Why does the universe obey scientific laws?

Question

As far as anyone is aware, the universe consistently acts according to predictable laws (and scientific inquiry exists to determine those laws). Is there any metaphysical reason for this? Is such a question even answerable?

EDIT: I think my question was misunderstood, so I'll try to clarify. I know about the mathematics question, but this question is, why is the universe consistent? It's related to the problem of induction: just because all hitherto observed emeralds are green doesn't necessarily mean that all emeralds are green. Yet, those who have hypothesized that emeralds are green have (thus far) been found to be correct. In other words, as far as anyone can tell, the universe is consistent to the point where much of its behavior is predictable using known laws and statistics. Is there any philosophical discussion regarding why that appears to be the case?

FURTHER EDIT: The question is more fundamental than the simple, 'why are all emeralds green', to which the answer is obviously, 'because if it wasn't green, we wouldn't call it an emerald', and once I formulate the question better, I think that the answer becomes obvious. Let's use an actual law, F=ma. We've checked rocks, we've checked feathers; we've checked slow moving objects and fast moving objects, and yet, lo and behold, the law always seems to be true, and it's stayed true for at least a few hundred years (but we can reasonably assume that it was just as true a millennium ago). Now, I ask the metaphysical (in the most literal sense) question: why is this law always true? Why does the universe behave so consistently?

Answer 1

I like immortal squish's answer, but I'm going to take it a step further.

Physics (and other science) as we know it is a way to describe how the universe behaves. If gravity worked in reverse, but it was consistent about it, that would be the physics. It's perfectly valid to say that the universe has a set of physics, for example. A different universe could have a different physics - at least in theory.*

However, that doesn't say anything as to why the universe has a consistent set of physics in the first place. The answer to that is that we don't know if it does. We only know what the physics in the area we're able to explore. Light could travel in spirals before it gets within the "bubble" of physics as we know it, where it begins traveling in a straight line. However, there is no evidence for this, nor can there be, by definition - everything in our area behaves consistently, according to the one set of physics.

If physics weren't consistent from moment to moment, at least in our local area, then it's highly unlikely anything even remotely resembling intelligent life as we understand it would have been able to emerge. If gravity started varying in how quickly it falls off, or the nuclear force equations changed, or suddenly there were one fewer type of quark, then everything would fly apart, or crush together, or annihilate itself, or so on. That is not to say that there can't be other physics - just that what we do have has to be consistent.

_{* Side note: This theory is a big part of how many science-fiction stories get around the apparent restriction on FTL travel - the traveler dips into other universes where the physics allows for it, or pulls some of it here, or otherwise goes "around" physics with other universes/dimensions/etc.}

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Just to edit in some of the things I've been saying in comments:

Is this just the anthropic principle? Sortof, in a much more general form than it's usually used. We can conceive of intelligence in a different universe with radically different physics. That isn't to say we can describe how consciousness could exist in a universe where gravity fell off twice as fast or one where atoms didn't hold together into molecules, but we can conceive that that awareness could exist. (See Boltzmann brains, for example).

What was that about life evolving? I've corrected it to "emerge". I didn't intend to invoke evolution. Spontaneously generated intelligence (such as the aforementioned brains) would count as "emerging", but definitely not "evolving".

Why couldn't we conceive of such an intelligence? Mostly, because of the lack of the ability to convey information. If fundamental particles (whether or not they're the same fundamental particles we have) don't behave in consistent manners, then there's no way to know anything about them or any larger structures based on them. We see color because of the wavelengths associated with a photon. If that photon suddenly became a proton, it would no longer convey that information. And without the ability to receive information from the environment, there's no way to observe (in the quantum sense) anything. And intelligent life that is unable to observe is incomprehensible to us.

Answer 2

I say it's not that the universe acts according to "scientific laws," but rather that these laws are a tool for people to use to quantify how the universe works.

In other words, the universe works how it works. Not according to any laws or conventions, but because "that's how it is." The fact that the observable universe is consistent allows us to create scientific laws/theories to describe (and predict) it's behavior, but there is no prescriptive power in these labels.

Edit: I previously called Scientific Laws outdated terminology. Turns out I was incorrect.

