What makes nature comply to laws?

Pez

At first glance the question seems too naive to be considered at all and for religiously minded people the answer is as simple as that: God, the Creator of the world created its laws as well and the fundamental difference between Creator and Creation does not allow for any deflection. For someone not as content regarding the principles of reality on the other hand the answer is not as simple.

Immanuel Kant presents us with a surprising and seemingly absurd alternative: we ourselves are the source of physical laws. Seemingly absurd, because we cannot influence the laws of nature. A heavy object released will fall to the ground, somebody under the influence of certain drugs, who believes he can fly and jumps out of the window, will quite sure break his bones. Nevertheless in Kant's system these laws are the outcome of fundamental structures, called categories, pertaining to humanity at large. These categories are objective insofar as they guide what we call „nature“ for everybody but still are subjective as they present us with a nature dependent on the way we conceive it.

The spatiotemporal world we live in is, according to Kant, of our own making. It exists only in our ideas (Vorstellung) and gives us no clue to what these things might be „an sich“ or per se. The main reason for such a strange view came as a reply to an objection brought forward by David Hume called „induction problem“. The core of Hume's reasoning is: „How can we be sure that from events in the past we can infer to events in the future?“. E.g. how can we be sure, that the sun will rise again tomorrow? Although we have seen this happen hundreds of times before, there is no absolute clue to what will happen tomorrow or in thousands of years. Of course common sense contradicts this verdict emphatically and rightfully so. But considered carefully, we cannot dismiss the reasonings of Hume right away.

Kant maintains that the problem arises because we tend to look at things in a special way: we think habitually, that objective knowledge presumes the objects, we want to know about. In other words: we think, that objects exist prior to our knowledge and outside consciousness. But any knowledge in a strict sense about objects entirely out of our consciousness is impossible, especially regarding their behavior in the future. If this was the case, Hume's arguments are indeed irrefutable. So Kant's proposal was: let us just put it the other way round: our knowledge comes to a certain extent before the object, making our concept of „objects“ and the inference to future occurrences from past ones possible. In his jargon he asks: how are synthetical judgments „a priori“ or before experience possible? And his answer is: because these judgements are the requirements for objects at large („Bedingungen der Möglichkeit“ or preconditions of possibility) making objective knowledge possible at all.

Idealism in its purest form is called „solipsism“ and maintains: the only fact, that I can be sure of is, that I exist. The rest is just assumption. This view, a reminiscence to Descarte's „cogito ergo sum“ has some merits and cannot easily be refuted. The „transcendental idealism“ of Kant is indeed some form of solipsism with the main difference, that here the subject is no singular occurrence but universally valid for all human beings. The one world we live in is objectively true but only a subjective representation nevertheless.

There have been some attempts to return to a realistic view of the world. But neither of them seems to me very convincing. For example Karl Popper: all physical laws brought forward by science are only more a less happy guesses and can be falsified any time by a crucial experiment. It is true, that no singular experiment and no number of identical experiments can prove the validity of a so-called law of nature, which is supposed to be universally valid. That means, it is valid for all possible experiments. It would take physicists infinite time to perform an infinite number of experiments to prove a physical law. So science at large is impossible? But we are able to send rockets to the moon and build large structures, calculating their statics beforehand by mathematical means. Somehow we can rely on the laws of physics after all.

Does this mean that transcendental idealism is in the end unavoidable and there is no realistic alternative to this world-view? And is the possibility and success of science proof, that Kant was rightfully claiming that we can never attain to a knowledge of things surrounding us per se i.e. independent of us?

RussellA

Immanuel Kant presents us with a surprising and seemingly absurd alternative: we ourselves are the source of physical laws. Seemingly absurd, because we cannot influence the laws of nature. — Pez

It depends what the expression "the laws of nature" is referring to. It could be referring to "the laws of nature" existing as concepts within the human mind, or it could be referring to the laws of nature existing outside the human mind and independently of the human mind.

If the first, we can influence them because they exist within the human mind. If the second, there is the problem of how we can know about them if they exist outside the human mind and independently of the human mind.

flannel jesus

Well, nature very well could BE the laws. If that's the case, it's not that nature is "complying" with those laws, it's that those things we consider to be part of nature are defined by those laws, and exist because of those laws.

An atom, for example. Perhaps this atom isn't "complying" with a law, perhaps the atom exists in the first place because it is composed of things which behave according to the defined ways that those things behave.

Michael

The "laws of nature" are just descriptions of how things behave.

