Timeline for How do laws of nature enforce themselves?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 6, 2015 at 2:47 | comment | added | Conifold | @CortAmmon I don't have to, but it would make them less of a miracle. Plato gave a model of reality and our interaction with it where they are not miracles, of course it is unsatisfactory for other reasons. "Plain" realism is more palatable but lacks the no miracle quality. Perhaps one can do both, maybe along the lines of some modernized version of Aristotelian realism. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 5:07 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @Conifold: If you are so skeptical about the anthropic principle, then why do you have to believe the laws of nature are being enforced at all? Is "enforcement" not a concept invented by a human consciousness? | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 0:54 | comment | added | Conifold | @CortAmmon I am sceptical about the anthropic principle, to quote Penrose "it tends to be invoked by theorists whenever they do not have a good enough theory to explain the observed facts." To make it work one needs some kind of multitude of universes, where "all possible combinations" are realized. So it has the same explanatory value as "God did it", but is seen as somehow less embarrassing. But regardless of the reason for the order, the question is what is the enforcement mechanism. | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 1:36 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | Or, for an alternative approach which yields the same outcome, consider that "consciousness" may be a definition for a class of systems which arise in regions of unusually high predictability. This is similar to the frustration of the Fermi paradox, where we know the probability of life originating is 1 because we define ourselves as living. | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 1:34 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @Conifold: Then in that case, the argument can come full circle. If consciousness can "exist" best if surrounded by nice systems "governed" by natural laws because they are sufficiently predictable "coins," is it a surprise that it finds itself surrounded by a world which has "natural laws?" It can introduce a selection bias: if your selection process prefers predictable or probabilistic things, then you should see a remarkable number of predictable and probabilistic things in your sample. | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 1:25 | comment | added | Conifold | @Cort Ammon That's exactly my point, even "random" laws of QM are quite orderly. In principle, coin tosses could produce what is called a lawless sequence that fails any statistical test, and not because it is orderly. Such sequences are "generic", and display neither local regularity, nor "large number" patterns. | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 1:12 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @Conifold: If such a coin is swapped out "without any regularity," what entity swaps the coin out? For if such an entity exists, then you have your answer for your question: the laws of nature do not enforce themselves, the entity does. If such entity does not exist, then I may need to call into question your argument "situations where probabilities can be meaningfully assigned are very special." QM predicts that every classic measurement of a particle will behave as a random draw, and there are more classic measurements occurring every second in your body than most individuals may fathom. | |
| Jan 3, 2015 at 0:49 | comment | added | Conifold | @Cort Ammon When I say "without any regularity" I mean that no probability space can be defined or measure assigned. Situations where probabilities can be meaningfully assigned are very special, they imply not only that possible outcomes are well outlined, but even have stable relative likelihoods. In other words, at the front end we are putting in all the laws that CLT then rephrases for us. | |
| Jan 2, 2015 at 21:10 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @Conifold: I may have to call for some precision here simply because we are talking about probability, and probability is a very precise topic. When you say "without any regularity," can you phrase that using the language of probability? I ask because you're on the cusp of accidentally invoking the Central Limit Theorem, which has the recognized effect of creating an ordered law out of a series of unorganized random draws (so long as the draws meet a few criteria, such as a well defined expectation and well defined variance -- but these do not need to be simple nor known values). | |
| Jan 2, 2015 at 20:48 | comment | added | Conifold | @Bob True, but it is random in a rather orderly way reflected in the word "fair". If the coin switched from fair to rigged in different ways from one toss to the next without any regularity there would be no law. | |
| Dec 31, 2014 at 15:35 | comment | added | Bob | @Conifold: You can produce strict laws from randomness. For instance, a single toss of a fair coin cannot be predicted. It is random. But if we observe a large number of tosses, a law emerges: roughly half of them will show up heads. | |
| Dec 18, 2014 at 23:07 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | If consciousnesses will it to happen, they will seek out the section which has apparent laws, creating the illusion of more and more order, more and more law. This is occurring because the "will" of the consciousness directs itself in a non-random path. I leave it up to you to decide reasons why non-random consciousness may occur or not occur in a random universe. The point is that a desire or will to find laws will result in finding laws, even if the only way to find them is to actively ignore the parts of the universe without apparent laws. | |
| Dec 18, 2014 at 23:03 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @Conifold: Consider a non-uniform universe (a random universe will suffice) which supports the emergence of consciousness (use your own definitions there). Consider a conciousness which "wishes to continue." It has an option of interacting with parts of the universe which have a 50/50% random chance of hurting it, or interacting with parts which appear to have order, with a 49% chance of hurting it because the consciousness understands apparent "laws" which that part of the universe follows. | |
| Dec 18, 2014 at 22:22 | comment | added | Conifold | @Cort Ammon Observing more "laws" than actually exist is interesting, could you elaborate or give reference? I don't think I understand what "consciousness... gravitates towards local structure which is explainable by laws" means. | |
| Dec 18, 2014 at 1:35 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @Conifold: There is often apparent local structure in random noise (the infamous "monkeys at the typewriter" argument). I think the philosophers would have a hard time disagreeing with the statement that we are not impartial observers, but rather part of the system. If our consciousness is not impartial, but rather gravitates towards local structure which is explainable by laws, it would not be unusual for us to observe more "laws" than actually exist from an impartial observer's point of view. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 23:38 | comment | added | Conifold | @robert bristow-johnson Strict more or less means strictly predictive, and that takes priority even over consistency and simpicity. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 21:23 | comment | added | robert bristow-johnson | scientists (at least this one) prefer consistent models and, after that, simple models. "strict laws" ain't quite the same. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 21:15 | comment | added | Conifold | I agree that scientists strive to produce stricter models, so finding them wouldn't be a surprise on the assumption that they are "out there". But if the nature was truly random no amount of effort could produce strict laws, not even approximate ones. The question is in what sense are they "out there" to explain the successes. | |
| Dec 17, 2014 at 3:43 | history | answered | Cort Ammon | CC BY-SA 3.0 |