Folk Physics and Agency

October 28th, 2006 Fred McVittie Posted in Agency, Intentionality, Naive Physics, Newton, Isaac, Physics |

It is a principle of Folk Physics that heavy objects fall faster than light objects. This principle was widely accepted as true until the time of Galileo, and is still felt as intuitively correct by many people today until they actually carry out relevant experiments. Evidently this principle is incorrect and is easily disproved simply by dropping two object of dissimilar weight and observing what happens, and this finding seems to illustrate the ‘naivite’ of Folk Physics and its inherent weakness. Folk (Naive) Physics seems, with this example, to be prone to substantial factual errors and therefore inferior to other, more rational physics systems such as the Newtonian model (which predicts the result of the falling objects experiment accurately). However, whilst the prediction made by Folk Physics is, in this case, incorrect, this is not due to an error in the physics but rather to a misapplication of the Folk Physics model to a system which lies outside its area of explanation. Folk Physics is, to a large extent, the physics not of inanimate objects, but of intentional agents, and describes the functioning of a world in which matter is animated and motion is purposive. The force of gravity, within Folk Physics, is felt not as the passive attraction of inert masses, but as the active striving of material agents. Like two dogs pulling at their leads with different degrees of force, the two objects of different weights, when attributed with agency and purpose (entelechy), will inevitably move at different speeds when released. Within the limits of its own purview Folk Physics is an accurate description of the world and makes accurate predictions. It is only when it is misapplied (as it commonly is) that its limitations are revealed.