The cyclic nature of the Universe doesn't really have that much bearing on the idea of the immutability of natural laws.
— Wayfarer

Does an ever-changing universe (cyclic or progressively expanding) have bearing on the idea that physical processes determine the laws and not vice versa? If the universe is ever-changing, and processes determine the laws, would that not necessarily result in ever-changing laws — contrary to what we find?

I mean, it's possible to conceive of those laws in such a way that they will hold in any possible worlds, even if in some other respects those worlds are wildly different.
— Wayfarer

If those laws are not contingent, but exist necessarily, does that scenario exclude the possibility that those laws are determined bottom-up by physical processes? It seems to me that ‘wildly different’ physical processes cannot produce the same laws.

But with the decline of religion and the growth of naturalism, there has been an (often implicit) assumption that, as the divine origin of the Universe has been dispensed with, then the laws must in some sense be amenable to a naturalistic explanation.
— Wayfarer

Do you hold that such a naturalistic explanation must entail a bottom-up explanation from a lower level of, let’s say, bosons? If so, do you hold that this is in principle possible?

… the universe is indeed a cyclic process of expansion and contraction, starting from beginningless time.
— Wayfarer

What does the fact that the universe is ever-changing — cyclic or otherwise — tell us about the nature of immutable laws? Does the fact of change contradict a purely descriptive nature of those laws?

When Davies says there is an asymmetry, he is thinking of the laws as being prescriptive, rather than descriptive.
— andrewk

Davies observes that “physical processes, however violent or complex, are thought to have absolutely no effect on the laws” and from this he concludes that “… the laws do not depend on physical processes.” I agree with you that this seems to imply that Davies is thinking of the laws as being prescriptive.

The "laws of nature" seem to be derived from observing many instances of observation from astrophysicists observing the cosmos to nuclear physicists studying sub-atomic particles, and others studying everything in between. So, the laws of nature are descriptive.
— Bitter Crank

If laws are indeed Descriptive, and processes affect the laws, then we cannot explain the existence of e.g. an immutable gravitational constant. If a certain gravitational value is produced by 2035 bosons, then another gravitational value would be produced by 1160 bosons.

The way I would look at it is that the fundamental laws describe mathematical symmetries - which are in effect the limits on un-lawfulness. With a circle, for example, disorder can do its damnedest - spin the circle at any direction at any speed - and the circle will still look unruffledly the same. All that disordering has no real effect as the very form of the circle is indifferent to every kind of action, or attempt to break its symmetry.
— apokrisis

I like your circle metaphor. However, how does one get from “unlawfulness” to a (perfect) circle?
Also I don’t see how the circle metaphor elucidates the existence of various fundamental constants, which could have been very different; see the multiverse hypothesis. IOWs in many cases the existence of limits (a la the circle form) is not apparent.