Timeline for Is there greater explanatory power in laws governing things rather than being descriptive?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33 mins ago | comment | added | Him | @Syed "flaws", as ProfShushing has defined them, have no explanatory power, because they are not explanations, they are facts that we attempt to explain (sometimes well and sometimes poorly). Contrast the statement "All men are mortal" vs the fact that all men are mortal. One is an English phrase, and one is an aspect of the universe that we inhabit. These two things are related, in that one describes the other - the "law" "all men are mortal" describes the apparent "flaw". So, the "law" is an explanation, and the "flaw" is what it attempts to explain. | |
| 34 mins ago | comment | added | Syed | @Idran then this is all the more proof that most people here do not know much philosophy! It’s unfortunate given the certainty by which they keep making this same mistake | |
| 41 mins ago | comment | added | Idran | @Syed Correct, the phrase as used in philosophy and by philosophers means something different than the phrase as used in physics and by physicists. When physicists talk about "laws of physics" or "laws of nature", they're talking about the models developed from experimentation and nothing beyond that. | |
| 42 mins ago | comment | added | Syed | @Idran then philomath, like most people here, are the ones repeatedly making mistakes, since laws of nature in standard philosophical literature do refer to flaws. The question in philosophy is whether flaws exist | |
| 43 mins ago | comment | added | Idran | @Syed I'm assuming this is coming out of the other mathematics/physics question you were commenting on with Philomath before, in which case I think this confusion goes back to before this question. Philomath in that conversation was talking about (using this conversation's terminology) laws, not flaws. They were trying to say that the laws of nature/laws of physics that physicists talk about are laws that we invented in order to describe our best interpretation of the results of experiments, not that the fundamental principles of the universe were themselves descriptive. | |
| 58 mins ago | comment | added | Syed | @ProfessorSushing it’s unfortunate that you’re misinterpreting the question then. The question is about flaws, and traditional discussion in philosophy about laws being descriptive or prescriptive is about whether there flaws that can be presumably represented by math govern the universe, or whether those principles are mere coincidences where the act of governing is not taking place | |
| 3 hours ago | comment | added | Professor Sushing | @SethK does work what way? | |
| 3 hours ago | comment | added | SethK | This answer invokes centuries-old ideas about physics. These days we understand the fundamental nature of reality much better. In particular the structure of quantum field theory makes clear that in a strong sense, the universe does work this way. See Sean Carroll's 'The Quantum Field Theory on Which the Everyday World Supervenes' for some pedagogy accessible to philosophers. | |
| 6 hours ago | comment | added | Professor Sushing | ...we used to talk about Newton's law of gravity, and now we talk about curved 4-d spacetime, and I'm guessing that some day we will have some other explanation that supersedes both of them. | |
| 6 hours ago | comment | added | Professor Sushing | You seem to be arguing with people at cross purposes. Of course there are factors that determine how the universe works. Let's call them fundamental laws, or flaws. Then there are our attempts at explaining how the universe works, which we call laws. Can't you see the difference between flaws and laws? Laws are inaccurate and subject to change as our understanding improves, while the flaws remain what they are. Flaws were there before humans came along, while laws are invented by humans... | |
| 7 hours ago | comment | added | Syed | My question is in the former interpretation. When philosophers say that the laws of nature are only descriptions, they also mean that there is nothing in nature that follows those laws or that those laws govern nature. | |
| 7 hours ago | comment | added | Professor Sushing | You are completely missing my point. I am saying there are factors that govern the way the Universe works, and if you like you can think of them as laws. However, they are not to be confused with our attempts at describing how the Universe works, which is what we also call laws. The two are fundamentally different but you are confusing them. | |
| 10 hours ago | comment | added | Syed | You seem to be just asserting that laws are mere descriptions. Why do you think this? | |
| 11 hours ago | history | answered | Professor Sushing | CC BY-SA 4.0 |