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The laws of nature explain very little (philosophy of science) - C C - Jun 18, 2023
https://iai.tv/articles/the-laws-of-nature-explain-very-little-daniel-joachim-auid-2510?_auid=2020
INTRO: In “The Grand Design”, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow put forward the ambitious claim that the history of science can be summarized as “the long process of replacing the notion of the reign of gods with the concept of a universe that is governed by laws of nature.”
What is meant by such a “law of nature”? Views widely differ, but some views of prominent contemporary physicists are worth mentioning. Sean Carroll proposes that “the way physics is known to work these days is in terms of patterns, unbreakable rules, laws of nature” while Hawking & Mlodinow state a natural law is “a rule that is based upon an observed regularity and provides predictions that go beyond the immediate situations upon which it is based.”
Renaming a “law” into a “rule”, a seemingly abstract concept somehow also responsible for the prescriptive capacity to “govern the universe”, is already a spectacular feat. Ludwig Wittgenstein, on his part, would have thought this picture to betray these modern physicists, hardly an upgrade on the older faiths. Wittgenstein argued:
“At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate. And they both are right and wrong. But the ancients were clearer, in so far as they recognized one clear conclusion, whereas in the modern system it should appear as though everything were explained.”
Of course, much hinges on what is meant by “explanations” by Wittgenstein above. If we’re satisfied with describing some abstract way to relate a specific phenomenon to more general ones, then we’re most likely fine. If we want more than that, as if we want to say something about the nature of the phenomena we’re investigating or the world’s intelligible character, we’re confronted with the surprising proposition that all throughout history, “a law of nature” has never explained anything like this. Observing “regularities” in nature, even cataloging them to the extent that we can characterize them with mathematical precision, hardly counts as “explaining” those patterns, rather than just restating them using different terminology... (MORE - details)
COVERED:
1. The theological view
2. The regularity view
3. The Platonic view
4. The instrumentalist view
5. The Aristotelian view
RE: The laws of nature explain very little (philosophy of science) - Magical Realist - Jun 18, 2023
Quote:So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate.
We get so used to there being "laws of nature" that we forget what a "law" originally was. It's an edict or command issued by a ruler/ruling class for the masses to obey. It assumes from the outset a kind of universal situation that CAN be obedient to laws. Is nature originally a wild and unpredictable phenomenon that even needs to be governed by laws? Is it in some way subject to and responsive to an outside law-making agency or mind?
As Wittgenstein says, laws of nature replaced gods as the authorative and irreducible sources of order and harmony in the Universe (see Newton.) But in reality they presuppose a preexistent intent or godlike mind that can impose such rules on a previously chaotic and unruly reality. Perhaps that will or intent is physics itself. Science as the new lawmaker, having now the final word on what is defined as sufficiently "explained" and predictable.