[binary132]

“Magnetism isn’t made of anything” is a nonsensical statement, of course it is made of something, we just don’t know what. That’s why “it’s made of fields” is nonsensical, it’s no different than saying “it’s made of atoms” and then refusing to think about what an atom is. “Atoms aren’t made of anything, it IS an atom”.

[itishappy]

> of course it is made of something

Why do you say that? Do you think there's anything fundamental?

We actually were convinced atoms were fundamental for a while, until we stumbled upon evidence they're not. Now we think fields are fundamental, and as far as I know, we have no reason to believe otherwise.

[binary132]

fields are just a descriptive mathematical device or language for expressing how something we don’t understand at all behaves, but this discussion is going to start going even further down the zany “language isn’t real” rabbithole where nothing means anything and no meaning can be communicated so I guess it’s kinda moot

[itishappy]

That's where we disagree: I think we understand them quite well. Well enough that there's no open questions leading us to believe there must be something else. Fields alone describe all of modern physics. As such, there's no indication that there's something more fundamental than fields.

Contrast this with atoms: there are things atoms alone cannot explain, like the Zeeman and Stark effects. There must be something more fundamental going on. (Spoiler: It's fields.)