Answer 3

The lawfulness of the Universe originated with the philosophy of the Stoics. Prior to the Stoics, there were many philosophies that were rooted in religion and religious ontology. In these, the Universe was lawful because the gods and cosmic scheme operated as they did. In contrast, the Stoics asserted that the Universe was lawful, regardless of the nature or source of those laws:

"Everything is subject to the laws of Fate, for the Universe acts according to its own nature, and the nature of the passive matter it governs." Wikipedia

The lawfulness of the Universe is not derived from induction, but it does facilitate inductive methods. The lawfulness of the Universe exists prior to -- ex ante -- to any attempts to understand it, including inductive methods.

Creationists disagree on this. The Creationist view is, taken literally, the laws of the Universe can change at any time and change by any arbitrary degree to bring about the will (end goals) of the Creator. Emphasis: these changes are due to an exogenous Creator. This is not something you can anticipate or understand with the system of the Universe.

The lawfulness of the Universe is rooted in the mechanisms of causation at a physical level. If there is no meta-process of change operating on these mechanisms of causation, then those mechanisms won't change. Once "Natural Philosophers" let go of religious and Creationist belief systems, there was no theory of meta-process for change. Furthermore, experimentalist who assumed stationary causal processes were not surprised. (Or, any "surprise" was later attributed to mistakes and errors.)

The Medieval philosopher Duns Scotus was perhaps the first to advocate inductive methods to investigate the lawfulness of the Universe. Paraphrasing: "We don't have to sample every data point, but only a great many. What we find will represent the whole." And: "We don't have to keep sampling every possible data point."

If the Universe is not lawful (i.e "lawful" = same laws operating at all times, in all settings, and independent of all observers), then experimental science would founder. No experiments would be repeatable. Now experimental science is not perfect and not all scientific experiments are easily reproducible. But for the most part experimental science is successful and viable. This doesn't prove the lawfulness of the Universe, but it adds weight of evidence against the proposition that the Universe is unlawful.

It should be noted that the precursors of the idea of a lawful Universe go back much farther, to Plato's Ideal Forms, to Pythagoras' Transcendental Philosophy, and to the Pre-Socratics. What these early systems lacked was an explicit and formal process for specifying mechanisms. Starting with Galileo, Newton, and Kepler, the laws of the Universe could be specified in mathematics in a way that fully characterized the causal mechanisms.

Answer 4

Let's take the counter-proposal. Suppose the world does not act in accordance with any laws. What would this mean? It would mean that there are no observable regularities ever.

Then the sun may or may not rise tomorrow. Today you might speak English at 3 o'clock and at 5 o'clock you are a Donald duck. This spoon I am holding might fall up towards the sky and that tree is actually a pyramid. When I add 2 to 2, I get 7; when you do it, you get 12.

There can be no meaning attached to a world without laws. You could conceivably claim that a world without law, has a law: the law of no laws. But one doesn't have to go so far - that is, to attend to such reflexive paradoxes.

Metaphysically the world must act in accordance with some law. It may not be easy to discern fully - and historically it hasn't been. It has been a long haul over two and a half millennia to get as far as we have now.

The question is how does that law come about? Hume, applying the strict logic that you are suggesting, showed that causality and induction are problematic. He suggested that human psychology plays a part inferring regularities. This was affirmed by Kant who placed the mechanism deeper than psychology, in the very fabric of the mind. He called it the intuition. For the mind to experience the world it must already have a notion of space, time and causality. These are what he called the conditions for experience.

Answer 5

Is such a question even answerable?

No, it isn't. It's easy to construct counterexamples in the form of hypothetical universes in which there are no scientific laws.

For example, we could have a universe in which everything that happens (weather, love affairs, crops growing) is the result of the whims of a group of gods who live on the top of Mt. Olympus. You could argue that this universe has laws, e.g., that if you fail to sacrifice a dove to Zeus he may blast you with lightning. But these aren't scientific laws, and we can make them as mysterious and inconsistent as we like.

Many arguments made here have seemed to assume that the only alternative to a fully lawful universe is one with no natural laws whatsoever, but that's not true. There are quite reasonable counterexamples that interpolate between the extremes of a totally-unlawful Olympian universe and a purely naturalistic universe. For example, I have a colleague who's a physicist and who believes that the universe does normally operate according to scientific laws, but she also believes that Jesus performed the miracles described in the gospels. In her view, I suppose that the fact that walking on water violates Newton's laws of motion is the whole reason why it's an impressive miracle, even for illiterate people in the ancient world who only had an intuitive feeling for Newtonian mechanics; that would presumably be why God chose it as a way of persuading people to follow Jesus.

