Problem
You make a good point-that conceiving of the cosmos as a huge clockwork may distract one from its unpredictability. You say: "Rearranging the de Dondi clockwork to mimic the planets' elliptical orbits around the Sun would be necessary if the clockwork reflected Galileo's conception of the universe." But Galileo never accepted the elliptical orbits that were an innovation discovered by Kepler.
questions
• Why did Galileo refuse to accept the ellipses? You further suggest that it would also have to account for the phases of Venus. But isn't there a much greater change that needs to be made in the mechanism if it were to reflect the Copernican theory that Galileo supported?
You make a good point-that conceiving of the cosmos as a huge clockwork may distract one from its unpredictability. You say: "Rearranging the de Dondi clockwork to mimic the planets' elliptical orbits around the Sun would be necessary if the clockwork reflected Galileo's conception of the universe." But Galileo never accepted the elliptical orbits that were an innovation discovered by Kepler.
• Why did Galileo refuse to accept the ellipses?
You further suggest that it would also have to account for the phases of Venus.
• But isn't there a much greater change that needs to be made in the mechanism if it were to reflect the Copernican theory that Galileo supported?