Speculation or fringe theory is really what we are all about here on this forum, no? In some way or another, this is true. If we were all in the business of writing texts, we would be paid. OR, we would pay journals to publish our junk if we wanted to propound fully qualified articles or developed papers. I understand Brian Greene's, Alan Guth's and other astrophysicists’ descriptions perfectly well. But, I am not about to duplicate their formulations and recount their descriptions just to make a point. There is not enough space in the forum server for me to do this anyway.
Take my whistling in the wind for whatever it may NOT be worth. My MAIN POINT, these days, is always that the hyperbolic (1/kr) black-hole singular galactic gravitational field is acknowledged to be for real and is being studiously ignored...
Now, if that other big unfalsifiable massive particle we call the Higgs Boson is the particle that imbues all other particles with their mass, what imbues the Higgs Boson with its mass?
Higgs theorists are pulling their "pud". The Higgs is an ad hoc addendum that is a poor band-aid for the kink it was supposed to fix. Just what was that, anyway? Oh yeah, no explanation of "mass" in the standard model.
Higgs is not really part of the standard model (yet). If the Higgs is not found, they will simply add in another ad hoc splint. The standard model will not collapse. Eventually, they'll get it right, though, I'll bet.
Funny, there is no explanation of the origin of gravity in GR either, only that it exists mathematically associated with mass. Why cannot we be satisfied with two sides to the same coin? Yin and Yang? If mass and gravity are two ways of looking at the same thing, is it not futile to try to merge them into one - when they are NOT one? OR, if they are already merged as best they can be?
This implies quantum and GR are just "so" - two facets of the same reality. If we try to merge the two, we shall go blind. The GUT or TOE is a fantasy. What if I am right? Millions, perhaps billions more will be spent pursuing Harvey down his rabbit hole. We will get just a mouthful of mud
Much less than mass, there is no implicit validated account of gravity in the standard model of particle physics either. If there is a Higgs boson and Higgs field, it should be possible to derive the existence of the full fledged macroscopic gravitational field from them by means of the "correspondence principle". Then we shall have quantum gravity. Nah! Too easy. On the other hand ...