Perhaps you meant to ask why things behave the way they do, or why their behaviour is consistent?

Joshs

↪Michael

The "laws of nature" are just descriptions of how things behave.

Perhaps you meant to ask why things behave the way they do, or why their behaviour is consistent? — Michael

Are they merely descriptions, or are they presuppositions concerning what things are and how they behave?

Vera Mont

Are they merely descriptions, or are they presuppositions concerning what things are and how they behave? — Joshs

You can't pre-suppose the world. Maybe a creator god can, but humans are in and of the world. They can't suppose anything that they don't already know something about. They can look at things - objects - in the world, describe them, use them, affect them and be affected by them. They can observe relationships and processes in the world, form mental models of how those processes work, infer causation. From this, the human mind can extrapolate a set of laws: this thing, when it meets that thing, always does thuswise. A human might presuppose that a thing similar to this, when encountering a thing similar to that will also behave thus. But he cannot presuppose from ignorance.

Nature doesn't 'comply' to anything. Nature is everything. Laws are a human convention to describe how things behave in nature. The implied coercion - how things must behave comes from having the word adapted from the description of how humans are compelled to behave in society.

180 Proof

↪Pez

Welcome to TPF ...

In sum, I understand modern natural sciences in this way – from an old post (2021):

'Physical laws' are features of physical models and not the universe itself. Our physical models are stable, therefore 'physical laws' are stable. If in current scientific terms, new observations indicate that aspects of the universe ~~have changed~~ [differ from previous observations], then, in order to account for such ~~changes~~ [differences], we will have to reformulate our current (or conjecture new) physical models which might entail changes to current (or wholly different) "physical laws". E.g. Aristotlean teleology —> Newtonian gravity —> Einsteinian relativity —> — 180 Proof

In other words, "physical laws" are invariants in the structure of physical models which attempt to explain regularities experimentally observed in the physical world. To the degree such models themselves are objective, the "physical laws" derived from them are objective.

Ciceronianus

↪Pez

I tend to look at maunderings of these kinds as a kind of affectation, or residue of the belief that the only true knowledge is absolute, certain knowledge which we poor humans cannot obtain, because we're humans and not something else, often God, but in any case something that isn't human. So we forever remain "only human" and thus inferior beings to thinkers of this kind. But if they're correct true knowledge and certainty, if there are such things, are unattainable and simply irrelevant. Much like Kant and Hume themselves in certain respects.

Acceptance of the lack of certainty, and the lack of any need for it, alters the conception of natural law. The most interesting view of natural law I've come across is the "evolutionary view" of natural law favored by C.S. Peirce. It happens that the universe evolved the way it did, and as a consequence certain "habits" developed on which we can rely (statistically, but not as absolute laws), but in other respects the universe remains subject to inquiry and undetermined.

Joshs

↪Vera Mont

Are they merely descriptions, or are they presuppositions concerning what things are and how they behave?
— Joshs

You can't pre-suppose the world. Maybe a creator god can, but humans are in and of the world. They can't suppose anything that they don't already know something about — Vera Mont

I wasn’t suggesting we pulled these presuppositions out of our butts. Presuppositions are the products of human-world interactions. They are guides to future interactions based on ways of organizing previous interactions, and subject to change as the way we modify our environment by interacting with it feeds back into these presuppositions.

Vera Mont

Presuppositions are the products of human-world interactions. They are guides to future interactions based on ways of organizing previous interactions, and subject to change as the way we modify our environment by interacting with it feeds back into these presuppositions. — Joshs

That doesn't get us any further, since I find it too convoluted to follow. How does one organize previous interactions? Surely, it's only an image, memory or concept of them that can be organized - presumably for reference. Organize, how? Form a mental model? Classify as to type? How does this process differ from describing the interactions themselves and deducing natural laws?
Observe and predict, sure; that's the beginning of science. Prediction and theory, based on observation and subject to change as new evidence comes to light. In my dictionary, a "presupposition" is

a thing tacitly assumed beforehand at the beginning of a line of argument or course of action

i.e. that which has not yet been observed and analyzed.

Manuel

If things are, trivially they exist. If something exists, it has to have a way of existing, for if a thing had no way of existing, obviously it couldn't exist.

For things to have a way of existing, they must follow certain patterns or habits or uniformities. This is the way they are able to exist.

But to ask why the way of existing is the way it is, doesn't have an answer. One can say, but I can imagine other ways of existing that are not the ones we have. Perfect. But those imagined other ways would have to have their certain patterns, habits or uniformities. That is how we are able to say something exists.

