The intelligent agent philosophy of thinking

I've made use of object-oriented programming in my coding life. But
this post isn't about that. Instead: recently I've begun to wonder if
thinking in object-oriented metaphors is negatively impacting
scientific explanations.

Specifically, my physics professor has been explaining Newton's laws by
saying things like: "the ball thinks: 'no one is pushing on me,
therefore...'"

No, the ball doesn't think.

The ball is not an independent agent.

But in writing it out in object-oriented pseudocode, it might appear
that way:

class Ball
if
I'm at rest
then
I stay at rest

if
I'm pushed
then
I move with a velocity equalling the push...

In code, it's understandable.But I have a problem when a physics
professor uses the metaphor. Because in this physical world, the ball
is /not/ an intelligent agent, the ball has
no self-interest; the ball is merely following physical rules set forth
by the Universe.

Perhaps not surprisingly, my physics professor has a coding background,
demonstrated
inadvertently the first day of class when one of his blackboard
examples included the comment notation //, and someone asked why that
notation wasn't in the book, and
you could tell which students had prior coding experience by those of
us who laughed at the question, not trying to be mean, but it was kind
of funny.

I think my professor's background negatively influences his word
choices: for instance
saying "the ball thinks..." as opposed to "The physical forces in the
universe act on the
ball such that...". Like I said before, the ball doesn't think!

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Detecting Color of Ball and Tracking
    ... ProdigalSon schrieb: ... Is your problem related to the coding part or don't you have any idea how to map the bins to the ball colours? ... histogram be enough even though i am trying to detect a white and black ...
    (sci.image.processing)
  • Re: A Physics Lesson for the Contributors to this NG
    ... However, in both the example of the hollow ball or the cup, where the ... center of gravity is NOT within the solid material of the ball or the ... Q) How much of the ladder lies above the TOP rung? ... You may want to consult a worked example in a physics textbook ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Discrete damped oscillator, prime numbers
    ... degree in physics it was something remarkable to me ... Yet I could watch a rubber ball bounce and see it ... mathematicians create, the truth is not as important ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: A Physics Lesson for the Contributors to this NG
    ... The larger ball exerts an outward or CENTRIFUGAL force on the end attached to ... The baboons here don't know enough physics to understand what I'm talking ... The gravitational force acts downwards on the ladder at its CofG, ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: The physical motions of photons in free space!
    ... and that the form of the math must be the ... Tell us all the theories in physics that DO have a so-called physical ... Any mass moving through the ether, ... If a small ball hits a large ball, ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)