Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

http://plus.maths.org/content/laws-nature

SNIP ...Not only are the laws independent of us: they also appear to sit over and above all other objects to which they apply. "In some sense [the laws of nature] are not part of the Universe," says George Ellis, a mathematician and cosmologist at the University of Cape Town. "They underlie the Universe because they control how matter behaves, but they are not themselves made of matter. Laws of physics aren't made of lead or uranium or something." So it appears that the laws of nature exist in some abstract realm of their own. Through some mysterious mechanism we have access to this Platonic realm and can piece some of those laws together....

(Oct 14, 2014 07:49 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Not only are the laws independent of us: they also appear to sit over and above all other objects to which they apply. "In some sense [the laws of nature] are not part of the Universe," says George Ellis, a mathematician and cosmologist at the University of Cape Town. "They underlie the Universe because they control how matter behaves, but they are not themselves made of matter. Laws of physics aren't made of lead or uranium or something." So it appears that the laws of nature exist in some abstract realm of their own. Through some mysterious mechanism we have access to this Platonic realm and can piece some of those laws together.

It isn't just the laws of nature. I think that the same thing can be said of logic and probably of mathematics.

Having noted that, I don't really have a clue what logic, the laws of nature and math are, or what their precise relationship is to the rest of reality.

They remain among the more prominent mysteries of being as far as I'm concerned.

I'll add that if people like MR want to believe that mysteries remain in the world, it isn't necessary to go chasing off after ghosts and UFOs. There are profound unsolved mysteries right here, right in front of our faces, in the most routine of everyday events.