So, I think the answer to this is, that nature must follow "laws", or nature would not exist. Beyond that, the question loses clarity in terms of being able to say anything about it at all.

Joshs

↪Vera Mont

How does one organize previous interactions? Surely, it's only an image, memory or concept of them that can be organized - presumably for reference. Organize, how? Form a mental model? Classify as to type? How does this process differ from describing the interactions themselves and deducing natural laws? — Vera Mont

A cognitive organization , as a living system, exists by functioning , and it functions by continually making changes in itself, prior to volition. This self-changing process leads to the disintegration of the cognitive system (or organism) if it doesn’t manage to maintain a relative normative consistency throughout these changes. Notice I am not making a distinction between change from within and change from without. The cognitive organization has no pure interior; it is radically outside of itself , always already in the midst of its world. What we call knowledge of the world is the system’s successful accommodation to the unique aspects of new experience such that it can assimilate such experience within its normative schematics. This is what happens when a theory successfully predicts observed phenomena. Our world always appears ‘lawful’ to the extent that perceived events can be placed within a network of referential relations.

. In my dictionary, a "presupposition" is
a thing tacitly assumed beforehand at the beginning of a line of argument or course of action
i.e. that which has not yet been observed and analyzed — Vera Mont

There must always be pre-existing cognitive structure to organize what is perceived. With each actual perception, such structure is both invoked and altered by what is perceived. Accommodation from scheme to world accompanies each assimilation from world to scheme. But because this modifying of of scheme by world need to allow for a relative ongoing stability of meaning, the presuppositions we bring to every encounter with things remain fairly consistent for long period of time. Kuhn described this relative ongoing consistency of presuppositions in terms of normal science , and the significant alteration of presuppositions in terms of revolutionary science, or paradigm shifts.

Vera Mont

Um...okay...

Pez

↪RussellA

It depends what the expression "the laws of nature" is referring to. It could be referring to "the laws of nature" existing as concepts within the human mind, or it could be referring to the laws of nature existing outside the human mind and independently of the human mind. — RussellA

The "laws of nature" are just descriptions of how things behave. — Michael

This is exactly the question. To Bertrand Russell we owe a nice bon mot regarding causality: The farmer's wife calls her chicken every day 'put, put, put' to feed them. But one day 'put, put, put' they are slaughtered. Now the question is: are we in the position of these chicken or can we rely on being fed every day?

Pez

Acceptance of the lack of certainty, and the lack of any need for it, alters the conception of natural law. The most interesting view of natural law I've come across is the "evolutionary view" of natural law favored by C.S. Peirce. It happens that the universe evolved the way it did, and as a consequence certain "habits" developed on which we can rely (statistically, but not as absolute laws), but in other respects the universe remains subject to inquiry and undetermined. — Ciceronianus

In other words, "physical laws" are invariants in the structure of physical models which attempt to explain regularities experimentally observed in the physical world. To the degree such models themselves are objective, the "physical laws" derived from them are objective. — 180 Proof

I am pretty sure that almost all of us will agree to the assertion that a concept (model) referring to a thing (phenomenon) is not this thing (phenomenon) itself. But to stretch this conclusion to its limits by saying: these concepts are actually the respective world we live in and beyond our world-view and in abstraction from it there is definitely nothing left we could talk about – not many people would subscribe to.

But the philosophical system brought forward by Immanuel Kant is indeed of that kind. This philosophy, like any other, is itself a mere complicated system of concepts. When he asks therefore “how are synthetical judgements a priori possible” we should read it like this “how can we conceive the possibility of synthetical judgements a priori”. Charles Sanders Peirce can be regarded as someone generalizing Kant's ideas. His main focus was on symbols and their meaning. He maintained, that every cognition is mediated by symbols and therefore we can never know anything regarding things per se. Instead of Kant's static system of categories and intuitions he was advocate of a dynamic view of symbols. We constantly invent new concepts regarding nature and therefore new ways of knowledge, e.g. Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in contrast to Newton's classical mechanics.

C. S. Peirce died in 1914 and Kant's Critique is nearly 250 years old. Are these ideas therefore out of date or still a valuable source of insights?

180 Proof

...these concepts are actually the respective world we live in and beyond our world-view and in abstraction from it there is definitely nothing left we could talk about – — Pez

I don't understand what you're saying here. Please reformulate and clarify.

More simply put, my position is

↪180 Proof

: nature does not "comply" with "physical laws"; rather our best, unfalsified models conform via physical laws (i.e. generalizations of transformations of phenomena) to the observable, objective regularities of nature.

