Physics requires an object

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.

1. 1. 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.

   2. We assume invisible phenomena are mediated by objects. (The section on irrationality provided good examples).

   3. 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 because of testimony.)

   4. 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. This phenomenon is independent of what the individual processed in his brain.)

Can we do entirely without concepts in Physics? Don’t we invoke abstractions such as distance, position, and displacement to explain a physical interaction?

The issue before us is one step ahead of that. The question is whether there can be distance, position, or displacement without objects. It is from the relationships that observers establish between objects that concepts such as distance, position, and displacement are invented.

And yet, there is an even more fundamental argument that takes precedence over this one. Only objects can be said to move. It is patently absurd in the context of Physics to say that a concept moved (e.g., moving ‘a’ mass, transfer energy, carry a force or interaction). When we say that Physics doesn’t deal with concepts, we are emphasizing that it is irrational to say in theory that a concept moved.

Physics is about physical interpretations of phenomena. Mechanisms such as gravity and magnetism must be simulated with objects and not with concepts. The typical jargon used in informal and traditional speech has no bearing on Physics.