I was once a sorcerer's apprentice, studying ancient lore and cryptic runes, with ambitions of someday harnessing the mysterious forces that govern our reality. Ultimately, I ended up as more of a working class mage, but the study of these forces fascinates me to this day.
The electromagnetic force is but one part of the vast edifice of physics, which is itself but one minor extension built upon the awe-inspiring logical megastructure known as mathematics. The fabric of reality is so inexorably tied to the language of mathematics that, upon deep reflection, one is compelled to reckon with the question of ultimate abstraction:
Is reality merely described by mathematics, or is mathematics, in some sense, the only thing that truly exists, with all these particles and forces that we interpret to be the building blocks of our material reality being but qualia tacked on by our limited minds after the fact, in a valiant but futile attempt to impose intelligibility onto a structure that is so fundamentally abstract that it precludes human comprehension?
This question has been addressed directly by Swedish-American physicist Max Tegmark in his 2014 book "Our Mathematical Universe." It's a worthwhile read, and I recommend it to anyone interested in such things. The author is an eccentric fellow with views on AI development and other subjects that you may or may not agree with, but it doesn't affect the substance of this book, which remains largely apolitical. While the author has his view that he passionately expresses, it is my view that the book does not convincingly answer the question posed above because it is, in fact, impossible to prove either way from inside the system (nor do I posit that it was the author's intent to do so; it is merely an observation). Given that "the system" is either 1: the entire universe as traditionally understood by modern physics or, 2: the infinitely larger abstract space of all possible mathematical constructions, either way we're too deep inside it to make comprehensive statements about the whole.
Returning to the question of physics-as-qualia, the notion is not so absurd as it may appear on the surface. In philosophy, qualia are the private, subjective experiences one has of objective phenomena, typically tied to sensorial input. The redness of red, the taste of chocolate, the sound of Roger Water's first bass note in Pink Floyd's "Time." Each of these things is rooted in a physical property with characteristics that can be objectively defined with numerical precision.
That particular shade of red is an electromagnetic wave with a wavelength (λ) of, say, 684 nm. The taste of chocolate arises from chemical reactions between various compounds in the chocolate and the molecules in your taste buds. These reactions are more conveniently expressed in the language and equations of chemistry, which are simplified heuristics that facilitate concise description but ultimately arise from the more fundamental electromagnetic interactions which can (in principle) be expressed in terms of quantum electrodynamics. The sound of Roger Water's bass is the result of sound waves of a particular frequency, which transfer momentum from one air molecule to another until that momentum is finally transferred to the cells of your eardrum. Once again, it's all electromagnetic interactions at the molecular level. Most of what could fairly be called "interesting" to human experience comes down to electromagnetism, actually; the other three interactions (gravity, strong and weak nuclear) play more of an indirect role.
In any case, your internal experiences of seeing, tasting, or hearing are described nowhere in the laws of physics. We can be reasonably certain that every time you perceive light at λ=684 nm you are experiencing roughly the same chromatic quale, and likewise that my experience of that wavelength is similarly consistent (to me), but we have no way of knowing if "your red" and "my red" are the same, ie. if we experience identical chromatic qualia.
What I am angling towards here, at some length, is that the substances of modern physics may also, at some higher level of analysis, be qualia. By "substances" I mean the particles, the forces, the fields, etc. Basically, all the facets of the core theory that require actual words to describe them, beyond the pure mathematical expressions.
We use these words to make the underlying mathematical reality more amenable to human comprehension, much as, a layer of abstraction down, it is more practical to speak of certain objects as red than to constantly quote λ values, even if this involves a certain amount of coarse-graining (since the electromagnetic spectrum is continuous and, therefore, having a different word for each colour is not even possible in principle). Thus, whether or not particles or forces are fundamental, notions thereof are nonetheless useful and should not be cast out as "untrue" (if you'll grant this line of thinking at all). At the particle layer, chairs do not exist, but they are nevertheless a useful mental construct in the lives of humans seeking comfort.
Ultimately, whether or not math, or particles, or chairs, red or otherwise, are the truly "real" constituents of the universe, is perhaps moot. We humans exist at a particular level of the stack, and our cognition is inherently anchored to it. What millennia of scientific discovery and philosophical discourse have revealed to us, however, is that competence in each of these layers of abstraction bestows satisfaction and fulfillment, and that the richest experience of reality is likely to be had by those with fluency in as many as possible.
I write this at a time when the foundational layer of the stack (as far as I'm aware), mathematics, is suddenly and aggressively being torn open and dissected by a new class of abstract "thinkers" (AI), and this is raising uncomfortable questions about our (humans') place in this transcendental realm. Is there any point in us dedicating our time to understanding this place when we are already handily outmatched by these new rivals, and it is early days still?
My contention is yes. While "we" may no longer be the dominant explorers of this higher plane, we, collectively, never were. It was always a select handful of the most dedicated and interested who pushed the frontier forward, but many more of us explored it nevertheless for the sheer sake of the experience, even if we trod paths that were not of our own making.
I find great joy (and sometimes great frustration, but that is part of it) in studying and manipulating the symbols, in flowing through the logic and the derivations and the proofs, in grasping with my mind, however infinitesimally, the infinitude of wondrous structure that is to be beheld beyond the limitations of the physical and concrete.
I am no great explorer. I will conquer no new lands, nor reveal any new truths. That's not why I go to that place. I simply go to experience a form of transcendence that can be found nowhere else even if, in some sense, it is everywhere.
May your journey be rich and fruitful, wherever you seek to travel.