I tend to agree. Science deals with how things are, given our means of measurement, as opposed to why things are or are the way they are.

I think that science can answer "why" questions, provided that the "why" is shorn of any teleological baggage ("why is the sky blue?" is a common question, one that admits of a purely physical explanation. I suppose one could throw in "and because God wanted it that way" or something similar, but it wouldn't add much).

I would think that, when pelted with a series of "why" questions, scientists would just answer until their explanations bottomed out at whatever level of analysis at which they were working. For instance, a biochemist might be able to give an exquisitely detailed explanation of some biochemical reaction, but keep asking "why" long enough, and he will just say "that's a matter for physics to answer."

I thought that science, therefore, just focuses on what is and ignores or dodges "Why?". — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It's a matter of emphasis. In the end, science can't avoid teleology in some form. Analysis must break causality into two general parts - the what part which covers material and efficient cause, and the why part which covers formal and final cause.

But scientific explanation as a social activity brings society the most concrete rewards when it focuses on what style, or mechanistic rather than organismic, models of causality.

Forget about the reasons for things, or the design of things. We humans can supply those parts of the equation when applying scientific knowledge to creating a technological world. Just give us what type analysis that we can use to make machinery - or closed systems of material efficient causes.

So big science would be all four causes. Techno science fetishises what questions as it operates with a less ambitious, but more everyday useful, purpose.

I think that science can answer "why" questions, provided that the "why" is shorn of any teleological baggage — Arkady

It might be interesting to consider the origin of the word 'teleological' and why it is considered 'baggage'.

There is an interesting account of the origin of 'telos' in Aristotle's politics in an IETP article on that subject:

The word telos means something like purpose, or goal, or final end. According to Aristotle, everything has a purpose or final end. If we want to understand what something is, it must be understood in terms of that end, which we can discover through careful study. It is perhaps easiest to understand what a telos is by looking first at objects created by human beings. Consider a knife. If you wanted to describe a knife, you would talk about its size, and its shape, and what it is made out of, among other things. But Aristotle believes that you would also, as part of your description, have to say that it is made to cut things. And when you did, you would be describing its telos. The knife's purpose, or reason for existing, is to cut things. And Aristotle would say that unless you included that telos in your description, you wouldn't really have described - or understood – the knife....

Here we are not primarily concerned with the telos of a knife .... What concerns us is the telos of a human being. Just like everything else that is alive, human beings have a telos. What is it that human beings are meant by nature to become in the way that knives are meant to cut, acorns are meant to become oak trees, and thoroughbred ponies are meant to become race horses? According to Aristotle, we are meant to become happy. This is nice to hear, although it isn't all that useful. After all, people find happiness in many different ways. However, Aristotle says that living happily requires living a life of virtue. Someone who is not living a life that is virtuous, or morally good, is also not living a happy life, no matter what they might think. They are like a knife that will not cut, an oak tree that is diseased and stunted, or a racehorse that cannot run. In fact they are worse, since they have chosen the life they lead in a way that a knife or an acorn or a horse cannot.

I think that passage also nicely ties in the ideas of 'purpose' and 'ethics', which is basic to Aristotelian ethics.

The reason that 'telos' or indeed purpose is taboo in scientific discourse, goes back to the 'scientific revolution' of Galileo and Newton, and the rejection of Aristotelian concepts that was part of this. Aristotelean physics, which was indeed archaic and factually incorrect in most respects, also incorporated the idea of 'telos', a classic example being that stones are naturally inclined to be drawn towards the Earth as that is their 'telos'. But along with the rejection of such Aristotelian concepts from physics, there was also a general rejection of the Scholastic metaphysics in which these ideas were embedded, including the ideas of 'formal' and 'final' ends.

With the advent of scientific materialism, explanations were sought which could understood solely in terms of physical, material and efficient causation. That is how the notion of 'purpose' came to be rejected entirely from the scientific account. And that is what being 'shorn of teleological baggage' means, isn't it?

I thought that science, therefore, just focuses on what is and ignores or dodges "Why?". — WISDOMfromPO-MO

There are two answers to the question 'why is the water boiling'. One is: it has been heated to 100 degrees celsius, and as the kettle is at sea level, that is causing it to boil'.

