I think that the whole idea of 'Laws of Nature' remains logically and conceptually problematic.
In practice, the 'Laws of nature' seem to be assumptions. According to the stereotypical "Scientific Method", one makes assumptions/hypotheses, produces predictions based on their observational implications, and then makes the observations to see if the predictions hold true. If they do, the assumption is considered 'confirmed'. Never mind that whole procedure seems to be an illustration of the elementary logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.
If a hypothesis receives enough confirmation (nobody really knows how much that needs to be) and probably more importantly, if the rest of the scientific community adopts it as a given in its science education process, then it somehow becomes imagined as pertaining universally and necessarily and is imagined as a Law. So not only does the problem of induction arise, there also seems to be a large sociological component to whatever it is that's happening.
I'm inclined to think that historically, 'Laws of nature' are worryingly close to being Christian theology translated into science-speak.
We have 'God', the universe's ancient Mesopotamian King, whose Word creates whole new realities, whose word is Law. And we have the vision of a universe created by God's Word, subject to those Laws that the Lord has spoken into being, just as the people of Akkad were subject to the law spoken into being by their Lord, the King of Akkad.
In the early years of the scientific revolution, those who were to become known as 'scientists' imagined their task as uncovering and elucidating God's unvarying and eternal Word as expressed in Laws of nature. Isaac Newton was very open about thinking that way. Even the free-thinkers of the time, the 17th and 18th century Deists, imagined a God that created the universe and whose handiwork is visible in its order and design, even as they expressed skepticism about the revealed religion of the churches and their scriptures. For many intellectuals in those years, science was probably the most direct way to, as Einstein later put it, 'read the mind of God'. So the whole idea that nature's Laws are universal, necessary and invariant was simply assumed as a given.
Today atheists have abandoned belief in God, but they still believe devoutly in the 'Laws of nature' that the non-existent God supposedly spoke into existence. (Kinda like the Cheshire cat's grin in 'Alice', the echo of God's disappearance...) So as much as the atheists like to insist that science and religion are incompatible, one could make an argument that science as presently conceived makes most sense in the context of religion.
In practice, the 'Laws of nature' seem to be assumptions. According to the stereotypical "Scientific Method", one makes assumptions/hypotheses, produces predictions based on their observational implications, and then makes the observations to see if the predictions hold true. If they do, the assumption is considered 'confirmed'. Never mind that whole procedure seems to be an illustration of the elementary logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.
If a hypothesis receives enough confirmation (nobody really knows how much that needs to be) and probably more importantly, if the rest of the scientific community adopts it as a given in its science education process, then it somehow becomes imagined as pertaining universally and necessarily and is imagined as a Law. So not only does the problem of induction arise, there also seems to be a large sociological component to whatever it is that's happening.
I'm inclined to think that historically, 'Laws of nature' are worryingly close to being Christian theology translated into science-speak.
We have 'God', the universe's ancient Mesopotamian King, whose Word creates whole new realities, whose word is Law. And we have the vision of a universe created by God's Word, subject to those Laws that the Lord has spoken into being, just as the people of Akkad were subject to the law spoken into being by their Lord, the King of Akkad.
In the early years of the scientific revolution, those who were to become known as 'scientists' imagined their task as uncovering and elucidating God's unvarying and eternal Word as expressed in Laws of nature. Isaac Newton was very open about thinking that way. Even the free-thinkers of the time, the 17th and 18th century Deists, imagined a God that created the universe and whose handiwork is visible in its order and design, even as they expressed skepticism about the revealed religion of the churches and their scriptures. For many intellectuals in those years, science was probably the most direct way to, as Einstein later put it, 'read the mind of God'. So the whole idea that nature's Laws are universal, necessary and invariant was simply assumed as a given.
Today atheists have abandoned belief in God, but they still believe devoutly in the 'Laws of nature' that the non-existent God supposedly spoke into existence. (Kinda like the Cheshire cat's grin in 'Alice', the echo of God's disappearance...) So as much as the atheists like to insist that science and religion are incompatible, one could make an argument that science as presently conceived makes most sense in the context of religion.