1. In some experiments, such as those involving diffraction and interference, the results can be mathematically represented by considering light as a wave. In others, such as the photoelectric effect, photons look like particles and obey particle statistics. These two interpretations are contradictory, and mutually exclusive, light can't be both. Don't let this scare you. It is one of the most wonderful puzzles in science, and it may never be fully solved.

No one knows just what light is, only that either light or particle mathematics are useful in interpreting some experiments.

2. You are mistaken about the motion. Potential energy is expressed as a geometrical relationship. A stone at the top of a building possesses potential energy relative to the ground, whether it is moving or not. Relativistic rest energy associated with mass also is very real, whether the matter is moving or not. Your problem is that you insist on thinking of energy as a thing, a substance, like a fluid that is clinging or soaking into to a body. It isn't. It is more like a distance, a shape, or a measurement. That's a crappy analogy, but its the best I can do. I can't visualize things as they are, and put together a grammatical sentence that describes them, like you can. All I can do is take measurements.

3. Energy is the ability to do work. Energy can reverse entropy by repairing its decay. A house left alone long enough will decay into a pile of bricks--that's entropy. By working, piling the bricks on top of each other in meaningful ways, the house can be rebuilt. But work must be done to move those bricks around.

4. Yep, that's the way I see it. Without matter, energy makes little sense. In fact, Einstein said the two are equivalent, separated only by a constant of proportionality, c.

5. No. It is tempting to think of waveforms being present in clouds of discrete particles, but it doesn't work that way. It has been demonstrated that even a single electron or photon can be split into a diffraction pattern. And De Broglie showed that even massive, discrete particles, like baseballs and bullets, have a frequency associated with them. Particles and waves yield mathematical models that are sometimes useful in studying light in specific circumstances. But that does NOT mean light is either a particle or a wave, or even something in between. It is something completely different.

Your problem with science is that you use language to do your scientific reasoning, and language is too imperfect and misleading a tool. The universe is more like music than it is like poetry. You cannot think verbally about physical reality any more than you can describe a symphony using language. You have to play music, and hear it, or at least be able to comprehend its mathematics (musical notation) or it is just words.

Another analogy is our understanding of a human face. We can recognize people with high precision, even if we haven't seen them in decades and their features have changed. But we can't use language to describe a face. You cannot describe a suspect to the police without a taking a picture, or a skilled artist drawing a sketch.

Physics is like music, or face recognition, or identifying a distinct smell, taste, sound or texture. Language is inadequate to reason in those fields. You need a form of mathematics, or art, to communicate effectively. This is why I have made a point to challenge your reasoning on physics here, not because of your ignorance (which is nothing to be ashamed about, we're all ignorant--about everything). What you do need to understand is that you cannot think about physics by just using language, language is insufficient, incomplete, it does not have the conceptual tools you need to understand what physicists
already know. And I suspect that eventually, even mathematics will be inadequate to understand the true nature of reality. We have no guarantees the human brain is complex enough to be capable of constructing symbols that adequately model the universe it is such a tiny subset of.

Cause and effect seems to work fine in our crude world of gross ordinary experience. But in the quantum world of subatomic particles, only statistics seems to play any role. To be honest, I don't understand this very well myself, I simply don't have the mathematical background. But the fact that most of our technology wouldn't work if it weren't so convinces me some folks do understand it, and I'll take their word for it.

As for the shit analogy, I am made of the same atoms as shit, and am governed by the same physical laws, and exist in the same time and space. The only difference between myself and a pile of shit is that I am much more complicated, more highly organized. In other words, I am less entropic.

I don't feel sorry about this at all. In fact, it liberates me and empowers me. It tells me I have a right to be here, I am a part of the universe, and I am just as legitimate and important as the stars, the atoms, and even God, if such a thing exists. But it also humbles me. I (my consciousness) am a legitimate and authentic part of the cosmos, but I am not a special or superior part of it.

Shit happens. I happened.