• Intuitive theories- our best guess as to why we observe the events we do and how we can intervene in those events to change them. Infer causality from our observations. Similar to historical theories- how we used to understand things before we had the ability to understand the reality (like heat as an “object” versus “energy”).

• Emergent process- system wide (no clear cause/ effect explanation), equilibrium-seeking, simultaneous, ongoing. Heat, weather, evolution are all emergent processes.

• Molecular theory, scientific theory.

• Holistic theory- matter is continuous and has heft and bulk

Intuitive theories of the physical world

1. Matter- substances are holistic and discrete, instead of particulate and divisible. Conservation- clay flattened, water poured from short fat glass to tall skinny glass. The difference between weight and heft, volume and bulk?

2. Energy- heat, light and sound viewed as substance instead of emergent property. Why can you touch the 400 degree air in the oven but not the pan itself (without oven mitts)? The pan transfers heat better than air. How do we change from viewing “sound” as an “object” to viewing it as “energy”? First, we stop attributing permanence (noise doesn’t continue forever), then weight (clock doesn’t become lighter with each chime) and then mass (noise can pass through a wall, doesn’t have to maneuver around wall). Extra-missionist- rays go out of the eye and then return to create vision vs intro-missionist- rays enter the eye to create vision.

3. Gravity- weight is an intrinsic property of objects instead of relation between mass and gravity. Objects don’t fall because they’re heavy- they fall when they don’t have upward force on them that exceeds gravity (center of gravity).

4. Motion- force is something transferred between objections (“impetus”), instead of external factor changing the objects motion. What path will an object take- for example, a ball in a spiral slide- takes straight path after exiting, doesn’t gain an inherent “spiral” motion.

5. Cosmos- earth is a motionless plane orbited by the sun. Changing of the tides, seasons (tilt of the earth as it revolves around the sun, the side closest to the sun is summer).

6. Earth- continents and mountains are eternal and unchanging vs transient/ dynamic. Tectonic plates- similar land features on different coasts. Greenhouse effect and global warming- humans causing it, but the earth will live beyond us.

• Vitalism- living things possess an internal energy, or life force, that allows those things to move and to grow.

• Essentialism is the idea that an organism’s outward appearance and behavior are products of its inner nature, or “essence.”

Intuitive theories of the biological world

• Life- animals viewed as psychological agents vs organic machines. Death= cessation of biological processes.

• Growth- eating is for satiation rather than nourishment, aging is a series of discrete changes vs continuous change. Vitalism- living things possess an internal energy, or life force, that allows those things to move and to grow. Essentialism is the idea that an organism’s outward appearance and behavior are products of its inner nature, or “essence.”

• Inheritance- parent-offspring resemblance viewed as nurture, vs transfer of genetic information.

• Illness- disease is due to supernatural causes, instead of microorganisms.

• Adaptation- evolution is the transformation of an entire population (butterflies become slightly darker with each generation) vs selective survival (darker butterflies survive to reproduce).

• Ancestry- species develop linearly (monkey→ ape→ human) rather than branching from common ancestor.