Could you elaborate on what you mean by "intrinsic" in this context? Also, does there have to be an absolute lowest level of anything?
As for the second question, to me, it makes sense that there has to be a lowest level of ontology, unless the lowest level is some sort of recursive structure (which in a sense would still be a "lowest level thing"). I believe most of us expect that there is some sort of monadic entity that is equivalent to Democritus's atom. In the standard model the quark is that sort of thing (if I'm not mistaken), but the string theorists hypothesize that a lower level (think more complete, i.e. not assuming zero dimensional entities in reality) object is the basis for a quark. Or say, if we can somehow determine our universe is a simulation, then it would be nice to know what the "basement universe" that is running this universe is. Of course, it's possible such knowledge will remain forever inaccessible, in which case, we'll probably need novels and philosophy to deal with the voids left in our hungering minds.
It depends on how you define "science". If construed broadly, to mean using reason and evidence-based approaches to evaluating claims, then science tells us a lot. Is it better for the nations of Europe to strive to live in mutual cooperation with each other? Or should they instead perpetually wage war against each other, at any cost? Imagine posing that question to both pre- and post-enlightenment peoples and contrasting the responses.
>Or say, if we can somehow determine our universe is a simulation, then it would be nice to know what the "basement universe" that is running this universe is. Of course, it's possible such knowledge will remain forever inaccessible, in which case, we'll probably need novels and philosophy to deal with the voids left in our hungering minds.
Science is presently the best cure for the voids that exist today. You'll need a really good argument for switching to novels and philosophy for the voids of the future.
It takes some philosophy to decide how to do science. I prefer Popper's approach for the methodology.
>Or should they instead perpetually wage war against each other, at any cost?
I think we answer this question via the realization that every human is a subjective being and has a right to pursue happiness, a realization which comes from the humanities (a-hem) as much as it does from the theory of natural selection or quantum mechanics (and actually, we have no way of looking at a brain and saying it assuredly causes consciousness, so we can't even say who's a subjective being with science). Heck, the universe's "way of doing" might be a nearby gamma ray burst far harsher than any human war ;)
>You'll need a really good argument for switching to novels and philosophy for the voids of the future.
I wholeheartedly concur, but there are already concerns that if something like the multiverse is the "explanation" for the constant values in our universe, then there might be aspects of existence inaccessible to our experiments. I will need much consolation if such a thing is true.