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The Constraints of Physical Law
March 25, 2014 at 7:34 pm
(This post was last modified: March 25, 2014 at 7:37 pm by Mudhammam.)
A question popped into my head today having to do with materialism and the nature of physical laws. I'm pretty sure David Hume, among others, raised the question (to paraphrase, hopefully not too poorly) over whether we can actually know if physical laws always remain constraint, as opposed to perhaps laws evolving and then reaching states of equilibrium or regularity by which we measure them and get the same result over time. That is to say, could we be in such a Universe (or Multiverse) that in fact is a global system that is highly irregular but in our local system, our point of view, which is perhaps just an elegant "spot" on a disorganized web, everything appears regular and moreover it causes the global system to appear regular? The "spot": Could it analogously be our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, or maybe only our human consciousness, "merely" the result of irregular laws but emergent in such a way as to appear to be the result of regularities, however only in reference to this "spot," our spatial or Earthly or conscious point of view? Could our mathematical physical laws that appear true throughout a global system only be true with reference to our particular "spot"? Maybe our spot is the Universe and the web is the Multiverse, where so much more is going on that is irregular and more fundamental than physical law, but our perspective only views a web of physical laws that appear global and constant to us?
Does this discredit materialism? Physicalism?
Furthermore, could these irregularities, which we'll say are only in other Universes, supervene over our physical laws? Could irregularities ever occur in our Universe or planet, which are not regularities that we could call physical constants or laws, but something more random, something more fundamental? Maybe something that some would want to call a miracle? Could life or conscious experience be something like that?
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RE: The Constraints of Physical Law
March 25, 2014 at 8:55 pm
(This post was last modified: March 25, 2014 at 8:56 pm by Heywood.)
(March 25, 2014 at 7:34 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: A question popped into my head today having to do with materialism and the nature of physical laws. I'm pretty sure David Hume, among others, raised the question (to paraphrase, hopefully not too poorly) over whether we can actually know if physical laws always remain constraint, as opposed to perhaps laws evolving and then reaching states of equilibrium or regularity by which we measure them and get the same result over time. That is to say, could we be in such a Universe (or Multiverse) that in fact is a global system that is highly irregular but in our local system, our point of view, which is perhaps just an elegant "spot" on a disorganized web, everything appears regular and moreover it causes the global system to appear regular? The "spot": Could it analogously be our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, or maybe only our human consciousness, "merely" the result of irregular laws but emergent in such a way as to appear to be the result of regularities, however only in reference to this "spot," our spatial or Earthly or conscious point of view? Could our mathematical physical laws that appear true throughout a global system only be true with reference to our particular "spot"? Maybe our spot is the Universe and the web is the Multiverse, where so much more is going on that is irregular and more fundamental than physical law, but our perspective only views a web of physical laws that appear global and constant to us?
Does this discredit materialism? Physicalism?
Furthermore, could these irregularities, which we'll say are only in other Universes, supervene over our physical laws? Could irregularities ever occur in our Universe or planet, which are not regularities that we could call physical constants or laws, but something more random, something more fundamental? Maybe something that some would want to call a miracle? Could life or conscious experience be something like that?
A lot of physical laws are simply logical consequences of symmetries. Google "noethers theorem" if you want to know why(every atheists who argues with theists should be familiar with noether's theorem imo). Are we in an irregular spot in the universe where things are just elegant? To subjective. The better question in my opinion is are we in a spot in the universe where symmetries are prevalent or are symmetries present everywhere in the universe?
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RE: The Constraints of Physical Law
March 25, 2014 at 10:55 pm
We note the regularity of the observed universe as we observe it.
Except for the parts of the universe which we do not find regular.
Those we choose to call random, e.g. radioactive decay, could be results of regularity of unobserved variables. We can't tell.
Other dimensions, other universes, multiverses, multiverses of multiverses could (my speculation) exist but are to me the remote trees falling in the forest making no sound. If we can't ever observe these other spaces, do they exist? We find math very useful in building predictive models of our environs. Are there universes which would be better modeled using splerng?
Fortunately I don't feel I need to answer these questions. It's easier that way.
I believe that even God is limited by incompleteness. Exactly how would he know he was omniscient?
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? 
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RE: The Constraints of Physical Law
March 26, 2014 at 9:32 am
(This post was last modified: March 26, 2014 at 9:43 am by Mudhammam.)
(March 25, 2014 at 8:55 pm)Heywood Wrote: (March 25, 2014 at 7:34 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: A question popped into my head today having to do with materialism and the nature of physical laws. I'm pretty sure David Hume, among others, raised the question (to paraphrase, hopefully not too poorly) over whether we can actually know if physical laws always remain constraint, as opposed to perhaps laws evolving and then reaching states of equilibrium or regularity by which we measure them and get the same result over time. That is to say, could we be in such a Universe (or Multiverse) that in fact is a global system that is highly irregular but in our local system, our point of view, which is perhaps just an elegant "spot" on a disorganized web, everything appears regular and moreover it causes the global system to appear regular? The "spot": Could it analogously be our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, or maybe only our human consciousness, "merely" the result of irregular laws but emergent in such a way as to appear to be the result of regularities, however only in reference to this "spot," our spatial or Earthly or conscious point of view? Could our mathematical physical laws that appear true throughout a global system only be true with reference to our particular "spot"? Maybe our spot is the Universe and the web is the Multiverse, where so much more is going on that is irregular and more fundamental than physical law, but our perspective only views a web of physical laws that appear global and constant to us?
Does this discredit materialism? Physicalism?
Furthermore, could these irregularities, which we'll say are only in other Universes, supervene over our physical laws? Could irregularities ever occur in our Universe or planet, which are not regularities that we could call physical constants or laws, but something more random, something more fundamental? Maybe something that some would want to call a miracle? Could life or conscious experience be something like that?
A lot of physical laws are simply logical consequences of symmetries. Google "noethers theorem" if you want to know why(every atheists who argues with theists should be familiar with noether's theorem imo). Are we in an irregular spot in the universe where things are just elegant? To subjective. The better question in my opinion is are we in a spot in the universe where symmetries are prevalent or are symmetries present everywhere in the universe?
I looked it up but I admittedly have no clue what any of it actually means. Example:
"Suppose we have a particle moving on a line with Lagrangian L(q,q'), where q is its position and q' = dq/dt is its velocity. (I'll always use the symbol ' to stand for time derivatives.)
The momentum of our particle is defined to be
p = dL/dq'
The force on it is defined to be
F = dL/dq
The equations of motion - the so-called Euler-Lagrange equations - say that the rate of change of momentum equals the force:
p' = F
That's how Lagrangians work!"
 hock:
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RE: The Constraints of Physical Law
March 26, 2014 at 11:18 am
I see two possible conclusions from this theory: a) the world is absurd OR b) the world strives toward desired ends. Option a in self-defeating. If the world is truly absurd, i.e. rational thought and mathematical truths do not consistently and uniformly apply, then the means by which someone comes to the absurdist position are not themselves valid. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true (or rather simultaneously true, false and neither!), simply that no knowledge is possible in such a world. Option b) is also self-defeating. If the world can evolve from infinite possibility to various stable local orders then it does so according to meta-laws that govern how and what kinds of local orders can and do manifest.
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