Where do the laws of physics come from?
  • Art48
    480
    Here are two views.

    1) Laws then universe

    If laws of physics exist, they are prescriptive; that is, they proscribe what will occur. For example, when I drop a brick from a height of 5 feet, it will fall with a specific accelerating velocity until it hits the ground.

    If laws exist, then a lawgiver must exist, too. Therefore, God.

    If the laws of physics come from God, how are laws implemented? The brick itself isn’t smart enough to know the right way to fall, i.e., it’s not smart enough to know what God’s law is and then follow it. So, does God regulate and control the speed of a falling brick? And everything else?

    Is God the ultimate puppet-master, constantly pulling strings so that the universe functions in accordance to his laws?


    2) Universe then habits (not laws)

    If the “laws” of physics are in reality habits of physics, then they are descriptive; that is, they simply describe what has occurred in the past every time we looked. So, we notice what a brick habitually did in the past, and we assume the brick will behave in the same way in the future.

    Once a brick (or a universe) exists, it has certain properties by its very nature, by virtue of its existence. The “laws” are built in. Bricks merely do what they do, and we observe and notice a pattern. We codify as law the patterns we observe. But inductive reasoning can never give a law, merely a habit.

    Under this view, no external lawgiver is needed. So, the “laws” of physics are built in. Once the universe exists, the “laws” exist.

    True, we don’t understand how the universe came to exist. But once it exists, then by its very nature, it does what it does. Once created, it contains habits which we mistakenly call laws.

    So, to the question “What came first, the universe or the laws of physics?” I would answer “The universe.”

    And now for a bit of humor. A couple in New Jersey are conducting an experiment to solve an age-old question. The husband ordered a chicken from Amazon and his wife ordered an egg.
    Art48 Options
  • T Clark
    14k
    So, to the question “What came first, the universe or the laws of physics?” I would answer “The universe.” — Art48

    Agreed. Sorry, I can't think of anything to add to what you've written.

    And now for a bit of humor. A couple in New Jersey are conducting an experiment to solve an age-old question. The husband ordered a chicken from Amazon and his wife ordered an egg. — Art48

    Welcome to the forum. [joke] A warning, only Hanover and I are allowed to try to be funny here on the forum. Check the Site Guidelines on the first page.[/joke]
    T Clark Options
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    Laws of physics are just regularities. The concept of law is rather odd since we usually think of a law as needing enforcement.
    Jackson Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Particles, their couplings to virtual particle fields, and the spacetime needed to let them play, behave in a certain way. How else can it be? Both the particles and laws they behaviorally conform to are created by a non-material agency. Do the particles truly obey the law? No, they just ac and interact. We construct the laws and claim retroactively they conform, which again happens in very specific experimental circumstances.
    Hillary Options
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    If laws exist, then a lawgiver must exist, too. Therefore, God. — Art48

    You are conflating legal "laws" with physical "laws".
    hypericin Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    You are conflating legal "laws" with physical "laws" — hypericin

    Then where does the physical law come from?
    Hillary Options
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    Then where does the physical law come from? — Hillary

    Who can say. But it is fallacious to argue they must come from a lawmaker, because they are laws.
    hypericin Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    . But it is fallacious to argue they must come from a lawmaker, because they are laws — hypericin

    Didn't we make the "physical law"?
    Hillary Options
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    ↪Hillary
    no
    hypericin Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    ↪hypericin


    Where can we find them than? I can see the laws of quantum field theory or general relativity written anywhere but in the law books of physics.
    Hillary Options
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    ↪Art48
    ↪Art48

    No 1 is a superstitious non philosophical worldview.
    Now the laws of physics are Not "Build in". they emerge from physical systems based on really simple properties displayed by the parts.
    Nickolasgaspar Options
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    Where can we find them than? I can see the laws of quantum field theory or general relativity written anywhere but in the law books of physics. — Hillary

    We find them in the physical world. Physics books try to articulate them.
    hypericin Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    ↪hypericin


    I have looked hard but nowhere have found Newton's law! Only in a book. And it's not even true. Like QFT nor GR are true.
    Hillary Options
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    When you drop an apple, you don't see it fall in a book. These Books just try to tell the story of what happens in the world.
    hypericin Options
  • SpaceDweller
    520
    Then where does the physical law come from?
    — Hillary

    Who can say. But it is fallacious to argue they must come from a lawmaker, because they are laws.     — hypericin

    Not because they are "laws" but because physical laws exist.
    physical laws could not have caused them self to start existing.

    It doesn't make sense physical laws are self-caused out of no physical laws.
    What ever must have caused physical laws to start existing, that is, to manifest them self, to be observable.
    SpaceDweller Options
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    Not because they are "laws" but because physical laws exist.
    physical laws could not have caused them self.

