zlacker

It changes the problem from one of action at a distance to local interaction. Instead of "field lines", I would say "field". Field lines are just one way of visualizing a field.

So, if we don't have the notion of fields, then we have a kind of situation of how does object A know about remote object B. Like how does one object know about the motions of literally every other object in the Universe. Perplexing.

Once you come up with the idea of a field, okay you have to at some level accept that there are fields that permeate all of space. But what this intellectual cost buys you is that now an object only has to sense the field local to it to respond to all objects in the universe.

Think of objects bobbing on the ocean. One way to conceptualize that is that any object anywhere could cause this object here to bob in some way. How does this object know about all the other objects? Instead we could say that there is ocean everywhere. Locally, objects bobbing put ripples into the ocean. Locally, ripples cause objects to bob. Each object no longer needs to "know about" every other object it just needs to react to the ripples at its location, and the ripples get sent out from its location.

Does this help?