The idea that the world is to be fundamentally understood not in terms of matter but as the arrangement of matter is at least as old as Plato and Aristotle, at least one of whom made their entire philosophical career exploring the consequences of this thought, in his Theory of Forms.

I honestly don't know why some physicists (not found on Plus, thankfully) publicly bash philosophy so much when certain cutting-edge physics ideas as this were hypothesised and argued through 2 500 years ago! *Sigh*