The other is: 'because I want to make tea'.

They're both valid answers.

There is a huge difference between what science is capable of stating and what individual or group of scientist actually state, on particularly in the field of biology and medicine where the bio-medical industry is way out of bounds.

The question "Why?" asks for the cause. When the answer is an efficient cause, as is commonly the case in science, we can continue to ask "Why?" of that efficient cause, and answer with another efficient cause. This process may continue indefinitely (infinite regress). To avoid the infinite regress, and put an end to that chain of efficient causation, it is common to turn to final cause (telos).

Evolutionary theory does indeed answer the question of why things act as they do. — Daniel Sjöstedt

I think it's reasonable to say that, and also to say that physics explains why some physical facts are as they are, explaining them in terms of other physical facts.

Science explains facts in our physical world in terms of other facts, and that qualifies validly as a "Why" answer.

But don't let anyone tell you that science can explain anything other than the relation of some physical facts to other physical facts. It can't take "Why" any farther than that.

Many people, called Science-Worshippers, or Scientificists, think they can apply science to metaphysics, and that science has the metaphysical answers. They're wrong.

Science-Worshippers are almost nonexistent at this forum.


But if somebody asks why things are not another way, the response he/she will get is "Because of A". But then there's the question, "Why A?". Whatever response you get, there's the question why that is the case. And so on. It seems we have an infinite regress and no definitive, conclusive answer to any "Why?". — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Well, for one thing, physics probably will never be complete. Most likely (most here probably would agree), there is an infinite regress, even within physics. Something unexplained will be explained by a new theory, invoking new facts. But then those new facts call for explanation...and so on, ad infinitum.

But it's still valid to say that physics or other science answers a "Why?" question, when it explains one fact in terms of other facts. It certainly isn't an ultimate "Why" answer, but it's still a "Why"-in-terms-of-something-else answer. That's all I'd ask for in physics or other science.

No matter what answers science--or any kind of inquiry--produces, "Why?" remains.

Sure. Physics will probably never get to the end of its own "Why" explanations, an infinite-regress of them. ...and can't apply to metaphysics at all.

But I claim that, not in physics, but in metaphysics, there is an end to the "Why" explanations. ...because, in the metaphysics that I propose, it's all based on something inevitable and not needing explanation. So, metaphysically, it's all explained. (...even though that probably can't be achieved within physics)

Why does 2 + 2 = 4?

It can be demnstrated, based on the axioms of the integer number system, and the definition of the numbers,

It can be regarded as an "if'then" fact, with the "if" clause consisting of the integer number axioms and the definitions of the integers in terms of those axioms.

It can be regarded as a mathematical theorem, an if-then fact.

...whose "if" clause, as I said, consists of the axioms of the integer numbers, for the operations of multiplication and addition...and the definitions of the integers in terms of those axioms.

In terms of those axioms:

0 is the additive identity (if I remember the right word). 1 is the multiplicative identity. From those, all the numbers can be defined, by addition. And 2 + 2 = 4 can be demonstrated in the same way.

Whatever the answer to that is, "Why?". And so on.

2+2=4 is true if the integer number axioms are true, and if the numbers are defined as described above. So 2 + 2 = 4 can be regarded as an "if-then" statement, whose "if" clause includes, but isn't isn't limited to, a set of axioms. (what that "if" clause also includes is the definitions of the integers as described above.) The "then" clause is that the result is 4.

In the metaphysics that I propose, our whole physical world is a system of inter-referring if-then statements, and nothing more.

I thought that science, therefore, just focuses on what is and ignores or dodges "Why?".

Science can't answer an ultimate "Why?", but it can answer relative "Why", explaining one physical fact in terms of other physical facts, which is usually all that's asked or needed or expected.

Michael Ossipoff

In the metaphysics that I propose, our whole physical world is a system of inter-referring if-then statements, and nothing more. — Michael Ossipoff

The entire physical world consists of nothing more than statements? That's an odd sort of metaphysics

That was Michael's first post on the Forum. Hey, Max Tegmark believes the universe consists of numbers. As do Pythagoreans, generally. Check out this New Scientist video.

The entire physical world consists of nothing more than statements? That's an odd sort of metaphysics — Metaphysician Undercover

(I've gone through this post of mine, changing "statements" to "facts". "Facts is what I've meant when saying "statements". Replace "statements" with "facts" in my posts on this topic.)

