[Avodah] Geocentrism

[David Riceman]

Me:
>> And their objection to geocentrism is precisely that it denies the value
>> of that deep explanation.
RMB:
> I'm not sure this objection is real. Yes, they don't use geocentrism when
> it's the harder way to model things. But here are examples. And if you
> compute movement relative to the galaxy as a whole, heliocentrism isn't
> much better than geocentrism. And the galaxy too is in motion, etc...
RZS:

<<This is not true.   Any number of models could explain our observations,
and there is no reason to suppose that the one which is simplest to use,
or which seems most elegant, is more "true" than any other. >>

There is some historical background here which the two of you are 
ignoring.  A central insight of science is that the world runs through 
law.  This was disputed, for example, by the Kalam, whose opinions the 
Rambam mocks (while acknowledging that they're not heretical) in MN 
I:73-76.  It was disputed by Galileo's oponents in the Catholic Church.  
More recently the opinion of the Kalam has been championed by Rabbi Dessler.

Now I find it hard to imagine that Kepler would have found his laws, 
Newton his, or Einstein his in the absence of the heliocentric model.  
And while you are skirting this idea, I think you could be understood to 
imply that there are no laws of planetary attraction or of gravity, and 
the formulae we use to approximate what I, at least, imagine to be laws, 
are really just coincidences, and tomorrow Mercury may just turn in a 
totally unexpected direction.

It's been years since I looked at the LR's letter on this subject, but 
at the time I did I remember classifying him with Rabbi Dessler and the 
Kalam.  So I think it plausible that RZS agrees with that opinion.  But 
I am less certain of RMB's opinion.

David Riceman