Thanks for the quotes from Kepler! I admire his clear wriitng.
What's the difference between local action and action at a distance? It seems to me these are just mental models that explain the same thing, and so they do not contradict eachother.
Action-at-a-distance corresponds to the idea that two or more entities interact with each other, without some intervening agent or medium. The extreme position in this direction is that of the late Peter Graneau and his son Neal Graneau, who claim that every particle in the universe is instantly connected to every other particle.
Local action corresponds to the idea that ultimately every action can be explained by entities interacting directly with each other, through contact. The extreme position in this direction was Descartes, who claimed that there was no void, and only local motion.
Now, for any given problem, it could well be that what appears to be action-at-a-distance could be explained through local action at a much finer granularity.
Here, I am talking about what the universe is actually made of. Of course, one can always come up with mental models as such, which might (or not) correspond to reality.
Thanks for your reply! In my thinking, the universe is too complicated to "know". At best we can construct mental models that explain part of how the universe's behavior appears to us.
Thanks for the quotes from Kepler! I admire his clear wriitng.
What's the difference between local action and action at a distance? It seems to me these are just mental models that explain the same thing, and so they do not contradict eachother.
Action-at-a-distance corresponds to the idea that two or more entities interact with each other, without some intervening agent or medium. The extreme position in this direction is that of the late Peter Graneau and his son Neal Graneau, who claim that every particle in the universe is instantly connected to every other particle.
Local action corresponds to the idea that ultimately every action can be explained by entities interacting directly with each other, through contact. The extreme position in this direction was Descartes, who claimed that there was no void, and only local motion.
Now, for any given problem, it could well be that what appears to be action-at-a-distance could be explained through local action at a much finer granularity.
Here, I am talking about what the universe is actually made of. Of course, one can always come up with mental models as such, which might (or not) correspond to reality.
Thanks for your reply! In my thinking, the universe is too complicated to "know". At best we can construct mental models that explain part of how the universe's behavior appears to us.
Max Planck described scientific theories as metaphors of reality. That makes sense to me.