Yes, but everything we experience or observe can be explained in that way.

Phyisical laws are if-facts that are part of if-then facts. A physical laws is an if-fact that relates some other facts called quantity-values. Together, the physical law and some of the quantity-values that it relates are the if-clause of an if-then fact. ...whose "then" clause consists of values for the other quantities that the physical law includes in its stated relation.

If-then facts involving physical laws and the quantities that they relate. The if-then facts with those as its "if" clause. Mathematical theorems whose "if" clause includes axioms and other if-facts.

Such an if-then system can fully describe a physical world. ...and is consistent with our experiences and observations.

Of course we experience the physics mostly via what physicists tell us they've found. But if-then applies to ordinary statements and observations too:

Say I tell you that there's a traffic roundabout at 34th & Vine. That's equivalent to telling you that if you go to 34th & Vine, then you'll encounter a traffic roundabout.

We're used to declarative grammar because it's convenient. We tend to believe our grammar. But I suggest that conditional grammar is what validly describes out physical world.

Michael Ossipoff

That was Michael's first post on the Forum. Hey, Max Tegmark believes the universe consists of numbers. As do Pythagoreans, generally. Check out this New Scientist video. — Wayfarer

I like the video, it's a paradox. But Plato and Aristotle proved Pythagorean Idealism wrong, a long time ago, by appealing to substance dualism, and that's how we get beyond these apparent paradoxes.



A physical law is a description of the physical world, one produced by human minds, it is not the physical world itself.

Such an if-then system can fully describe a physical world. ...and is consistent with our experiences and observations. — Michael Ossipoff

See, the system describes the physical world, but don't you recognize a difference between the description and the thing described? How do you make this leap, to saying that the physical world is nothing more than the description?

"Andersen: I think the problem for me, coming at this as a layperson, is that when you're talking about the explanatory power of science, for every stage where you have a "something,"—even if it's just a wisp of something, or even just a set of laws—there has to be a further question about the origins of that "something." And so when I read the title of your book, I read it as "questions about origins are over."

Krauss: Well, if that hook gets you into the book that's great. But in all seriousness, I never make that claim. In fact, in the preface I tried to be really clear that you can keep asking "Why?" forever. At some level there might be ultimate questions that we can't answer, but if we can answer the "How?" questions, we should, because those are the questions that matter. And it may just be an infinite set of questions, but what I point out at the end of the book is that the multiverse may resolve all of those questions. From Aristotle's prime mover to the Catholic Church's first cause, we're always driven to the idea of something eternal. If the multiverse really exists, then you could have an infinite object—infinite in time and space as opposed to our universe, which is finite. That may beg the question as to where the multiverse came from, but if it's infinite, it's infinite. You might not be able to answer that final question, and I try to be honest about that in the book. But if you can show how a set of physical mechanisms can bring about our universe, that itself is an amazing thing and it's worth celebrating. I don't ever claim to resolve that infinite regress of why-why-why-why-why; as far as I'm concerned it's turtles all the way down. The multiverse could explain it by being eternal, in the same way that God explains it by being eternal, but there's a huge difference: the multiverse is well motivated and God is just an invention of lazy minds...' (emphasis mine)


Like I said, science is ultimately not concerned with why. Above it is implied that "Why?" does not matter.

Like I said, science is ultimately not concerned with why. Above it is implied that "Why?" does not matter. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

So if someone asks you why 1 +1=2, then you would reply that it is necessarily so. It has mathematical inescapability.

What then when fundamental physics discovers the same lack of alternatives? Particles like quarks and leptons simply have to be as they represent the simplest possible symmetry states. Nature can't be broken down any further. Like cubes and tetrahedrons, ultimate simplicity has mathematical inevitabilty. And that is then the why. It is just a formal constraint that something has to be what is left after everything has got broken down to the least complex possible basics.

This isn't the ordinary notion of a telic goal or purpose. But it is a scientific one. And it places a limit on infinite regress. There actually is a simplest state in the end. You wind up with quarks and leptons as they are as simple as it gets.

So if someone asks you why 1 +1=2, then you would reply that it is necessarily so. It has mathematical inescapability.

