Like, if you could stand above the solar system and look down on it, the Copernican model would say it makes more sense to hover over the Sun and imagine everything rotating around you than to hover over the Earth and imagine everything rotating around you while pirouetting .
This is an interesting point. What does “more sense” mean?
From a purely utilitarian point of view, Tycho Brahe’s compromise system is as useful as Copernicus’s: it gives the same experimental predictions while still keeping Earth at the center of the universe. Kepler’s acceptance of the Copernican system had more to do with his Pythagorean views, his perception that the center of the universe must contain the Central Fire, the cause of all motion.
In other words, we’re dealing with subjective views here. And yet it objectively seems to make more sense to center the Solar System around the Sun. Perhaps because there is no reason to privilege Earth above the other planets, and no reason to assume that the Sun “really” revolves around, say, Venus?
They both provide accurate predictions, but the heliocentric model that gravity holds the Planets in orbit around the Sun has a lower Kolmogorov complexity than a geocentric model in which the Earth is central, but everything has weird complicated paths as they orbit.
Are you comparing the Copernican system or the Keplerian system? The straight Copernican system is about as complicated as the geocentrist system. You only get the reduction in complexity when you go for full out Keplerian. And note that there were other pre-Kepler systems that were arguably simpler than the Copernican system. this article gives a good brief summary.
This is an interesting point. What does “more sense” mean?
From a purely utilitarian point of view, Tycho Brahe’s compromise system is as useful as Copernicus’s: it gives the same experimental predictions while still keeping Earth at the center of the universe. Kepler’s acceptance of the Copernican system had more to do with his Pythagorean views, his perception that the center of the universe must contain the Central Fire, the cause of all motion.
In other words, we’re dealing with subjective views here. And yet it objectively seems to make more sense to center the Solar System around the Sun. Perhaps because there is no reason to privilege Earth above the other planets, and no reason to assume that the Sun “really” revolves around, say, Venus?
Lets go with “more sense” = simpler.
They both provide accurate predictions, but the heliocentric model that gravity holds the Planets in orbit around the Sun has a lower Kolmogorov complexity than a geocentric model in which the Earth is central, but everything has weird complicated paths as they orbit.
Are you comparing the Copernican system or the Keplerian system? The straight Copernican system is about as complicated as the geocentrist system. You only get the reduction in complexity when you go for full out Keplerian. And note that there were other pre-Kepler systems that were arguably simpler than the Copernican system. this article gives a good brief summary.
My mistake. I was thinking of Keplerian when I wrote this.