    It doesn't make sense physical laws are self-caused out of no physical laws.
    What ever must have caused physical laws to start existing, that is, to manifest them self, to be observable.     — SpaceDweller

    Physical laws are just behaviors within boundaries.
    Jackson Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    When you drop an apple, you don't see it fall in a book. These Books just try to tell the story of what happens in the world. — hypericin

    You consider them holey books? Anyhow, if they try to tell the story of what happens in the world you can better read a newspaper.
    Hillary Options
  • hypericin
    1.6k
    ↪Hillary
    Uh huh.
    hypericin Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    ↪hypericin


    Then what's the story? Objects following imaginary mathematical patterns, no where to be seen in the real world? Apart from highly artificial, unnatural experimental circumstances? The Books deceive...
    Hillary Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    ↪whollyrolling


    About 2145.
    Hillary Options
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    They are symbolic representations of things humans don't essentially understand. — whollyrolling

    Science offers descriptive frameworks. This means that science observes and describes the emerging empirical regularities in interactions between different physical entities and processes. Those rules are emergent by really simple basic properties of matter.
    Your claim sounds like a fallacy from Personal Incredulity.(look it up).
    Nickolasgaspar Options
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    Laws of physics are just regularities. The concept of law is rather odd since we usually think of a law as needing enforcement. — Jackson

    Correct. Unfortunately many people get confused with human language. As agents we tend to see agency behind nature....even in our attempt to describe regularities in physical phenomena.
    This is known as Magical Language and Thinking. Aeon has a great essay on this phenomenon.
    Nickolasgaspar Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    As agents we tend to see agency behind nature....even in our attempt to describe regularities in physical phenomena.
    This is known as Magical Language and Thinking. Aeon has a great essay on this phenomenon.     — Nickolasgaspar

    There is agency behind physical phenomena. Particles possess charge, the agencies that couple to virtual fields by means of which they interact. That agencies evolved into the agencies of life.
    Hillary Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Science offers descriptive frameworks. — Nickolasgaspar

    No, science offers more than abstract descriptive frameworks. Science offers mental simulations of reality. It depends on the region or domain investigated how this mental simulation looks like.
    Hillary Options
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    There is agency behind physical phenomena. — Hillary

    You need to objectively demonstrate it...not just assumed it.
    Agency behind nature was the single reason why our epistemology stagnated for more than 2000 until science with its Naturalistic principles allow our knowledge to advance for more than 400 years.

    You keep making claim after claim but you neglect your obligation to provide evidence....

    -"Particles possess charge, the agencies that couple to virtual fields by means of which they interact. That agencies evolved into the agencies of life."
    -CHarge is not agency...stop promoting equivocation fallacies.

    -"No, science offers more than abstract descriptive frameworks. Science offers mental simulations of reality....."
    -lol...yes whatever.... Science describes...its doesn't simulates (it run simulations to test models but that has nothing to do with you claimed).
    Nickolasgaspar Options
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    ↪Hillary
    you're making me really sad Hillary. You are a young individual with free access to knowledge but you are trapped by your iron age heuristics...
    Nickolasgaspar Options
  • jgill
    3.9k
    There is agency behind physical phenomena. — Hillary

    Yes, there are agencies behind physical phenomena, but not the sort of agencies normally discussed in philosophy in which something resembling consciousness exists. Regarding "action" as defined in physics, e.g. Oxford Lang. :
    action or intervention, especially such as to produce a particular effect

    Agency in Physics
    jgill Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    ↪jgill


    I can see only a white page in the link. Which is understandable as the concept of charge in physics is poorly understood. Personally I litterally see it as a filling up of a three dimensional structure existing in six dimensional space. If three of six spatial dimensions are curled up to circles (S1xS1xS1) a three dimensional structure is formed and charge can be put in it. Like that, the particles are not pointlike, a solution for a Lorenz invariant Planck scale is offered, renormalization is superfluous, and black holes can't collapse to a singularity. Consider the basic particles massless, and the speed of light finite, and the equivalence between mass and pure kinetic energy is explained, as well as space and time being extended.
    Hillary Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    ↪Nickolasgaspar

    Don't feel sad Nickolas! Life is wonderful! Litterally!
    Hillary Options
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    you're making me really sad Hillary. You are a young individual with free access to knowledge but you are trapped by your iron age heuristics... — Nickolasgaspar

    On the contrary! Im far ahead of my time. Already at 35! The world isnt ready yet. But my writings will soon be read in the whole world, Nobel prizes for physics and literature and maybe for peace will come my way. You gotta have a goal in life!
    Hillary Options
  • Nickolasgaspar
    1k
    Don't feel sad Nickolas! Life is wonderful! Litterally! — Hillary

    life might be wonderful....having to deal with superstitions in 2022 isn't that great.
    Nickolasgaspar Options
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