What then when fundamental physics discovers the same lack of alternatives? Particles like quarks and leptons simply have to be as they represent the simplest possible symmetry states. Nature can't be broken down any further. Like cubes and tetrahedrons, ultimate simplicity has mathematical inevitabilty. And that is then the why. It is just a formal constraint that something has to be what is left after everything has got broken down to the least complex possible basics.

This isn't the ordinary notion of a telic goal or purpose. But it is a scientific one. And it places a limit on infinite regress. There actually is a simplest state in the end. You wind up with quarks and leptons as they are as simple as it gets. — apokrisis

But the question of "Why?" remains. People want to know the truth and the complete truth. People want the whole story of reality.

Instead of playing word games saying things like "How" questions are the only ones that matter, why can't people just be honest and say that science can't answer every question we have?

"And above all Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist, why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions. It’s very ironic when he says philosophy is bunk and then himself engages in this kind of attempt at philosophy..."

I thought science does not answer "Why?"

This is one of the many ''problems'' I'm facing. I'm totally confused on the matter.

I think the question ''why?'' is ambiguous. It has two meanings on a superficial analysis:

1. Asks for reasons - logic
2. Asks for explanations - science

1 clearly leads to an infinite regress. We all know that. However, it's not totally unscientific in the sense that it has application after the laws of nature become established truths. The laws of nature become axioms from which other truths may be proved. Point to note is that the axioms are derived from observations - raw data from instruments.

2 is, I think, is the general objective of science - to provide explanations for phenomena. But these explanations are derived from theories/hypotheses. These too are derived from observations.

So to ask ''why?'' would be essentially asking

A) Why (reason) observations are the way they are?

B) Why (explanation) observations are the way they are?

A doesn't make sense because observations aren't propositions. So, they require explanations, not reasons.

B is problematic, similar to the problem of induction, because all we have access to are observations themselves. Any answer to B would require us to go beyond the observations and that isn't allowed in science. Perhaps it's a question for philosophy.

Firstly, let me thank you for that interesting quote; it provided a rather succinct definition of "telos."

With the advent of scientific materialism, explanations were sought which could understood solely in terms of physical, material and efficient causation. That is how the notion of 'purpose' came to be rejected entirely from the scientific account. And that is what being 'shorn of teleological baggage' means, isn't it? — Wayfarer

Yes, although in some small corner of the larger scientific enterprise (namely psychology and the social sciences), purpose and intention are still legitimate areas of inquiry. I would say that, in the overall sweep of science, it has simply become unnecessary to impute a purpose or telos in explaining most phenomena. Explaining, say, why a positron behaves as it does in the presence of a magnetic field can be done without reference to the inclinations or purpose of the positron or its behavior.

Telos and subjectivity are not necessarily conjoined.

There are two answers to the question 'why is the water boiling'. One is: it has been heated to 100 degrees celsius, and as the kettle is at sea level, that is causing it to boil'.

The other is: 'because I want to make tea'.

They're both valid answers. — Wayfarer

Yes, and they are both answers involving causation. It is your goal to make tea, which occurs prior to making the tea. The prepared tea in the future isn't what is causing the tea to be made. It is your will in the present, that is driving the body to make tea. After all, your could end up being interrupted in your tea-making and never end up making tea.

Asking "why" isn't a problem of science. It is simply a problem of having a mind that needs an explanation for everything - to keep on acquiring knowledge, even when there isn't any more knowledge to be had. I could keep asking "why" for any religious or philosophical answer, not just answers provided by science. Why does God exist?

But Plato and Aristotle proved Pythagorean Idealism wrong, a long time ago, by appealing to substance dualism, and that's how we get beyond these apparent paradoxes.

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If you have a proof that the fully parsimonious Idealistic metaphysics that I’ve proposed (and which I call "Skepticism") is wrong, I invite you to state it.
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You said:
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A physical law is a description of the physical world, one produced by human minds, it is not the physical world itself.

