particle. At the same time, speaking of semantics, you can say particles don't exist because they are not a physical thing like a field value is.
Here is an aside that I just thought about while writing this which I hadn't considered before - Particles versus fields is similar to the Pauli Exclusion Principal. The Pauli Exclusion Principle basically states that energy/momentum can not be specified at the same time as position, and this is because they are eigenstates of different operators (energy/momentum operator and the time/position operator). You can't be in a pure state of both at the same time. In the particles versus field case, particles are related to eigenstates of the energy operator and fields are eigenstates of the field operator. These two values also can not be specified at that same time, for the same reason as in the Pauli Exclusion case.
I am sure the author knows the subject very well. I see it is written in the area of History and Philosophy of Physics, so I assume it is there to clarify this for the non-experts, which includes many physicists who are not into the philosophy of quantum mechanics. I think that is why they wrote this article. I believe it is not intended as a physics discovery.
Quantum mechanics is very complex, at least when you try to relate it to the real world. I think the language in the early years of learning is to help gradually introduce the subject to students, and it can possibly be misleading as to what is meant by a particle. At a higher level, meaning someone who really studies quantum mechanics like an older theoretical physics graduate student, how quantum mechanic works is more clear.
Here is the way I view fields and particles: a wave function for the field (not to be confused with the field itself) has a number of energy eigenstates. These eigenstates correspond to the existence of a number of particles. The simplest example is a simple harmonic oscillator in Schroedinger's equation. The discrete energy states correspond to: 0 particles for the ground state, 1 particle for the first excited state, 2 particles for the second state, and so on. This simple harmonic oscillator is also an example of a field theory where space has only a single point. Normal field theory corresponds an equation like this at each point in space (an infinite number of points). It includes an interaction between neighbouring points. This version of a harmonic oscillator at each point in space corresponds to a simple scalar field with a mass. This field theory can be solved exactly using Schroedinger's equation, though this is seldom done. I find this calculation to be very instructive.
The idea of "particles" in the simple harmonic oscillator is very trivial, with a one to one mapping between the number of particles and the energy state. In a non-interacting field theory, there are many different states related to a single particle, with the momentum being involved. Particles are less clear in an interacting theory. We usually only consider the states where the particles are far apart and effectively non-interacting. When particles are close together, meaning the wave function has a significant contribution from the interactive terms in the field equation, we have trouble understanding this and we consider it transient states that we call the interaction (or collision in particle accelerator).
Obviously I am not capable of describing this in a simple sentence or two. I am sure others could. But to me at least it is a complex idea.