Tom Storm

More simply put, my position is ↪180 Proof: nature does not "comply" with "physical laws"; rather our best, unfalsified models conform via physical laws (i.e. generalizations of transformations of phenomena) to the observable, objective regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

I was just talking about this to someone at home. Language does us a great disservice when we use terms like 'laws' of logic or 'laws' of nature in as much as for many this word implies a 'lawmaker', so that anthropomorphic theism is built into the language and infects people's thinking.

RussellA

Now the question is: are we in the position of these chicken or can we rely on being fed every day? — Pez

Knowing what will happen does not mean we know why it will happen

We are in the position of the chickens. For example, we have discovered that the equation ${d = 0.5 * g * t^{2}}$ can accurately predict the distance a free-falling object falls from a position of rest. This equation describes what will happen not why it will happen. Until we know why the equation is able to predict what will happen, we cannot know whether that one day the equation will no longer work.

If the chickens knew why they were being fed, they would know that one day the feeding would stop, and would be slaughtered together with 140,000 of their comrades every minute..

180 Proof

↪Tom Storm

:up:

Vera Mont

Now the question is: are we in the position of these chicken or can we rely on being fed every day? — Pez

What's their alternative? What is ours?

Language does us a great disservice when we use terms like 'laws' of logic or 'laws' of nature in as much as for many this word implies a 'lawmaker', — Tom Storm

Language is of our own making, and it serves us fine, as long as we're using it sensibly to communicate, instead of trying to bend artificial, specialized systems like Logic or Metaphysics around a mundane vocabulary.
We make laws to regulate our social behaviour. When we invent gods to grant our wishes, we have them make laws (pretty much the same ones we already had) to regulate our behaviour. When we raise a god up to creator of the universe status, we have him make laws to regulate the behaviour of everything. It's normal, sloppy, habitual thinking, which serves fine for chatting with a neighbour.
Philosophizing over such terminology is a waste of time.
But then, what else were we going to use it for... assuming time exists to be saved, used or wasted?

RussellA

Kant was rightfully claiming that we can never attain to a knowledge of things surrounding us per se i.e. independent of us? — Pez

Kant believed that a world exists outside the mind and independent of the mind, and tried to prove this using the Transcendental Argument "Refutation of Idealism" within section B275 of Critique of Pure Reason.

We observe things in our five senses, such as a stone falling from rest

We have discovered that the equation ${d = 0.5 * g * t^{2}}$ can accurately predict the distance a free-falling object falls from a position of rest, which we can describe as one of our "Laws of Nature".

In a similar manner, the human "Laws of Nature" can be used as a Transcendental Argument for the existence of a world outside the mind and independent of the mind.

Theorem

The mere, but empirically determined, consciousness of my own observations proves the existence of a world outside me.

Proof

We observe a stone falling from rest and develop an equation that is able to predict its motion, accepting that: i) the equation is a human invention, ii) we know it has been successful in the past, iii) we don't know why it works and iv) we don't know whether it will stop working in the future.

However, we do know that what we observe is beyond the control of the human mind, in that by thought alone we can neither slow down nor speed up the rate of fall of the stone and by thought alone we cannot change the equation that successfully describes what is being observed. It follows that as what we observe is not within the control of the mind, it must be within the control of something outside the mind and independent of the mind.

IE, the consciousness of my own observations is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me.

Gnomon

Immanuel Kant presents us with a surprising and seemingly absurd alternative: we ourselves are the source of physical laws. Seemingly absurd, because we cannot influence the laws of nature. — Pez

I don't interpret Kant as implying that human observers create the laws of nature. What we do is to mathematically define the apparent necessities*1 of Nature. We observe "regularities" of cause & effect, then describe the process as-if it was imposed on nature by the Initial Influencer : The Prime Mover or The Impetus*2. So, humans are indeed the "source" of the formal & mathematical definitions, that we then use to predict statistically certain future outcomes of accurately formalized current conditions.

The knowledge of Necessity is not a physical empirical fact, but a metaphysical rational inference, just as all philosophical universals, a priori principles, are extrapolations from a few observations to a generalization. Yet, pace Hume*3, as far as we know, these "rules" are a priori & absolute, not contingent. So, it's not "absurd" to think of them as-if Divine Laws, even though we have no divine revelation to confirm our best guesses. Those "laws" are like Mathematics in general, taken to be true until an exception is observed.

