What you are saying amounts to having to decide if an "accurate description" is to be found in the theory or its measurements? — apokrisis
On the other hand, it is not true that F=ma accurately and precisely describes the behaviour of most moving bodies. — StreetlightX
6.371 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.
6.372 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 terminus, whereas the modern system makes it appear as though everything were explained.
Psychological hedonism is definitely falsifiable — MonfortS26
Also, how would this analysis fair when considering thermodynamics? I have in mind the 2nd law, in particular. It's extremely abstract, but doesn't really deal with entities as much (as I understand it), but does seem quite universal ((edit: I should use your terminology better. Not universal, but rather a cover-law)) in that it's often linked to the arrow of time. — Moliere
How would you differentiate entities from theories?
t seems to me that a good deal of the commentary around rationalising these laws is motivated by the 'god-shaped hole' that the absence of a creator has left; as if science ought to find it easy to step into the vacuum left by the discovery of the non-existence of God. — Wayfarer
What happens on most occasions is dictated by no law at all — StreetlightX
Right. So it comes down to asking the right questions to get the right explanation. Philosophy is rife with asking the wrong questions.These senses of truth are not in contradiction, because they bear on different domains, or rather, they attempt to respond to different questions (It is an accurate description vs. Is the law otherwise than stated?). — StreetlightX
the 'fundamental laws' are, ironically, more exceptions than rules, limits cases and not paradigmatic ones. That the fundamental laws of physics are taken to be paradigmatic of science - and that people are so taken by promises of 'theories of everything' - speaks more to the vampirism and the hangover of unconscious and powerful religious impulses than it does about the real life practices of science. — StreetlightX
“Every law of physics, pushed to the extreme, will be found to be statistical and approximate, not mathematically perfect and precise,”
This report reviews what quantum physics and information theory have to tell us about the age-old question, How come existence? No escape is evident from four conclusions:
(1) The world cannot be a giant machine, ruled by any preestablished continuum physical law.
(2) There is no such thing at the microscopic level as space or time or spacetime continuum.
(3) The familiar probability function or functional, and wave equation or functional wave equation, of standard quantum theory provide mere continuum idealizations and by reason of this circumstance conceal the information-theoretic source from which they derive.
(4) No element in the description of physics shows itself as closer to primordial than the elementary quantum phenomenon, that is, the elementary device-intermediated act of posing a yes-no physical question and eliciting an answer or, in brief, the elementary act of observer-participancy.
Otherwise stated, every physical quantity, every it, derives its ultimate significance from bits, binary yes-or-no indications, a conclusion which we epitomize in the phrase, it from bit.
The fundamental laws are fundamental because they take us back to the beginning. — apokrisis
It is about completing a metaphysical project initiated by the Ancient Greek metaphysicians even before the theocrats came along and started nicking their ideas in an attempt to legitimate their various brands of Church. — apokrisis
With luck, we will find there could have only been only the one Cosmos at a fundamental level — apokrisis
The ground of existence — apokrisis
Not quite the beginning, as I understand it - just a moment after. — Wayfarer
And the fact that the Universe did then develop in such a way to give rise to stars>matter>life, is the subject of the well-known anthropic cosmological argument. The fact that some physicists promote the idea of a 'multiverse' to avoid that very implication speaks volumes in my opinion. — Wayfarer
'Completing the metaphysical project' assumes that a biological intelligence, which has evolved as a consequence of adaptive necessity, is able to arrive at some general conception of truth or reason, which may be entirely unconnected with it. I don't see any scientific reason for that assumption. — Wayfarer
I don't know of any reputable physicists who claim that the universe purposely developed to give rise to life. Why isn't life everywhere, or any other place than Earth for that matter? Who knows what kind of varying and interesting molecular interactions there are throughout the universe over its history?And the fact that the Universe did then develop in such a way to give rise to stars>matter>life, is the subject of the well-known anthropic cosmological argument. The fact that some physicists promote the idea of a 'multiverse' to avoid that very implication speaks volumes in my opinion. — Wayfarer
Was this a truth statement? If we can't get arrive at some general conception of truth or reason, then how is that you arrived at this idea that we can't? Your statement defeats itself.'Completing the metaphysical project' assumes that a biological intelligence, which has evolved as a consequence of adaptive necessity, is able to arrive at some general conception of truth or reason, which may be entirely unconnected with it. I don't see any scientific reason for that assumption. (As explored in an old essay by Tom Wolfe.) — Wayfarer
The fundamental laws are fundamental because they take us back to the beginning. If the Cosmos evolved, there has to have been an initial state of high symmetry that then became the current succession of increasingly broken symmetries. — apokrisis
Whereas I am arguing that the laws represent global constraints. — apokrisis
The method of restricting attention to a small part of the universe has enabled the success of physics from the time of Galileo.
...
To study a system we need to define what is contained and what is excluded from it. We treat the system as if it were isolated from the rest of the universe, and this isolation itself is a drastic approximation. We cannot remove a system from the universe, so in any experiment we can only decrease, but never eliminate, the outside influences on our system. — Smolin
It remains a great temptation to take a law or principle we can successfully apply to all the world's subsystems and apply it to the universe as a whole. To do so is to commit a fallacy I will call the cosmological fallacy. — Smolin
So I don’t think that my view is radically out of line with Smolin’s. — apokrisis
Any organism that is able to perceive its environment in more detail can use its energy more efficiently in finding ofood — Harry Hindu
Everyday we deal with the fact that what language expresses is not really true without any big problem. People can get tangled up in words and start to believe that have an independent existence, but most of us don't get lost like that. — T Clark
The laws that describe this world are a patchwork, not a pyramid. — StreetlightX
Pomo neo-Marxist socialist politically correct er... some other empty epithets, I imagine. — StreetlightX
Banno put it once nicely in a post long ago - something like: the point of scientific equations is to add up nicely. — StreetlightX
That doesn't explain much — T Clark
Glad you found it useful. — Banno
What is the political agenda associated with StreetlightX's view? — T Clark
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