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If the laws of nature are not metaphysically fundamental, what alternative explanations could account for the regularities observed in nature?
Lowri, I added an addendum to my question for clarification. Letting you know in case you may feel the need to edit something in response.
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If the laws of nature are not metaphysically fundamental, what alternative explanations could account for the regularities observed in nature?
@mudskipper I edited my question with an addendum. I hope it helps.
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If the laws of nature are not metaphysically fundamental, what alternative explanations could account for the regularities observed in nature?
@mudskipper The technical term (that I probably should've used) is the anti-Humean view of the laws of nature. Read the third paragraph on page 2 of this paper.
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If the laws of nature are not metaphysically fundamental, what alternative explanations could account for the regularities observed in nature?
@Barmar My question is about metaphysically fundamental laws of nature, as part of the fundamental ontology of reality. Jo seems to be saying that those do exist, and therefore my question would be nonsense. However, the linked answer seems to clearly disagree. Now, my question is asking you to assume, for the sake of argument, that there are NO metaphysically fundamental laws of nature. How would you explain the observed regularity then?
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Is there greater explanatory power in laws governing things rather than being descriptive?
@Syed With God we have an explanation for the laws of nature (they are explained by God), and through the laws of nature be can predict things. The chain of explanation would be God -> laws -> predictions. Now, miracles would be by definition not predictable by laws, predicting a miracle would be impossible without revelation actually. You will not find an explanation of the form God -> laws -> miracles. Instead, miracles would be explained like this: God -> miracles.
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If the laws of nature are not metaphysically fundamental, what alternative explanations could account for the regularities observed in nature?
@Barmar Then you clearly agree with the linked answer, and clearly disagree with Jo (since Jo claims that there are indeed laws of nature fundamentally, metaphysically).
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Is there greater explanatory power in laws governing things rather than being descriptive?
@Syed Likewise, the explanation in the case of happy coincidences is that these are just brute facts, just like the laws of nature are brute facts. Or I could invoke God and say that God explains everything, and God itself is a brute fact, etc.
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How do mathematical realists explain the applicability and effectiveness of mathematics in physics?
"relationships (like the number 3)" - How is 3 a "relationship"? I had thought 3 was a number. Can you please provide a more rigorous definition of "relationship"?
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Is there greater explanatory power in laws governing things rather than being descriptive?
@Syed Do you accept brute facts as valid explanations? If not, what is the explanation for the laws of nature? Regarding why assume it, it is just a hypothesis, but it if holds, it would be useful for making empirically testable predictions.
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How do we determine our actual degree of belief?
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If the laws of nature are not metaphysically fundamental, what alternative explanations could account for the regularities observed in nature?
@Syed "God doesn’t explain anything; you have to actually show how He would do so" - Doesn't this objection also apply to the laws of nature themselves? You need to explain how a law of nature would actually make stuff behave in a certain way. How does a mathematical equation actually force something to do something?
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How do mathematical realists explain the applicability and effectiveness of mathematics in physics?
@Syed Evidence never uniquely identifies a single hypothesis, unless you make very strong auxiliary assumptions, but that would be question-begging.
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How does the Humean view of the laws of nature explain why objects behave according to laws?
@CosmicGenis He meant (and explicitly said) Humean (with 'e' between 'm' and 'a'), not human. See this.
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If the laws of nature are not metaphysically fundamental, what alternative explanations could account for the regularities observed in nature?
Then you are contradicting yourself, or you need to explain yourself better, because you seem to be saying that the universe doesn't follow any rules and yet you say it follows laws, and rules and laws are synonyms.