Therefore, "what makes nature comply" with laws of our own defining? The implicit Impetus or First Cause of the ongoing sequence of Cause & Effect is the enforcer of Necessity. If the "laws" were not essential to the workings of the world, then the Source, or LOGOS, or Lawmaker would be superfluous. Is there any better answer to the implicit OP question : why is the world not totally Chaotic? :smile:

PS___ Galileo said, "The laws of Nature are written in the language of mathematics."
Physicist Eugene Wigner wrote : "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences". Logical patterns in nature would be unreasonable only if its processes were totally random, instead of mostly predictable. Is that why Plato postulated an ab original Logos?
Wigner : https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf

*1. Kant on the Laws of Nature :
Appearances may well offer cases from which a rule is possible in accordance with which something usually happens, but never a rule in accordance with which the succession is necessary… The strict universality of the rule is therefore not any property of empirical rules…
Wigner : https://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/jkreines/laws.htm
Note --- Hence, the universality & necessity of natural laws could only be mandated by a sovereign Ruler. Ouch!

*2. The Impetus :
In the latter work Philoponus became one of the earliest thinkers to reject Aristotle's dynamics and propose the "theory of impetus": i.e., an object moves and continues to move because of an energy imparted in it by the mover and ceases the movement when that energy is exhausted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Philoponus
Note --- "impetus is something that impels, a stimulating factor while momentum is (physics of a body in motion) the product of its mass and velocity.” https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-impetus-and-momentum

*3. Hume Causality :
(1) The cause and effect must be contiguous in space and time. (2) The cause must be prior to the effect. (3) There must be a constant union betwixt the cause and effect. [...] (4) The same cause always produces the same effect, and the same effect never arises but from the same cause.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humean_definition_of_causality
Note --- If this logic holds, we can rationally back-track causation to the original Prior : the First Cause, the Prime Necessity.

As-If : We use "as if" and "as though" to talk about an imaginary situation or a situation that may not be true but that is likely or possible.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/as-if-and-as-though

Pez

Nature doesn't 'comply' to anything — Vera Mont

The expression was chosen deliberately, I could have used 'obey' as well. The implicit question here is: what is the difference between the so-called laws of nature and civil law, that is: do we discover these laws of nature or do we just invent them.

Pez

I tend to look at maunderings of these kinds as a kind of affectation — Ciceronianus

Sorry, that You can see these questions as mere 'maundering'. I am interested in serious discussion, so, if You can, come up with something less idle talk.

Corvus

Does this mean that transcendental idealism is in the end unavoidable and there is no realistic alternative to this world-view? And is the possibility and success of science proof, that Kant was rightfully claiming that we can never attain to a knowledge of things surrounding us per se i.e. independent of us? — Pez

Every scientific law is based on induction i.e. inference from particular observations. But all observations are unique in time and place. No observations can be repeated at the same space at the same moments. Therefore the ground of scientific laws are contingent i.e. not absolute. They can be disproved any time when the physical factors change in the universe, or new discoveries and observations reveal the new facts.

With these reasons, I think the OP is correct in saying that Kantian Transcendental Idealism is evidently true and unavoidable. We know the objects in phenomena due to our sensibility and perceptual schema which operate both in empirical and a priori foundation of our mind.

There are parts of the world we can never sense due to the limitation and nature of our sensibility which are in noumena as things-in-itself. We tend to think that we know objects like cups and trees and books in daily life with infallible certainty. But the moment we ask ourselves deeper into the nature of existence such as what is the book made of? What molecules and particles make up the book, cups or trees? We immediately are not sure about all the information hidden in the objects, which proves the obvious limitation of our knowledge even of the objects in phenomena too.

Pez

...these concepts are actually the respective world we live in and beyond our world-view and in abstraction from it there is definitely nothing left we could talk about – — Pez

I don't understand what you're saying here. Please reformulate and clarify. — 180 Proof

Just imagine someone living in the Middle Ages, believing the earth was the center of the universe. Such a person lived actually in a different world than we do today. To say, these people only believed, the whole universe is rotating around the globe whereas “in reality” our sun is just one star among millions and earth a planet circling it, does not meet the case in point. It describes only the world-view until the beginning of the last century. Nowadays we'd have to reformulate this view according to new theories regarding the universe and the structures of matter at large (Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics).

What I wanted to say is: “in reality” can only mean “in relation to our concepts regarding reality”. These concepts change and so does the world we live in.

Moliere

do we discover these laws of nature or do we just invent them. — Pez

Why not both?

