I get that it’s values. It’s like, you assign a value to every point in space. But what “is” the electron field? It’s… what? I mean like a Kantian “field an sich”. Is the electron field the amount of electron-ness at a given point in space? What does that even mean beyond a calculation?
Are fields “real entities” with an objective physical reality? Or are they just mathematical abstractions that we use for calculation? Can you talk about fields without math? Does that even make sense? Like, I can talk about electrons without math. I can say they’re point particles that carry charge. But can you talk about the electron field outside of math? Or the EM field? Does it genuinely exist outside of an Electrodynamics calculation?
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Fields, at their most basic level, tell us what will happen in a region of space. In an electric field, we know that an electron will follow some specific set of behaviors that we map out onto what we call “electric field”. Neither the field, nor the electron, do anything to explain what is the *actual* mechanism or makeup of the universe. Fields answer “what will happen here” not “why will happen here”.
Some people will argue that there is no difference and the math is ultimately the “why” and the “what”
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