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Modern observations show the currently observed laws of physics operating long before there were any physicists.
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But yes, of course your life-experience possibility-story is about experience and observation.
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Physicists’ observations (and your own direct experience, and your experience of what physicists report) are of certain physical laws evidently applying.
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Possibility-stories are self-consistent. The physicists and you, when examining, experimenting, observing, and testing, will find underlying facts (physical quantities and laws) that are consistent with eachother and with your other experiences and observations.
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Humans deduce physical laws that are consistent with their observations. Humans continue to recognize a physical law if it remains consistent with observation. It’s part of your hypothetical life-experience possibility-story, consisting of a system of inter-referring “if-then”s.
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I’d said:
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Such an if-then system can fully describe a physical world. ...and is consistent with our experiences and observations. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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See, the system describes the physical world, but don't you recognize a difference between the description and the thing described?

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It’s enough that it describes the world that we observe, and is consistent with our experiences and observation.
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What more would you ask of an explanation?
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I didn’t say that a thing and its description are the same.
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There’s no reason to believe that the objectively-existent “things” of Materialism are other than fiction.

Yes, of course because the world's things are part of our life-experience possibility-story, we must deal with them. But this is a philosophical discussion about what is.
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How do you make this leap, to saying that the physical world is nothing more than the description?

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What I said is that our physical world is nothing other than a system of inter-referring “if-then”s.
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Several physicists, from Michael Faraday (1844) to Max Tegmark (currently) have been saying that the physical world is consistent with a mathematical and logical system of relation, in which there’s no reason to believe in objectively-existent “stuff”. They’re right.
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Your physical world is nothing other than your experience—your life-experience possibility-story.
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Why is there that story? How could there not be, among the infinity of hypothetical possibility-stories such as I’ve described. As I’ve said, that system of hypothetical “if-then”s doesn’t and needn’t exist in any context other than its own. Its elements needn’t and don’t have any applicability, meaning or existence other than in reference to eachother.
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As for whether Materialism or Skepticism is true, let me quote something that I recently said in another topic at this forum:
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...besides, even if Materialism were true (but it isn't), worlds consisting only of systems of inter-referring hypotheticals would still inevitably be.

...an infinity of them.

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...meaning that, even if Materialism were true, a supposed Materialist nature of this particular physical world wouldn't change the inevitability of the infinitely-many possibility worlds

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So, even if Materialism were true of this particular physical world, it would be superfluous and irrelevant overall.
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In fact, it would be superfluous and irrelevant in our world too. The expected observations for Materialism and Skepticism are identical. Those two metaphysicses are observationally indistinguishable.
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So, you can believe in Materialism if you want to, but just know that you’re believing in an unnecessary assumption and brute-fact, when you believe that the physical world and its things and stuff are objectively existent, primary, and fundamentally existent.
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Michael Ossipoff

science doesn't answer anything, us humans do

Explaining, say, why a positron behaves as it does in the presence of a magnetic field can be done without reference to the inclinations or purpose of the positron or its behavior. — Arkady

But then you have the 'observer problem' which has thrown the entire 'mind-independence' of observation into question. One implication of that being, what you see depends on what you decide to measure. 'We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning' ~ Heisenberg.

Particles like quarks and leptons simply have to be as they represent the simplest possible symmetry states. — apokrisis

The thing is, their status as 'particles' and, ergo, 'what they are', is in question. You're still thinking 'fundamental particles', which surprises me, coming from you.

You're still thinking 'fundamental particles', — Wayfarer

Or more like fundamental resonance modes in being the simplest possible permutation symmetries. Particles are excitations of a quantum field rather than scraps of matter. So their "why" is because of nature's "desire" for lowest mode simplicity.

So their "why" is because of nature's "desire" for lowest mode simplicity. — apokrisis

(Y)

More grist for the Lawrence Krauss mill On the Origin of Everything, David Albert

The Metaphysical Muddle of Lawrence Krauss, Neil Ormerod.

I'd like to further reply to this post:

A physical law is a description of the physical world, one produced by human minds, it is not the physical world itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

For one thing, regarding the system of inter-referring hypotheticals that I speak of, I don't claim that it's objectively real, existent or factual..

Regarding the various "if-then"s composing it, I don't claim that any of them are objectively factual.
They have reference, applicability and relevance only in their own mutually inter-referring context.

In particular, that includes the physical laws. These are all hypotheticals. I specifically referred to physical laws as hypothetical facts. ...and as part of if-clauses of various if-then facts. ...if-then facts which, themselves, could be part of an "if" clause of another hypothetical if-then fact.