There's a sense in which we clearly invent them. Newton's Principia was published in 1687, and that's a science text that uses the Law-like formulation. So it had to be written.

But if they are wrong then we change them, so there's a bit of discovery to it as well. Perhaps discovery and invention are not so opposed as common belief would have it?

Vera Mont

The expression was chosen deliberately, I could have used 'obey' as well. The implicit question here is: what is the difference between the so-called laws of nature and civil law, that is: do we discover these laws of nature or do we just invent them. — Pez

'Obey' means the same thing and is wrong for the same reason: it is an action taken by a conscious entity with the option to do otherwise. Both words apply to humans and the domestic animals under human control. Humans formulate and enact laws to limit and govern the behaviour of individuals through coercion.

We invent - no 'just' about it; this was a big step in self-and social awareness - not only laws but the very concept of laws.

What we 'discover' - gradually, one revelation at a time - is how things operate in the world outside of us - and eventually that they operate the same way inside of us, which is another big step, followed by the realization that we ourselves operate inside of and according to the physical universe. We then superimpose our concepts, via language, onto the description of the relationships and patterns we observe in the world.

Ciceronianus

Sorry, that You can see these questions as mere 'maundering'. I am interested in serious discussion, so, if You can, come up with something less idle talk. — Pez

Ah, but I am serious and I ask a serious question: How have a serious discussion over something (like Kant's thing-in-itself, or Hume on causation) which our conduct demonstrates we don't take seriously? And indeed something which there is no reason to take seriously during the course of our lives?

From the standpoint of our conduct, we never normally think or act as if what we interact with all the time isn't what we think it to be or use it as, except in extraordinary circumstances. So, I didn't wonder what my car really is when I drove to the office this morning, neither did I wonder whether it is something like a car, which does just what a car does, but is something different from a car, which cannot be ascertained.

From the philosophical standpoint, Kant's "thing" (for example) is a perfect example of a "difference which makes no difference" to paraphrase Wild Bill James, or somebody. Peirce admired Kant, but knew maunderings (slow, idle wanderings) when he saw them. So, according to Peirce: "The Ding an sich...can neither be indicated nor found. Consequently, no proposition can refer to it, and nothing true or false can be predicated of it. Therefore, all reference to it must be thrown out as meaningless surplusage."

So, let's just agree that you take seriously what I don't as respects Kant and Hume.

But though I understand civil law quite well, at least as someone who has practiced it for many years, and you seem interested in it and whether it has any relation to natural law, I suspect the views of a mere lawyer wouldn't be welcome in that discussion either.

Relativist

There have been some attempts to return to a realistic view of the world. But neither of them seems to me very convincing. For example Karl Popper: all physical laws brought forward by science are only more a less happy guesses and can be falsified any time by a crucial experiment. — Pez

But their happy guesses of something that is underlying nature: actual natural law. Several philosophers (Armstrong, Sosa, Tooley are the best known) have proposed Law Realism: the notion that there exist actual laws of nature. Under this theory, laws of nature are relations between universals (IOW, they are not mere abstractions: platonic equations that exist in a "third realm").

A universal is a type of thing, something that is typically multiply instantiated. For example, electron and proton are two such universals. It is a law of nature that electrons and neutrons attract: "attraction" is a relation between the universals electron and neutron.

Laws of physics constitute our best guess at laws of nature, and are falsifiable - but that just means we've erred in the approximation of the actual law.

Law realism is a metaphysical theory, and in Armstrong's case - it's a fundamental aspect of the comprehensive metaphysical system he described in his life's work.

This abstract to Tooley's paper provides more background. If you want something more comprehensive, a used copy of Armstrong's "What is a Law of Nature" can be bought for $4 on Amazon.

180 Proof

These concepts change and so does the world we live in. — Pez

Well I disagree with this antirealist suggestion, Pez – "concepts" do not "change" themselves, we change our concepts in order to adapt. Turning on house lights at night in an unfamiliar house does not change the house, rather you change only your capability for orienting yourself within that unfamiliar house. Likewise, given that we inhabit the world, the 'models (i.e. pictures, maps, simulations) of the world' which we make conform with varying degrees of fidelity to the world and thereby inform our expectations of how we can adapt to the world. For instance, GR & QM were as true about the physical world in Aristotle's day and in Newton's day as they are today even though Aristotle, Newton and their contemporaries, respectively, were completely ignorant of them. Thus, changing our concepts of reality, in effect, only changes us and not reality itself.

What makes nature comply to laws?

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