system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If, due to electromagnetic repulsion, I'm unable to actually come into contact with another object, why do I experience different sensations when touching different objects?
gpt
Because "actually coming into contact" the way you are imagining it, is not a thing that exists in reality (as far as we know), and it's certainly not needed to explain any of our observations or experiences with touching things. 

You probably have an idea in your head that in order to touch something, there has to be some "stuff" that takes up space and the "stuff" of two touching objects has to be next to each other in such a way that there's no empty space in between. In fact, this is not what is necessary for two things to touch. All that is necessary for things to touch is that they are close enough to be able to interact with each other through the various fundamental forces, mostly the electromagnetic force for the purposes of everyday experience. Things don't have to be physically next to each other with no space in between in order to interact electromagnetically, as the electromagnetic force can be transferred over otherwise empty space.

Furthermore, according to our current best model of fundamental particle physics, there is no such thing as "stuff" that takes up space in the world. We can describe all our observations and experiences by assuming that all particles are exactly point-like with no physical extent or volume whatsoever. Things appear solid and to "take up space" simply because of the nature of the fundamental interactions that occur between point-like particles. Now, it's quite possible that some kind of fundamental "stuff" exists at smaller scales than any of our experiments can detect, and that the truly fundamental constituents of matter do have volume and take up space; it would be incorrect to state that we know for sure that such things do not exit. However, what is important is that even if some kind of "stuff" exists on very small scales, it is not necessary, nor does it play a meaningful role, in explaining or facilitating any of the observations or experiences we have of touching in the everyday world. After all, in order to be consistent with existing observations this "stuff" would never have a chance to come into physically adjacent contact with other stuff in any situations or experiments we're currently able to perform.