For another thing, this isn't a "Realism".

I'm not saying that the physical laws have definite form, regardless of whether we know that form yet.

It would be tempting to say that, but your life-experience possibility-story is about your experience, not external, 3rd-person objective facts, or things that you haven't encountered yet.

Physicists can tell you what, based on their experiments, seem likely to be the physical laws regarding some physical subject. ...what the best theory seems to be, in that regard. Sometimes your own experience tells you something about that too. You've gotten a direct experiential sense of F = ma, and life in a nearly uniform gravitational field. and the fact that soap helps dissolve lipids in water, giving confirmation to what we've heard about its molecule's polar and nonpolar ends making it compatible to mix with both, to make an emulsion..

If our physicists probe, investigate, test, and experiment, then they might find some theories that they favor as likely physical laws and physical structure. ...and then tell us, whereby those likely physical laws become part of our experience.

So no, I'm not saying that the physical laws exist independent of us. None of all this does, because your life-experience story is only about your experience. And this world is nothing other than part of that story.

And, as I said, the conditional, if-then, nature of facts about our physical world isn't limited to physics. I gave the example of the traffic roundabout at 34th & Vine.

A world best described by conditional grammar, rather than declarative grammar.

A world of "If", rather than a world of "Is".

MIchael Ossipoff

Modern observations show the currently observed laws of physics operating long before there were any physicists. — Michael Ossipoff

I cannot comprehend this statement. First, the "laws of physics are produced by human beings, created by human minds. So secondly, when you say the "observed laws of physics", I assume that what you mean is that the laws are "respected" by physicists, not that they are things like entities observed through the senses. Finally, therefore, it is nonsense to say that these laws were "operating" before there were any physicists. What could you possibly mean by "operating" here?

So no, I'm not saying that the physical laws exist independent of us. — Michael Ossipoff

This seems to directly contradict what you said above. Are you sure that you know what you're trying to say?

I didn’t say that a thing and its description are the same. — Michael Ossipoff

You said: "In the metaphysics that I propose, our whole physical world is a system of inter-referring if-then statements, and nothing more.

If-then statements are statements of description. And you said that these statements of description are the physical world itself, (the thing being described).

There’s no reason to believe that the objectively-existent “things” of Materialism are other than fiction. — Michael Ossipoff

Are you saying that there is no such thing as the thing being described, that "the thing being described" is fictitious? What's the point of a description then?

But then you have the 'observer problem' which has thrown the entire 'mind-independence' of observation into question. One implication of that being, what you see depends on what you decide to measure. 'We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning' ~ Heisenberg. — Wayfarer

Ok. Not sure what that has to do with the "telos" of the positron, though.

This is a 6-page reply. If I take the time to reply at all, then I don’t let brevity overrule complete answers.
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I’d said:
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Modern observations show the currently observed laws of physics operating long before there were any physicists. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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I cannot comprehend this statement. First, the "laws of physics are produced by human beings, created by human minds.

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We’ve been over that. I refer you to my previous post (the one that you’re replying to).
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Which part of the statement don’t you comprehend?
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Physicists haven’t just been sitting on their hands during the past 400 years. They’ve arrived at some well-established, experimentally well-supported, never falsified laws of physics.
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And yes, believe it or not, observational evidence indicates that those laws were also operating at times before there were any physicists.
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Humans “produced” them? Humans found laws that explain and predict physical events in terms of other physical events and conditions.
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Some laws are understood, at the time of proposal or acceptance or later, to be approximate, and useful only under conditions wherein the approximation isn’t too far off. Newton’s laws are still widely used, in spite of the fact that quantum mechanics or relativity gives better predictions in some domains of observation.
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You can call all physical laws “provisional” if you want to. But I doubt that they attain the name of “law” until they’ve been thoroughly tested and verified, at least for the domain in which they’re proposed to be applicable.
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Provisional or not, physical laws now widely accepted and used have been shown to have been operating before there were physicists.
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So secondly, when you say the "observed laws of physics", I assume that what you mean is that the laws are "respected" by physicists, not that they are things like entities observed through the senses.