There's been some discussion of an anthropic explanation for why our universe has scientific laws. This doesn't work for two reasons. (1) It's circular reasoning. The anthropic explanation invokes naturalistic processes such as evolution to explain why we exist as intelligent forms of life, and says that if the universe had been entirely unpredictable, then intelligence would not have had any adaptive value. But evolution is a scientific theory, so by assuming evolution as the explanation for intelligent life, we're assuming the success of scientific theories, which is what was supposed to be proved. (2) This explanation is also flawed because it assumes that the only alternative to a perfectly lawful universe is one that's totally unlawful. The lawful-except-for-Jesus universe is consistent with naturalistic evolution of intelligent life, including intelligent beings who do science.

Answer 6

Science is frequently misunderstood as wanting to define everything: in fact, science is merely a tool for describing everything, and in fact must always be open to counter-examples, to review, to new evidence, and to refinement.

Indeed, scientific process requires that any "law" be held to be true only as long as it is convenient to do so: if some piece of counter-evidence or a single counter-example be found then the "law" which had previously been held must, of necessity, be re-examined. The counter-evidence or counter-example is itself subject to similar scrutiny, of course.

So how does this relate to the original question:

the universe consistently acts according to predicable laws...Is there any metaphysical reason for this?

The simple answer is no, there is no metaphysical reason that dictates that it must be so. It is merely convenient for us that we have, so far, discovered a set of rules which are self-consistent and which have managed to explain everything that we have observed. Or, more accurately, no-one has yet come up with a counter-example which has torn up the rule book and told us to start again, because we've so far been able to adapt or refine the models which explain everything.

It is inevitable that our understanding of the universe will improve over time and that the model will evolve, and nothing yet has shaken the scientific foundation upon which we build our explanations, but there is no certainty that this will remain the case indefinitely - it is always conceivable that there will be a scale at which "laws" simply stop applying and that we have to concede that they only apply on our local scale.

Or perhaps they only apply temporarily and will, at some point, stop.

Answer 7

I have a few answers to your question that address different issues.

(1) A non-universal theory is a problematic explanation. If a theory doesn't apply universally then either there is an explanation of why it doesn't reply or there is no such explanation. If there is an explanation then that explanation is universal. If there isn't then your theory has a serious problem that should be fixed: it has an unexplained qualification.

(2) The laws of physics allow the existence of universal computers. Any finite physical system can be simulated by a universal quantum computer operating on a finite number of qubits. There are also subsets of the repertoire of the universal quantum computer that can simulate some systems, such as the classical Turing machine and classical computational networks. These require only the ability to compose a small number of primitive operations. As a result the laws of physics do not forbid you from understanding how anything works.

(3) This is connected with a problematic assumption in your question. Scientific knowledge is not created by induction. Induction is a variety of justificationism: the idea that it is possible or desirable to show that your ideas are true or probably true. If you assess ideas using argument then the arguments have premises and rules of inference and the result of the argument may not be true (or probably true) if the premises and rules of inference are false. You might try to solve this by coming up with a new argument that proves the premises and rules of inference but then you have the same problem with those premises and rules of inference. You might say that some stuff is indubitably true (or probably true), and you can use that as a foundation. But that just means you have cut off a possible avenue of intellectual progress since the foundation can't be explained in terms of anything deeper. And in any case there is nothing that can fill that role. Sense experience won't work since you can misinterpret information from your sense organs, e.g. - optical illusions. Sense organs also fail to record lots of stuff that does exist, e.g. - neutrinos. Scientific instruments aren't infallible either since you can make mistakes in setting them up, in interpreting information from them and so on.

We don't create knowledge (useful or explanatory information) by showing stuff is true or probably true for reasons so how do we create knowledge? We can only create knowledge by finding mistakes in our current ideas and correcting them piecemeal. You notice a problem with your current ideas, propose solutions, criticise the solutions until only one is left and then find a new problem. Experiments are useful only as criticism. Ideas can't be derived from experiment any more than from any other set of premises. Rather, the idea is that you work out how the consequences of one theory differ from those of another. Then you conjecture ideas about experimental setups that would enable you to see the relevant consequences and criticise them. Once you have a setup that works about as well as you can make it work you use it to do the test. If the results are compatible with one theory and not the others then you may have successfully refuted some false ideas. Sometimes a purported successful experimental test will be successfully criticised because a test is a conjecture about something that happened and that conjecture may be wrong, so experiments don't prove anything, nor do they support ideas.

