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Author Topic:   Where did physical laws and process come from?
Thronacx
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 17 (70753)
12-03-2003 11:52 AM


Both creationists and evolutionists on this forum continually mention scientific "laws" and Laws of Chemistry/Physics etc... I think a better question would be what makes these laws and what are there origins?
ps. ex. laws of gravity, chemical attraction, particle behavior etc.

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MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1393 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 2 of 17 (70756)
12-03-2003 12:03 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Thronacx
12-03-2003 11:52 AM


Where do they come from?
I have no idea what you're getting at. I think Quetzal was correct to question your motives in the 'What Convinced You?' thread.
As for the relevance of these 'laws' to the evo-creo debate, I hear many creationists proclaim that the regularity of physical and chemical processes suggests the existence of a Great Designer. For some reason I think it suggests just the opposite.
But we're all biased anyway, right, Thronacx?
------------------
The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall

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:æ: 
Suspended Member (Idle past 7185 days)
Posts: 423
Joined: 07-23-2003


Message 3 of 17 (70764)
12-03-2003 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Thronacx
12-03-2003 11:52 AM


Thronacx writes:
I think a better question would be what makes these laws and what are there origins?
Humans make these laws and thus they originate in human minds.
It seems many creationists are under the impression that reality must be bound by scientific laws, and that these also require some sort of "law-giver," as though elementary particles would go teleporting about willy-nilly without some cosmic policeman to keep them in line. In fact, our scientific laws are subject to falsification at any time with a new contradictory observation of reality. Newton's laws of motion are a prime example. What's more, it is only through assuming the absence of intermeddling supernatural beings that we can rely on our observations at all.

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Zhimbo
Member (Idle past 6011 days)
Posts: 571
From: New Hampshire, USA
Joined: 07-28-2001


Message 4 of 17 (70770)
12-03-2003 12:36 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Thronacx
12-03-2003 11:52 AM


God, maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? I sure don't. Do you? Is there really any way of answering the question? I don't know of any.
For any scientific discussion, there is an assumption that natural laws exist, although we have no guarantee that we know what they are at the present time. Any question of where "laws" come from will ultimately come to some wall. At that point, you leave science.
I find no satisfaction in looking at that wall and calling whatever is over there "God", like some folks do. Nor have I heard of any philosophical approach that seems at all satisfying.
I'm thoroughly agnostic on the matter. In fact, I suspect it isn't a "better question" at all, precisely because I think it's the type of question that is a blind alley, leading to nothing productive.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 17 (70781)
12-03-2003 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Thronacx
12-03-2003 11:52 AM


It is an interesting question, but seeing how we don't have any examples available of universes with different laws and such I don't see how it is possible to get any meaningful answers to it.

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Rei
Member (Idle past 7013 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 6 of 17 (70782)
12-03-2003 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Thronacx
12-03-2003 11:52 AM


A good question, and it hasn't been taken very seriously. We may never know. The only thing that we know is at least they are consistant - new laws don't just appear and disappear (or if they do, it's incredibly rare, or avoids laboratories ). Of course, the "Goddidit" hypothesis is even more troublesome, because then not only has to explain why there is a simple basic set of laws that just happen to exist, but why an infinitely more complex thinking being just happens to exist.
My personal theory is that all basic sets of rules exist in parallel.
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 17 (70791)
12-03-2003 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Thronacx
12-03-2003 11:52 AM


This is just a personal hypothesis of mine that I pulled together from the few things I have read and seen on TV. There might have been many different laws at the beginning of the Universe. This brief period could have been nanoseconds or years after the Big Bang, regardless most physicists seem to agree that the Universe immediately after the Big Bang was quite a different place than we see now. Perhaps the laws that govern mass, time, relativity, etc are the laws that ended up working. Maybe a kind of physical law selection. Those laws that did not destroy themselves or others but were able to fall into an equilibrium with each other are the ones that survived. The laws that we ended up with might be somewhat arbitrary, that is the Universe could be governed by different laws if such and such happened in a different order. Anyway, just a few thoughts that should in no way be taken as fact, just the ramblings of a mentally warped evo vs creo poster.

