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PEIRCE_THE_FORCE

                                             February 15, 2010
                                             August   12, 2011
                                             May      11, 2022

Peirce is clearly someone who
"knows something" e.g. he goes         That's in "How to Make our
off on tangents using the              Ideas Clear" (1878)
concept of force as an
example, complete with a
discussion of vector addition.

   Unfortunately, the example doesn't really
   make his idea any clearer (despite the
   title of the piece).

   The point he was trying to make is that "force"
   is best understood as a mathematical description
   of the way things behave...

   http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/ideas/id-main.htm#CP5.404

   "This is the only fact which the idea of force represents, and
   whoever will take the trouble clearly to apprehend what this
   fact is, perfectly comprehends what force is. Whether we ought
   to say that a force is an acceleration, or that it causes an
   acceleration, is a mere question of propriety of language ... "


   Compare to debates about how to take quantum mechanics.

   Pierce dismisses the idea that "force" is a mysterious
   concept.  Myself, I'm not so sure there aren't still
   mysteries there...


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