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No, they’re observed through the senses (often via instrumentation). You can call then “entities” if you want to, but they’re provisional facts, that are accepted if they’re sufficiently confirmed, and never falsified. …eventually increasingly regarded as confirmed instead of provisional. And yes, they’re based on observation of physical events and conditions.
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Finally, therefore, it is nonsense to say that these laws were "operating" before there were any physicists. What could you possibly mean by "operating" here?

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It means that physical events were happening in keeping with those laws.
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I’d said:
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So no, I'm not saying that the physical laws exist independent of us. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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This seems to directly contradict what you said above.

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What “seems” to be so can be mistaken, when you’re sloppy.
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I’ve said many times that I’m not proposing a “Realist” metaphysics. Your life, and everything in it, is part of your life-experience possibility-story. It’s entirely from your point of view, about your experience, and for you.
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The Protagonist is central and primary to a life-experience possibility-story.
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You said that physical laws are products of physicists’ minds. I’ll go one better than that: The physical laws, the physicists, and everything in your experience, are all parts of your life-experience story, which firstly, fundamentally, primarily, and prior-ly, is about your experience.
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You really think that contradicts the statement that there’s observational evidence that currently accepted and used physical laws obtained at earlier times when there weren’t physicists?
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I remind you that I just finished telling you that I don’t claim that the life-experience possibility-stories, or the possibility-worlds that they’re set in, are objectively real or existent. …or that the hypothetical if-then facts that they consist of are objectively factual.
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Of course the stories and worlds are real in their own contexts. …and their component hypothetical facts are applicable in their own context of mutual reference.
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You troll-talked:
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Are you sure that you know what you're trying to say?

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You need to improve your manners. I’m giving notice that I won’t answer another post with your current manners-level. If you can’t disagree politely, you don’t qualify for a reply.
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I’ve clarified at length what I mean. If you haven’t read it, or have read it and still have a question, then ask about it…politely.
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I’d said:
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I didn’t say that a thing and its description are the same. — Michael Ossipoff

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To refute that, you quoted me:
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In the metaphysics that I propose, our whole physical world is a system of inter-referring if-then statements, and nothing more.

…and replied:

If-then statements are statements of description. And you said that these statements of description are the physical world itself, (the thing being described).

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I’ve usually, especially lately, used the word “facts” instead of “statements”. I’ll say now that “facts” was what I meant. Yes, I’ve said “statements” a few times, but lately I’ve pretty much always said “facts”. Maybe you mistakenly put the word “statements” into a sentence that said “facts”. Check again. …or maybe you were quoting an earlier post, or one of the relatively few in which I said “statements”.
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I’d said:
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There’s no reason to believe that the objectively-existent “things” of Materialism are other than fiction. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Are you saying that there is no such thing as the thing being described…

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With the understanding that I’m talking about systems of inter-referring if-then facts, then yes, I’m saying that such systems, and their components don’t need objective reality or existence. Why expect or require them to be objectively or globally real or existent? They neither have nor need meaning, applicability or reality outside of their own context of mutual reference.
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Your experience is consistent with the inter-referring if-thens of a life-experience possibility-story. Materialism’s objectively real and fundamentally prior-ly existent physical world things is superfluous.
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Physicists Michael Faraday, Frank Tippler, and Max Tegmark, too, have remarked on the superflousness of objectively-existent “stuff” and “things”…as opposed to structure consisting of mathematical and logical relation and reference. And Witgenstein has been quoted in these forums as saying that ultimately there are facts, but not things.
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Tegmark’s MUH has been called Ontic Structural Realism. Yes, I got the impression of Realism from what I’ve read by Tegmark. The metaphysics that I propose isn’t Realism. I mentioned that above in this post.
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When Tippler says that our physical world could have been created by a computer-simulation, that means that his metaphysics is not mine.
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Using terms that I’ve read of, my metaphysics could be called “Eliminative Ontic Structural Non-Realism”.
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I just call it “Skepticism”, because it’s skepticism itself. What could be more skeptical than complete rejection and avoidance of assumptions?
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You continued:
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… that "the thing being described" is fictitious? What's the point of a description then?

