A mechanism demands that the actors be objects. We cannot explain or even imagine a mechanism unless we visualize objects in motion. This realization should lead you to consider the most fundamental principle of Physics:
The Golden Principle of Physics
“Physics requires an object; you can’t rationally explain a mechanism without a mediator.”
The Golden Principle is the starting point, the cornerstone of Physics. So we spell it out to make its implications plain.
We can only move objects (g., a car can accelerate, a balloon can expand, a knife can be transferred). We cannot move concepts. It makes no sense in Physics to say that mass accelerated or that love expanded or that you transferred energy. Such figures of speech are left for poetry and closing arguments.
We assume invisible phenomena are mediated by objects. (The section on irrationality provides good examples).
We assume no witnesses are necessary for a mechanism to function or for an object to exist. (e.g., A star that nobody can see or touch is still an object. It is so by definition and not because of testimony.)
Conscience and consciousness play no role in objective explanations of mechanisms. (e.g., A tree that falls in the forest in the absence of witnesses still displaces air and therefore generates sound: compression/rarefaction of air. This phenomenon is independent of what a witness hears.)
“Physics requires an object; you can’t rationally explain a mechanism without a mediator.”
Explain heat! or the transfer of heat!
In thermodynamics (a branch of physics) – heat = energy transfer – specifically I am referring to the mechanism of radiation, not conduction or friction which do require an object.
If you tell me that radiation is the torquing of your rope, then how is conduction and friction related to this and why do these 3 different mechanisms “feel” the same? or, more importantly, can lead to the same physical effect e..g combustion!