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Rene Descartes - mechanical universe theory

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Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a philosopher and mathematician and produced a basically simple theory of the universe that many considered to be in line with the emerging science of the time. He basically took mechanics and made it a complete theory of the universe, which was said to be composed of nothing but matter and one piece of matter pushing another piece of matter. A fluid ether was said to fill all space. Descartes hypothesised that his fluid ether moved in vortices pushing the planets around the sun mechanically like clockwork, and caused other phenomena. He had other particle push theories for terrestrial gravity and for magnetism.

These ideas were perhaps best put in his Principia Philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy) published in 1644. You can read an English version of his Discourse..., through the excellent Google Books - Google Descartes. Or see more about using Google Books at the bottom of our History of Science section.

Descartes' science theory.

Descartes was primarily a logician who did much interesting work in philosophy and mathematics. He believed logic more useful than experiment in developing a new science. His logic is maybe best known for his proposition "I think, therefore I am". While he might perhaps more logically have taken a more Gilbert conclusion from that, that the universe certainly contained thinking things but did not certainly contain any non-thinking things, Descartes' logic somehow went with the idea that most things in the universe are non-thinking and only humans think. Of course this Dualist conclusion does seem to accord with common views of a stone not thinking, if not with Descartes' own certainty logic. George Berkeley's 'To be is to be perceived' philosophy was no help to Gilbert science though concluding that non-thinking things did not exist, since he somehow additionally concluded that signals informing thinking did not exist either.

In his material universe theory, Descartes saw objects as mechanical only and animals as mechanical clockwork robots, and the human body largely likewise except that humans alone had soul/mind - a differently divine universe to Aristotle's. He claimed to believe in the certainty of rigorous logical reasoning, as with Euclidian mathematical reasoning. His mechanism for automatic reaction by animals (and the human body largely) to signals was as to direct forces - so light punched eye nerves.

Descartes theory viewed all 'signals' (or 'effluvia') as material particles that pushed sense organs mechanically and mechanically caused animal actions deterministically, so that animals reacted more as billiard balls to other billiard balls and less as thinking things or robots responding to information signals. He had a vortex-push theory for planetary motion and for terrestrial gravity a separate theory of celestial-particles moving away from the center of the earth and so displacing and sucking-down masses in their path. His magnetic effluvia were also material particles and physically pulled and pushed magnets, for which he had to postulate left and right handed corkscrew shaped particles working like corkscrews. Descartes' universe was a mechanical ('wind-up') clockwork robot universe, with energy only as the property of matter being in motion and nothing other than God and human souls being non-material.

Descartes philosophical Mathematical Mechanical Universe science theory ideas influenced many and basically still does. Descartes made a major contribution to philosophy, but Descartes and science have become almost inseparable. Descartes produced 'laws of motion' that read almost the same as Newton's, though his motion examples are often about bodies being pushed by unseen ethers more like Aristotlian motion. Newton published a disproof of the part of Descartes' 'dead-matter' theory that involved ether vortex motion pushing planets around, but seems not to have taken that as essential to it and electro-magnetic field theory based on a modified Descartes ether idea became accepted by most physicists until the Mitchelson-Morley experiment of 1887 indicated that either the ether did not exist or ether motion did not exist, which Einstein agreed, though his spacetime continuum is ether-like and not a full replacement.

Descartes held that his was the best science possible, explaining the universe to the best extent possible though it might be impossible to establish the actual causes of phenomena like gravity. Hence on causation he states a neo-blackbox position in his Principles of Philosophy Part 3.CCIV ;

"That, touching the things which our senses do not perceive, it is sufficient to explain how they can be."

"I most freely concede this, and I have done all that was required, if the causes I have assigned are such that their effects accurately correspond to all the phenomena of nature, without determining whether it is by these or by others that they are actually produced. And it will be sufficient for use in life to know the causes thus imagined ...."

Hence Descartes himself was less fully committed to his push-physics than most of the physicists supporting it. And of course other physicists were soon producing evidence that solid objects are not solid but are largely empty space with some perhaps-solid particles. So a billiard ball pushing another billiard ball may well be largely space 'pushing' space - with at most a very few particles contacting. So must the transfer of momentum from all the particles of one ball, to all the particles of the other ball, involve action-at-a-distance and not involve contact ? If most apparant contact is not contact, then any push physics has a problem and maybe needs mechanical ethers or particle emissions - and proving their solidity may not really ever be possible ? Descartes' physics did include solid push ethers, but other push physics theories do not.

For comparison with other physics theories, Descartes three laws of motion would be ;

1. Every body will remain at rest, or in a uniform state of motion unless pushed or pulled.

2. When a body is pushed or pulled, it accelerates proportional to the force of the push or pull and inversely proportional to the mass of the body and in the direction pushed or pulled.

3. Every push or pull has an equal and opposite reaction.

For another more recent Descartes-like 'shadow-suction' push theory of gravity see here.

You should be able to read here Descartes 1644 Principia Philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy) but somehow the original seems not available online anywhere. But an online English translation of part of it is available and discussed here.

Or for now you could maybe read online or download free 'The Iliad' by Homer, 1.24mb PDF - up to 8 minutes to load.
(you may need the FREE PDF reader available from www.Adobe.com.)

Or if you might want to buy Descartes books in our USA Descartes books or UK Descartes books sections.

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