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Good question. Ask a Materialist.
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My use of the word “fictitious” has been mostly in reference to the Dualist’s talk of “Mind”, but I don’t object to it in reference to the Materialist’s objectively-existent physical world. But I prefer “Superfluous”, because I can’t prove which metaphysics is true. Metaphysicses can’t be proved.
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Metaphysicses that explain our physical world (maybe by contriving brute-facts), can be contrived to be observationally indistinguishable from eachother. But some of them have superfluous brute-facts.
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What if Materialism is true of our physical world? The infinity of hypothetical life-experience possibility-worlds is still inevitable. So Materialism for our particular physical world would be superfluous overall…wouldn’t affect the infinitely-many hypothetical possibility-stories, which, as I said, don't need reality, existence, meaning or applicability outside of such a system's own inter-referring context..

In fact, as I mentioned, Materialism is superfluous even as an explanation for our own physical world, since the same evident world, the same experiences, are consistent with a hypothetical possibility-story (your life) set in a hypothetical possibility-world.
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…but without Materialism’s brute-fact.
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Our stories and worlds needn’t be objectively real, and needn’t have reality or relevance outside their own context. And there’s no reason to believe that they are or do.
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You ask what’s the point of describing those things and events? How about because we’re in this life, and these things and events are in the context of this life.
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What alternative would you propose?
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It seems popular for participants here to give themselves creative names like “Metaphysician Undercover”.
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Sometimes metaphysicses are best discussed in comparisons.
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Does your undercoverness mean that you can’t name a metaphysical proposal that you consider more parsimonious, or otherwise better supported or justified, than the one that I propose? Yes, of course it’s always easier to criticize than to name an alternative.

Angry-noises and vague, unspecified, unsupported expressions of personal opinion are standard, typical common troll-tactics.

If there's another sample, it won't be answered.

I stop replying to people who show that they're incapable of disagreeing politely.

Michael Ossipoff

I thought that science, therefore, just focuses on what is and ignores or dodges "Why?". — WISDOMfromPO-MO

No, science does not dodge "why" questions, it just traces the answers as far back as is needed to make the model work. There's no need to insert some metaphysical theory to explain why some phenomenon happens the way it does. "Why do we perceive color light?" can be answered by "because we have cones in the backs of our eyeballs, and because color would have made it easier to differentiate things in our visual awareness way back in time." "Why do the waves on a beach change throughout the day?" is answered by "because of the moon's gravity." "How come the 'quality of life' apparently increased in the 1860s?" is answered (??) by "because of the industrial revolution, capitalism ( :-} ), technological innovations, etc."

In fact, why-questions typically end up being teleological which is not all that helpful to scientists, at least not in the traditional way. Why-questions are blurred into how-questions.

But to say philosophy studies the "why" questions is not only excluding many other things it studies but also seems to beg the question.

Physicists haven’t just been sitting on their hands during the past 400 years. They’ve arrived at some well-established, experimentally well-supported, never falsified laws of physics.
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And yes, believe it or not, observational evidence indicates that those laws were also operating at times before there were any physicists. — Michael Ossipoff

You don't seem to have understood my criticism. The "laws of physics" are descriptions of how things behave. As such they were produced by human beings. How could they be "operating" before there were physicists, when physicists created them?

No, they’re observed through the senses (often via instrumentation). You can call then “entities” if you want to, but they’re provisional facts, that are accepted if they’re sufficiently confirmed, and never falsified. …eventually increasingly regarded as confirmed instead of provisional. And yes, they’re based on observation of physical events and conditions. — Michael Ossipoff

Laws of physics are produced by inductive reason, they are not observed through the senses. Through the senses we observe individual, particular instances, but a law of physics is a generalization which applies to numerous instances.

You really think that contradicts the statement that there’s observational evidence that currently accepted and used physical laws obtained at earlier times when there weren’t physicists? — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, I really think you contradict yourself. I don't see how physical laws could have "obtained" in any normal sense of the word "obtained", prior to their existence.

Angry-noises and vague, unspecified, unsupported expressions of personal opinion are standard, typical common troll-tactics.

If there's another sample, it won't be answered.

I stop replying to people who show that they're incapable of disagreeing politely. — Michael Ossipoff

Wow, I politely pointed out a simple problem with your metaphysics, without "vague, unspecified, unsupported expressions of personal opinion", and look who's expressing all sorts of anger.