If your propose a universal theory then it is easier to criticise than a theory that you have hedged because if you find any exception to the theory you have to discard it. As a result you can make faster progress.

For more on non-justificationist epistemology see "Realism and the Aim of Science" by Karl Popper, especially chapter I, "Objective Knowledge" by Karl Popper, chapter 1, http://fallibleideas.com/, http://fallibleliving.com/. For some stuff on epistemology and universal computation, see "The Fabric of Reality" and "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch and a couple of papers:

http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/reality_deutsch.pdf

http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.7439.

Answer 8

In your question, you imply that "the universe consistently acts according to predicable laws". This is not quite true, although violations of the laws are so rare, short-lived, and unpredictable that it is practical to ignore them. There is a huge body of anecdotal evidence for bizarre events that violate the laws of physics. Scientists typically ignore them or dismiss them as fraud or mental disturbance. This is a sensible policy for scientists, because these phenomena are unrepeatable and unamenable to scientific investigation. As far as planning our lives is concerned, at any scale and in any field of human activity, we may conveniently and safely ignore such phenomena, and it matters not a jot whether we believe in them or not. (Occasionally, though, some of us will get a surprise.)

Accordingly, the revised question should be "Why does the universe almost always, but not quite always, act according to predicable laws". The difference is small but philosophically significant. The extra complexity of the question suggests that the answer will be harder to find.

Answer 9

No "laws of the universe" are universal.

They work to a certain scale of statistical observation. With more observation or new instrumentation they invariably fail. New laws reconstitute symmetry, then fail in turn.

The most fundamental law of physics is the second "law" of thermodynamics. It can only be argued statistically from a given scale of observation. Yet is the "most fundamental" law.

Conclusion: Laws of physics reconstitute symmetry. They are our way of exporting entropy. What we call "the universe" is better conceived of as our entropy exporting "membrane."

Answer 10

"In the external world the idea of law is the same as the internal - the expectation that a particular phenomenon will be followed by another, and that the series will repeat itself. Really speaking, therefore, law does not exist in nature. Practically it is an error to say that gravitation exists in the earth, or that there is any law existing objectively anywhere in nature. Law is the method, the manor in which our mind grasps a series of phenomena; it is all in the mind. Certain phenomena, happening one after another or together, and followed by the conviction of the regularity of their recurrence - thus enabling our minds to grasp the method of the whole series - constitute what we call law." Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Vol 2, pages 94-95.

Answer 11

As far as anyone is aware, the universe consistently acts according to predictable laws (and scientific inquiry exists to determine those laws). Is there any metaphysical reason for this? Is such a question even answerable?

Yes, the Universe and everything in it operates according to eternal laws. The laws by which all things function are unchanging. All things have a law by which they function, and there are never any exceptions to these laws. However it takes an Omniscient Being to know what all of those laws are, and to communicate them so as to enlighten the mind of man. Inquiry and experimentation are vital to understanding laws, but no matter how many experiments we have conducted, the question always remains of whether there are any exceptions or points we are missing or whether we are incorrect in our models altogether. It takes Divine enlightenment to obtain the surety that our understanding of a matter is complete and correct.

why is the universe consistent?

The Universe is consistent because nothing that is (atomically, internally) inconsistent can exist. Inconsistency in the usual sense is merely the observation that multiple competing influences are present--it indicates a war between factions. For example, consider the Useless Box. We call it inconsistent, but it is merely the combination of two systems that are mutually competitive over an objective. Synchronous computers and memory cells operate on the same principle: Computers advance based on the arrival of a clock edge or transition between states. Memory cells keep a bit in memory through constant oscillation, ensuring that the value and its opposite are consistent through a logical loop, even long after the input has vanished. If there were no opposition, nothing could exist. That is, nothing exists that does not have an opposite: Matter and empty space, dimensions--up and down, left and right, light and darkness, positive and negative. Said another way, lacking contrast, it is impossible to identify that a thing exists. Any purported inconsistency is simply the observation that multiple competing forces exist, and a refined understanding will indeed isolate and characterize them from the larger system.

