Action (BPC)

[...] let me demonstrate this unorthodox definition with an example—a bat striking a ball. As the bat comes into contact with the ball, a force relationship is created where none existed before. I conceptualize a force as a relationship because it is one way that an entity conditions a property of another entity. When an entity is in a force relationship with another entity, it conditions the property of net force. The property of net force then causes an acceleration. Force is therefore a relationship, but a force coming into being is an action.

When a bat strikes a ball, it is not the force that is the action but the change in force which is the action.

This novel formulation of what an action is and what a relationship is allows us to capture a key distinction: action involves one entity changing another, but entities can also influence each other's identities in static, non-changing ways. An example of this is water. In a water molecule, oxygen conditions the properties of hydrogen and vice versa. When the atoms are bonded together It's not as though first, the bond between the hydrogen and oxygen exists, then later, does the capacity to quench thirst come. No, the capacity to quench thirst(a property of the water) exists so long as the bonds exist, so long as the relationship exists. In contrast, if we were to synthesize water, first the formation of the bonds would happen, then the drinkability would result. The bond is a relationship; the formation of such a bond is an action.

My concept of relationship captures the way entities condition one another's properties in unchanging ways. My concept of action on the other hand, captures the way that entities change one another's properties, and such changes are always brought about by the formation or dissolution of relationships.

Now, here's a principle, that helps us in inference, that comes from the above definition of action: Actions are always actions of entities. This basic principle allows us to infer the existence of hidden entities when only the actions of those hidden entities avail themselves to us.

For example, let's say an ancient Greek sees trees getting blown by the wind. He shouldn't ascribe that motion to a disembodied force but to a force caused by some unseen entity—this force relationship exists because of some entity acting. Later, if he fans his face, he might realize that he's pushing an invisible substance into his face with his hand, causing an effect identical to wind. If he were on the lookout for the entity causing the blowing earlier, he could now connect that rustling with trees with the stuff he's pushing into his face, discovering the invisible entity of air.

These kinds of principles can also advance our current scientific knowledge. Consider a similar case in an electromagnetic wave. The shaking of an electric charge causes changes in the nearby electromagnetic field. These changes then cause changes in the field next to that location, which in turn causes a change in the field next to that location, and so on. This chain reaction, discovered by Maxwell, is the underlying nature of light.

Between every two locations, we have an action—the electromagnetic field of each location changes due to the electromagnetic field of neighboring locations. Since a property is changing due to another property, we see an action. Actions are always actions of some entity. Thus, we know that there is some entity at each location causing waves by acting on similar entities at neighboring locations. These entities, whatever they are, must be everywhere since, as far as we can tell, light can travel anywhere, even in the vacuum of space.

Broad physical categories have thus allowed us to prove the existence of a hidden substance present even in vacuum. This substance has historically been called the ether. A lack of broad physical categories is part of the reason physicists made the mistake of rejecting the existence of the ether. Physicists now explicitly believe that electromagnetic waves exist without being the action of some underlying entity. This has prevented physicists from making deeper inferences into the underlying nature of light for over a century.