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:æ: 
Suspended Member (Idle past 7185 days)
Posts: 423
Joined: 07-23-2003


Message 8 of 17 (70855)
12-03-2003 5:32 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Rei
12-03-2003 1:17 PM


Rei writes:
My personal theory is that all basic sets of rules exist in parallel.
This is actually not too crazy of an idea, IMHO. It resembles a personal theory of mine that interprets evolutionary theory in context of the Many Worlds hypothesis. In such a scenario, the laws of nature appear to us as they are for the simple fact that our observational pathways developed along the only set of rules that could produce them. That set of rules is then observed by us and defined as natural law somewhat circularly.
It might have been equally probable that different observational pathways developed along completely different sets of rules, resulting in some sorts of structure entirely alien to our regular selves. Even in those instances it would seem sensible that conscious observers would be able to sort out the regularities in the universe that led to the development of their structure and declare those natural law.
A scenario like that would also render arguments against abiogenesis rather meaningless since "life" would then be somewhat arbitrarily defined as "that which we happen to observe in this line of development as maintaining borders, consuming, excreting, reproducing, etc..." In parallel developments there may be conscious observers who yet exhibit none of these "life-signs" since none of the physical mechanisms which define those traits would be necessarily present. The origin of life then becomes merely the point in the past where developing forms of matter and energy finally began to meet our arbitrary defintion of what "life" is, and in retrospect such a probability would be inevitable given a Many-Worlds universe.

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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5908 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 9 of 17 (70909)
12-04-2003 12:06 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Thronacx
12-03-2003 11:52 AM


Thorancx
The honest answer to your question of where do they[laws?] come from is we do not know.That does not mean we are totally lost.We are able to work a sound theoretical construction backwards to a very tiny fraction of a second after the initiation of what we call our universe.There is nothing meaningful prior to that fraction of time since we cannot measure it any way that is meaningful.

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NoBody
Guest


Message 10 of 17 (70911)
12-04-2003 12:20 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by :æ:
12-03-2003 12:21 PM


Thus, the laws are not made by Man because we simply observe, then define.
------------------
But Who Am I?
NoBody

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lpetrich
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 17 (70913)
12-04-2003 1:21 AM


I think that this subject is more fit for a place like "Big Bang and Cosmology"; this forum is for discussing biological evolution and creationism.

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Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 12 of 17 (70922)
12-04-2003 2:47 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by lpetrich
12-04-2003 1:21 AM


There's always the "Misc." forum, but "Big Bang and Cosmology" sounds good to me.
AM

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Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 13 of 17 (70923)
12-04-2003 2:47 AM


Thread moved here from the Evolution forum.

  
:æ: 
Suspended Member (Idle past 7185 days)
Posts: 423
Joined: 07-23-2003


Message 14 of 17 (70987)
12-04-2003 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by NoBody
12-04-2003 12:20 AM


NoBody writes:
Thus, the laws are not made by Man because we simply observe, then define.
It seems to me that you've fallen into the same confusion I spoke about in my first post. Don't take that too personally, it's a common misunderstanding.
Scientific laws are descriptions of the regularities in our observations of reality's behavior, they are not the behavior itself. The descriptions are based on human observations, proceed a posteriori from human minds, and are thus human creations. The laws do not determine what reality can or cannot do, instead they describe what reality does or does not do according to our observations. Any extrapolations beyond that are baseless.
Perhaps the actual question this topic's originator meant to ask is: What is the source/cause of reality's behavior? My response to that is that reality's behavior simply is.

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Beercules
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 17 (71027)
12-04-2003 4:17 PM


It's the old proscriptive vs. descriptive debate.

  
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