Alex O'Connor
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
They used to believe in animism.
They used to believe in spirits.
They used to believe that angels were pushing around planets and stuff.
But no, no, no.
Since the scientific revolution, we're much more intelligent because we explain things in terms of
Forces.
Forces.
Think about that word for a minute.
You know what I mean?
We're so used to hearing it.
But that's it.
And if you ask a scientist what a force is, they'll either have to tell you that a force is just a mathematical description of regularities that we've observed.
Or they'll have to say unjustifiably, well, it's the thing that makes things fall to the ground.
But what is it?
You don't know that.
You don't know why that's happening.
Now, to be clear, some people will say, okay, fair enough with Newton.
I pick Newton because he says it explicitly.
This isn't an insult to science.
It's not insulting to say that it's not really interested in the why question.