It's related to the problem of induction: just because all hitherto observed emeralds are green doesn't necessarily mean that all emeralds are green. Yet, those who have hypothesized that emeralds are green have (thus far) been found to be correct. In other words, as far as anyone can tell, the universe is consistent to the point where much of its behavior is predictable using known laws and statistics. Is there any philosophical discussion regarding why that appears to be the case?

The laws of the Universe are immutable and eternal, but as you have pointed out, it is impossible to rule out exceptions based on experience alone, that is, without a Divine confirmation from an Omniscient Being. Yes, we have seen plenty of evidence that the Universe and all things are governed by law--but as I have stated, both experience and revelation are necessary to prove what those laws are.

why is this law always true? Why does the universe behave so consistently?

Because the laws, so far as we have observed and understood them correctly, exist in their sphere and are true laws. All things are governed by law, and the discovery of the laws will yield an unfailingly accurate characterization of the things governed by them. After we have worked, studied, observed, and received evidence which has increased our confidence to a great degree, perhaps the only thing remaining to establish law is to seek and receive a confirmation from the Omniscient Being that the model we have derived from experience is indeed without exception an eternal law in the full sense. It is obvious that neither reason nor experience alone has authority nor power to provide this final confirmation. Sometimes the amount of evidence we need to consider and the details we need to exercise exceed our patience, but all things operate according to immutable laws, we simply need to find out what those laws are and work according to our knowledge of them.

Answer 12

I agree with Mozibur Ullah's answer that essentially it doesn't make sense to speak of a universe which doesn't follow any laws.

However, let's examine a stronger interpretation of the statement that the universe obeys laws: that everything the universe does is describable by some law. What about the collapse of a wave function into a particular eigenstate (wave function collapse)? By definition there is no law which describes why the wave function collapses into a particular state. Now we might think that some yet unknown law related to hidden-variables describes it but we have no reason to believe that that is necessarily the case or for that matter that any as of yet undescribed phenomena necessarily admit of laws that describe them.

Conclusion: We don't know that the universe follows laws (admits of laws that describe all of its charecteristics)

Answer 13

I don't believe the universe obeys, per se, any scientific laws. All, so called, "scientific laws" result from the fact that a large amount of energy was "allowed to escape," thereby creating space, and as some of the energy coalesced - matter. As the space (volume) increased, the energy cooled and formed "particles" with properties resulting from the type, distance, and number of them. It is the geometry of these particles, that dictates the "scientific laws".

Answer 14

The key word in your question is 'predictable'. F=ma is at least approximately true, and that is required for causality {If F=??? were true, it would violate causality}. Without causality, there can be no evolution, and without evolution there can be no conscious observers like us.

Answer 15

I think you've equivocated on a pseudo question and a question about Being.

If we could scientifically explain why everything happens, then we know why the universe behaves the way it does.

But alas, explanation has to, in practice, stop before it is complete (a professor of mine said Wittgenstien said this, I'll look for a quote). As such, we don't know why our fundamental facts are the case.

Any confusion in questions like this may be from the difference between the ontic and ontological (again, a professor told me this). Even if we knew why everything happens, we need not know why that has Being.

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This isn't explicitly why is there something rather than nothing, though I also think that why is there this something rather than nothing does end up meaning the same thing: if we give up on metaphysics.

Answer 16

A theory in physics is that the absolute groundstate of the universe is a supersymmetry, this supersymetry is linear. If a supersymmetry is spontaneously broken a kind of asymmetry and nonlinearity emerges, this is the universe we perceive. When assuming that the universe is self-referential, meaning there is no influence from 'outside' ( actually this asumption is included in the supersymmetry ) the universe we perceive can be regarded as a nonlinear, self-referential system, these systems are subject to chaos theory. In nonlinear, self-referential systems exist attractors and repellors, any Law of Nature is either attracting or repelling.

So the Laws of Nature possibly emerge from the spontaneous breaking of the ontological supersymmetrical nature of the ground state of the universe.

It is proven that fractality and multifractality, that emerge both from nonlinear self-referential systems, exist virtually anywhere in the universe, this includes that similar structures appear anywhere in the universe and on different scales.

links:

• https://www.pks.mpg.de/~yast/Articles/PowLaw/1.pdf
• http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~gang/eprints/eprintLovejoy/neweprint/Aegean.final.pdf
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersymmetric_theory_of_stochastic_dynamics ( multifractal processes like turbulence emerging from ( spontaneous ) breaking of supersymmetry )
• https://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5840
• ...