Jack, let's be really clear here.
I agree, we need to be as explicitly clear as we can. Effective communication depends on it, and even with it - still poses significant difficulty!
You are expressing your opinions. And if understand your point correctly, you are of the opinion that because we do not have a physical mechanism for electromagnetic fields, we do not know how magnets work.
It can be easily misinterpreted to be an opinion, yes. As I said, the major difference between an opinion and a fact is what supports them (opinion on emotion, and fact on evidence) however there is more to "be really clear" about here.
Facts are arbitrary. They are arbitrated by our "authorities"/teachers/books/etc. They OUGHT to be supported by evidence, but often are not and even when they are they are often far from certainly true/correct. It is a fact that there is no scientific explanation for magnetism in composition or mechanism (indeed, for all "fields"). The wonderful thing about this particular fact (not true of many/most of the others), is that refuting it is as simple as providing the composition and mechanism (that the fact purports NOT to exist). I entreat you to do so! Facts stand, right or wrong; correct or incorrect, until they are refuted (and sadly, often much longer than that).
This is your opinion. You are more than welcome to it and I appreciate you sharing it here.
Demonstrate that it is my opinion (and wrong!) by demonstrating that science DOES have an explanation for the composition and mechanism. Or accept the fact, or neither!
I think it is a silly opinion, and am treating it with some levity, so apologies if it comes across as some sort of game. However, if I am being offensive to you in any way I do apologize.
I appreciate the candor/earnesty! If we can't treat/temper this discussion with some levity, we would all be depressed/down all the time. I am difficult to offend, and encourage all to speak our minds freely. Though I do take the subject seriously - there must always be room for levity.
I look at what happens if I apply your argument to other areas. If we should conclude that we do not understand a phenomena if we can not have a physical description of any underlying fields used in our current understanding, then what do we find?
I'm not making a general argument, I am stating a specific fact (or opinion, from your perspective). It is not a sophist posit/claim that "fields" are currently a place-marker for science that was expected to come in the future (we are still waiting, centuries after this blunder).
Well, our understanding of almost every molecular interaction utilizes electromagnetic fields. Therefore we should say we don't know how any of these interactions work? Chemistry is out the window? Bummer, it was a good run while it lasted.
It would be sophistry if that were the purpose of raising this fact, which it is not. You still seem to be struggling with the critical difference between using something / describing something, and understanding it. Our conceptions (understanding, as you said above) are irrelevant to the manifest objective reality we hope to understand. The history of science shows that facts (including scientific conceptions / theories etc.) are doomed to expiration. They have a half life.
Does this mean that all science is useless? Of course not! Incorrect conceptions can and have been VERY useful to humanity, and will continue to be so. But useful is not correct! In science, the only way to establish such consistency with manifest objective reality is by rigorous experiment. Even then, it is provisional and (based on the history) doomed to be overturned / generally found laughable by subsequent generations.
To take this further, as Jack(black) has been trying (unsuccessfully, you keep selectively ignoring it for some reason) to get you to address, I also believe that your argument would rationally conclude that we don't know how anything works. In our present understanding, everything is reducible to the effects of the 4 fundamental forces of nature. Their expression as fields is one of the great progressions in modern physics. If we have to conclude that we dont know how something works if we do not fully understand the responsible underlying fields describing them, then as all phenomena do, we dont understand anything.
It is a misunderstanding. I am making no such generalized argument from the fact. It's just a fact. We don't know what fields are. We haven't for centuries.
I think this is a silly stance to take, but if you simply say we do not understand how magnetism works in the same way we do not understand how ANYTHING works, I will not disagree that this is at least a consistent opinion to have.
Fundamentally, I do have strong suspicions (informed from history) that our understanding of just about everything is flawed in some way. This is not a radical, but rather a pragmatic, perspective. It appears radical and perhaps "anti-science" when you misunderstand/misrepresent it as a sophist posit.
My opinion is that we know a tremendous amount about how magnets work.
Don't sell yourself short! You are just as capable of recognizing, classifying, and defining/arbitrating fact as any other! It is a FACT that we (humanity, and perhaps some in this discussion) know a tremendous amount about how magnets work. This is evident in the sheer volume of knowledge that we have amassed on the subject.
We can build, design, and manipulate them amazingly.
True, however using is not the same as understanding AND understanding is most often not the same as understanding properly/correctly nor establishing veracity.
We do not know EVERYTHING, but we never will, and this certainly doesn't mean we dont know how they work except in the most pedantic and meaningless way.
Nor will we ever, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying! Look at all the cool stuff we can do as a result of continuing to try anyway (MRIs being a good example), and continuously being wrong / making mistakes along the way!
What we don't know is how magnetic fields work, or what they are made of. We know how to generate them, measure them, and manipulate them - and we can do LOTS of cool things with them. We don't understand the magnetic field in composition or mechanism.
Don't be so enamored with what we can do that you ignore the limits (and gaps) of our knowledge. Mind the gap!
The whole reason for bringing up the fact, which I did and scepti didn't (they simply asked a question that leads to it if one is being earnest and honest), was only to say that because currently there is no "mainstream" description of composition or mechanism for a magnetic field (again, you are most welcome to disagree and provide those descriptions and/or reasoning) - scepti's conception is not in inherent conflict with anything that we DO know about magnets/magnetism.