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Natural Laws
Posted on: June 6, 2007 - 3:37pm
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Natural Laws
If I was to say... "keep in mind that many of the laws of nature are not lapidary. If evidence turns up that contradicts said laws of nature, then the laws of nature are perfectly capable of being redefined to fit with reality. Again, this is the beauty of science contrasting with the arrogance of dogma."
Would you agree?
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Where's deludedgod when you really need him?
Me? Formal logic is not my field. I mean, I'm alright with it, but todangst is your go-to guy. I'll answer though, as he is not here.
Unfortunately, to state that evidence could turn up to invalidate the laws of nature is to reason in a circle.
Any evidence we gather must be based on such laws of nature, and to attempt to invalidate them is thusly to attempt to invalidate your own conclusion. Its a self-refuting concept, better known as a stolen concept.
The Laws of nature are axiomatic. To state they could be falsified is to imply that they were gathered by experimentation. To imply they were gathered in such a way implies induction, when axiomatic logic is the epitome of deduction.
For example, when someone says that "God is outside the laws of nature" I always feel obliged to point out the following
Major Premise: God is outside the laws of nature
Minor Premise: Therefore, God's existence is not bound by any axiomatic law of nature, such as the law of non-contradiction.
Conclusion: Then God can exist and non-exist simultaneously, agreed?
Most theists say no (this was just my way of rephrasing the "can God make a stone he cannot lift" conjecture. I thought my way was more amusing).
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
On the rare occasion, I do have a quibble with deludedgod.
I don't think scientific laws are necessarily axiomatic or self-evident. For example, the Law of Gravitation states that anything with mass will be attracted to anything else with mass - but it is not self-evident that they should.
They DO though, and thus we can use that to say fundamental things about the universe in which we live.
A scientific law is something that is a given in science. It is ALWAYS accepted to be true and universal, if only for the simple fact that no observation has ever countered them. If a law ever needed to be scrapped or refined, then ALL science based upon said law would have to be scrapped or refined.
Scientific laws are rather simplistic statements, often expressed in simple mathematical terms, that lay cornerstones and foundations for theorization and utilization.
The simple fact of the matter is, things like this DON'T get refined. They are science boiled down to the bare fundamentals, if we are unsure of them, we cannot be sure of anything.
I explain it in more detail in our mailbag respsonse "dissent from an atheist" on our myspace page and freedownloads section.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
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Thanks for the responses guys.
Would it be better worded if I said "OUR DEFINITION of the natural laws is not lapidary" etc?
I'm not really comfortable with: "A scientific law is something that is a given in science. It is ALWAYS accepted to be true and universal, if only for the simple fact that no observation has ever countered them."
I'd like to think that IF there was an observation that countered some of these things then, much as it might hurt, yes, lots of things would need to be rethought, and science would only be better because of it.
The reason I bring it up is because this has been argued to me:
"But based on all steps we have currently thought of, creation contradicts thermodynamics. So right now, based on science, thermo supports points towards the laws of physics being broken. To me, the breaking of a law of nature is a divine act. Guess it just depends on what you consider divine"
Now, while I have refuted his claim on a couple of other different levels, I also wanted to point out that science isn't dogmatic and stagnant, it's based on evidence and our definitions are dynamic and related to observable reality.
Perhaps my use of the word 'laws' was incorrect, perhaps 'theories' is a better thing to say? Scientifically speaking, what separates a scientific law from a scientific theory? Are the 'laws' of thermodynamics completely unbreakable, even in a singularity? And if we can figure out how to observe evidence of things in a singularity, if it shows the laws being broken, wouldn't the laws change? Like "this is the second law of thermodynamics, which states that xxxxx and xxxx, except when subject to gravity in excess of xxx.xxx, like in a 'singularity' when matter and energy xxxx"
Or should I just take a step down in regards to what isn't considered to be set in stone, like how we used to think the sun revolved around the earth, and now we don't etc?
Thanks again for the responses, this forum is such an excellent resource!
*bump*
I like Ken Miller's explanation. A law isn't a higher form of knowledge than a theory, it's just a different type. Laws are simple facts about how things work. Theories are explanations. Theories can tie laws together to form an understanding, and both can be refined, rejected, or confirmed by additional evidence. In all cases, extraordinary circumstances, such as attempting to understand a singularity, may alter which laws or theories apply. Most of the time, laws will be written to account for the preconditions necessary for them to be used, however, we just don't know exactly what the inside of a singularity is like.
Not exactly being a scientist myself, I can't really say very authoritatively, but deludedgod's response seems very strange to me. I don't see how the laws of nature could be considered axiomatic. He seems to be conflating scientific laws with logical axioms. Scientific laws are based on observation.
It's only the fairy tales they believe.
Here's what I'd say to that argument, Phooney:
It does depend on what you consider divine. A thousand years ago, the flight of an arrow through the air was considered evidence of divine action, because people didn't understand air pressure. Likewise, we struggle, now, to understand the conditions that might persist in a singularity. But just because we don't understand them doesn't make them divine.
What everyone needs to understand is that early universe cosmology is describing conditions that persisted before the universe cooled enough to allow physics to exist as we see it. At this time, the entire universe was compressed into a space smaller than a single galaxy. The forces and conditions in these circumstances are quite beyond our ability to imagine, outside of pure mathematics. It was a one-time, unique event that certainly could not occur under any other circumstances (except maybe at a subatomic level in particle accelerator).
So early universe cosmology is not weakening the thermodynamics laws as they apply to all other situations in the universe.
[MOD EDIT - fixed quote so text would display]
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown