Laws of nature and empiricism

[devilsadvocate]

Reading the discussion about what is the difference between a law and a fact in the "Evolution by natural selection" -thread got me thinking about the problem laws of nature poses for empiricism again. First, here's some definitions that we hopefully agree on:

Laws of nature are,
- Not analytic, ie. Not true by virtue of definition, but derived a posteriori from observation.
- Contingent, meaning they could be different from what they are
- (at least usually) presented in the form of universal conditional, "All A's are B's", "All copper conducts electricity". They are general, not particular like facts are.
- Need to be true to be called "laws". In empiricist terms this means that all observations we make do not contradict the law.

So far this has been very empiricist-friendly definition, but I'm fairly sure we need to add at least one more definition in order to differentiate laws of nature from accidental generalizations. The proposition "All the cars I own, or will ever own, will be blue" seems, quite reasonably, not to be a law of nature, although it can fulfill all the definitions above. The definition is therefore not sufficient. We need to add at least one more condition,

- Laws of nature necessitate behaviour of the stuff the law governs.

This added definition demarcates generalizations from actual laws of nature nicely. It is no longer true that "if I own a car, it will be blue" is a law of nature, because there is nothing that necessitates this to be the case. It might turn out to be true, but only by accident, unlike observations we make about stuff that is governed by laws of nature.

However, the definition poses serious problems for empiricism. To claim that there are fundamentally unobservable - Remember, empiricists only claim to look at strings of particular facts. Nobody ever claims to have direct experience of a law itself - governing modes of reality, that not only happen to be true, but necessitate how objects must behave, seems like a huge dip in metaphysics empiricism tries so hard to avoid.

Any solutions to the problem?

 

[nemesiss]

there will never be a law of nature, because have only got one testing ground, our planet earth.
till we find other planets with containing life, we can only create some theories, but those will only account for our planet.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

The solution is to remove your last definition. "Laws" in this case are descriptive, not prescriptive.

 

[devilsadvocate]

ImprobableJoe,

That's fine, but do you realize how much you are giving up on, when you are making that statement? If laws of nature are descriptive, then anything goes. It wouldn't matter one bit if we thought it was reasonable to conclude that bread is nutritious. It might turn out to be poisonous the next morning, if indeed, all laws of nature are only descriptive, with absolutely no causal or predictive power.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

ImprobableJoe,

That's fine, but do you realize how much you are giving up on, when you are making that statement? If laws of nature are descriptive, then anything goes. It wouldn't matter one bit if we thought it was reasonable to conclude that bread is nutritious. It might turn out to be poisonous the next morning, if indeed, all laws of nature are only descriptive, with absolutely no causal or predictive power.

Huh? No, seriously, the fuck are you talking about? If what we're calling "laws" are actually "descriptions of consistent observations," then there's no reason to assume that "anything goes" as much as "things do what they do like they always do."

 

[devilsadvocate]

If we humbly consider that science does nothing else than write out a huge book of what has happened in the universe thus far, I'm willing to agree with you. But that huge book is nothing but particular observations, it is descriptive and not prescriptive. That collection of information has no predictive power and is rendered pretty much useless because of that.

If, on the other hand, we consider that science is about discovering the governing laws of nature, and the laws we have discovered, while incomplete, are at least nearing towards the full understanding of natural world, we gain a much brighter and useful understanding of science.

 

[Dean]

ImprobableJoe

ImprobableJoe,

That's fine, but do you realize how much you are giving up on, when you are making that statement? If laws of nature are descriptive, then anything goes. It wouldn't matter one bit if we thought it was reasonable to conclude that bread is nutritious. It might turn out to be poisonous the next morning, if indeed, all laws of nature are only descriptive, with absolutely no causal or predictive power.

Huh? No, seriously, [what] the fuck are you talking about? If what we're calling "laws" are actually "descriptions of consistent observations," then there's no reason to assume that "anything goes" as much as "things do what they do like they always do."

As I said in the thread mentioned by Devil's Advocate, a law in empirical terms is just part of a predictive process in science, and usually encompasses part of known scientific theories, i.e. Dollo's Law. The statement that we can predict outcome X to within a very tiny margin of error. Another example: Gravity.

The context of this discussion puzzles me. Are we talking about the same scientific paradigm brought up in my thread? Such as the distinction between a fact, law, and theory, etc?

devilsadvocate

[ ... ] If, on the other hand, we consider that science is about discovering the governing laws of nature, and the laws we have discovered, while incomplete, are at least nearing towards the full understanding of natural world, we gain a much brighter and useful understanding of science.

Well then what is the problem? This comes close to my own definition of science anyhow, so this point is a truism for me.

Anything, in accordance with Fà¦yerabend, that advances scientific agenda to arrive at the capacity to explain, predict and/or control natural events has scientific value, bringing together the contexts of discovery and justification. Science will throw everything and the kitchen sink at a theory if it has to and is able to. Would you consider this a parsimonious (enough) description?

edit: rectified incorrect URL.

 

[australopithecus]

If laws of nature are descriptive, then anything goes. It wouldn't matter one bit if we thought it was reasonable to conclude that bread is nutritious. It might turn out to be poisonous the next morning, if indeed, all laws of nature are only descriptive, with absolutely no causal or predictive power.

Eh? Laws are descriptive. They describe a specific phenomena which is consistently observed under a specific set of circumstances. This isn't "anything goes", it's "This happens under these circumstances". The bread analogy is seriously flawed.

 

[devilsadvocate]

I was pretty stoned last night when I made the replies and didn't feel like writing at all. I try to be more clear here.

The problem isn't how we come up with scientific laws. We all agree they are based on observations. When I say a law holds predictive power, I don't mean that we just make up a law and everything must follow it. Of course not, laws of nature are found, not invented, and in this way they certainly are descriptive. What I mean is how the laws are actually used. Nobody in their right mind would say that Newton's laws of motion, for example, are only descriptive (of past behaviour). We use them every day to predict future and to support counter-factuals (If I jumped off this balcony, I would fall and hurt myself). The simple answer why we are so confident with our predictions, is because we believe laws necessitate how objects in the real world behave. This poses problem for strict empiricism though, because apparently no justification for that belief can be given from the epistemological view.

If we stop short of the last condition, we'd be left in doubt whether all laws we have formulated about the world are just accidental generalizations. Well, to be honest, we wouldn't, but it isn't because empiricism has what it takes, but because of some implicit metaphysical framework we hold that empiricism cannot account for, ie. "Future will resemble the past." (in the sense that planets will keep their orbits, Earth will not stop rotating, Sun will maintain fusion, or that bread will have the same effect on my body today it had yesterday). If you take that necessity away, suddenly anything goes.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I think what you are missing is the hiden assumption that things happened the way they happened because circumstances arose that materialized that event due to the nature of things being the way they are. Meanining that if in the future the same circumstance arise then the same events will materialize due to the same reasons as before. It is just then a mater of figuring out what maters and how it maters. And this has worked amazingly well so far.
The next step is to figure out how to figure out things in practice, and this ain't a trivial step to make.
The process goes something like this:
1. You look at the world and see what happens, try to figure out an interesting problem and see if you can find a patern.
2. Make a guess of the rule and work out some consequences of it (hypothesis).
3. Design a new experiment to test this new rule and try to predict something you didn't knew before the experiment was made.
4. If the expriment disagrees with your prediction, the hypothesis is wrong.

As you gain knowlege you will be able to work out ever more complex problems.

Implicitly when you design a law, within certain boundaries of limitation, you are establishing a reference of comparison with other experiments becaue a law to be acepted it had to go trough various tests that matched its results. So when you feed data into a law, you are not only getting a solution that is predicting the outcome of a future event but also getting a result from a previously made experiment. So if another "new hypothesis" comes along for the same phenomena you can test it against an already known law within the limits of validity, if they don't matchup it must be either because the old law didn't account for certain aspects or the new one is wrong. Because when you feed the data into the law within the limits of validity you are getting also a reference of what you got in a previous experiment and if the new hypothesis is feed the same data and disagrees then it has already disagreed with experiment.

Just because you have a very good law that has stood every test, it doesn't mean that it s right, it is very probable to be right, and it is much more probable to be right than anyother counter part taught so far, but you can't be absolute certain that it is right. After all it is just a very good guess, but a guess none the less.
Example of this would be Newton's Gravity, you can not make a test here on earth that disagrees with it, the motion of the planets is described extremely precise, you can design missions to land on the moon or have probes visit other planets and mak them land on the spot using nothing but Newton's equations and for all intents and purpouses that is what we use today. None the less Newton's equation for gravity was wrong, it just happened to be an extremely good aproximation at the scales we happen to work with. Now the most acurate model for gravity comes from general relativity, I do not hold the view that it is the most acurate theory we can achieved if for nothing else but the fact that it is a continuous model and doesn't account for quantum phenomena but it is almost undoubtedly the solution which the microscale model would tend at the macroscale (and it would take diferent topic to unravel this can of worms).

But long story short, you must make observations to figure out things about the real world, it is not certain that you will be able to figure things out correctly, but you can't figure out anything at all if you don't look. You don't know what the hell this thing called reality is much less be able to tell what it does just by thinking about it. It maybe that you can think about the most wonderfull self consistent idea of reality but it will never cease to be an idea of reality, and most important of all, it doesn't have to be real.
Empiricism modulated by reason may not be perfect, but it is the only thing you got that can do the job.

 

[devilsadvocate]

Master_Ghost_Knight,

I think you present how scientific method generally works very well, and I don't aim to undermine that practice. Clearly it works well, or otherwise I wouldn't be writing to an internet forum on my computer. The problem I pose is whether strict empiricism, as a theory of knowledge, gives sufficient grounding for us to have knowledge that laws of physics, for example, will hold the in the way you proposed. That is to say, can we have "justified true belief" of that assertion from the confines of empiricism? You wrote,

"I think what you are missing is the hidden assumption that things happened the way they happened because circumstances arose that materialized that event due to the nature of things being the way they are. Meaning that if in the future the same circumstance arise then the same events will materialize due to the same reasons as before."


And to that, I'd argue the belief you have to hold for this to be the case is uniformity of nature, in the sense that laws of physics, for example, are the same now and tomorrow. I never argued against that belief, and, in fact, even went far enough to say that laws are different from generalizations because the former causally necessitates events. An object that is in gravitational field must necessarily fall (or follow geodesic path. Formulate it as scientifically precise as need be) in absence of other forces. So, I agree that this is a true belief, but from the confines of empiricism, it is not clear we can justify that belief from observations of instances alone, and if we can't, it therefore cannot be called knowledge.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

So, I agree that this is a true belief, but from the confines of empiricism, it is not clear we can justify that belief from observations of instances alone, and if we can't, it therefore cannot be called knowledge.

Are we absolutly sure that they are true, No, but that is all we got. The only thing we can know from the real world is what we "see", and as far as we are concerned it is the only available feedback we got about it. It may never satisfy our thirst for pure knowledge and there is nothing you can do about it, but none the less you do not stop living in it, reality is not suspended until we figure things out.
Due to lack of anything else the second best thing is the best thing, and as far as you know it it has helped you play this game called "materialize my concepts into this visions that I call reallity", we would like the world to be certain and well defined but it isn't and aparently being absolutly certain as oposed to being just very very certain about anything doesn't seem to bring about extra benefits. It doesn't do anywell to be stuck on the mindset that you can't be certain about things and wanting to desperation to be, we know we can't be certain so just move on, it is still a beatifull day outside.
This isn't a mater of knowledge that somethings outthere must have some degree of truth, it is a matter of relevance, because if they aren't, what else can you do?

 

[devilsadvocate]

I'm going to hold back my doubt that some of the things you asserted in your post are in contradiction to what you argued about observation being the only way to gain knowledge (and indeed, this is one of them), and instead consider the argument you made about how our past observations make it probable that future events will follow the same causal relationships they have in the past. Of course, the first question that comes to mind is, guided by what force? The argument you, and others have made, is so tightly circular as to make one's head dizzy. Instead of answering it myself, I'll quote Hume as I handily had the relevant passage highlighted on Kindle:

"We have said that all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and that all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this last supposition by probable arguments, or arguments regarding existence, must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question. [...]
To say it is experimental, is begging the question. For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past."

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I fail to see how it is contradictory, anyways it is everything but circular. To supouse that things tend to act the same as before comes from the fact that we a wired to observe certain paterns that keep repeting in certain circunstances, end of loop. You can say that it maybe logicaly unfounded to supouse that those paterns will keep happening in the future, I would have to agree. To assume that things in the future will behave the same way as in the past IS NOT A LOGICAL STEP!, and this is particularly important to stress.

I want you now to step out of a dream world, snap out of it, look arround you, what do you see? You will probably see that you are a real person with real persons needs, when you wake up in the morning you probably take a shower, get dress, then eat and you have to eat because else you get starved and you don't like to get starved. You go into a shop to buy your food and use money probably earned on a day job you have, and very likely you are in perfect conscious that you work to get money so you can buy all those things you want to have. You probably also dedicate a portion of your daily life trying to find love, you don't know why you do it other than the fact that it makes you feel good. And you come here once in a while to have a taught provoking conversation because you enjoy it, you may realise it or not but the thirst to gain more knowledge is driven by the desire to make better decisions in order to materialize a circunstance that you deem better. You don't know why you do it, you just do it. There is nothing that forces to search for the ultimate meaning or to ask if it makes any sense whaveter you are discussing here, you don't have to do it but you do it anyways.

Who are we kidding, we are not a mind looking out at the world thinking to ourselves if it makes sense to notice this things we call the "real world", that we spend hours reasoning if we should put our socks before our shoes. To think otherwise is to have lost your unique perspective. We think that the future will behave more or less like the past not because we have a well founded reason to say that it is truly the case, but because it has worked for us to follow this persuit of bending the world we see to our will, and if we happen to be wrong and the future has absolutly no correlation with the past then there is nothing you can learn that it will help you, you would be just a pupet with the ilusion of control. I could say "that you have the choice of either thinking that the world is knowable or not, in the case that you think it is knowable then you can gain control if the world is truly that way and if it isn't you haven't really lost anything, but if you think it isn't you have lost control of the world if it is actualy knowable"; But the truth is, you already made that choice, and it is not because you have good logical reasons to do it.
We are not as logical as we would like to think, and there are problems that logic can not solve, but you must not lose your own unique prespective and try to answer perhaps a more important question, "What are you going to do next?" I am going to make some food.

 

[devilsadvocate]

You know Hume would likely agree with you. Actually.. Hold on. I'll quote some more Hume (and I promise not to make this into a habit)

"Such is the influence of custom, that, where it is strongest, it not only covers our natural ignorance, but even conceals itself, and seems not to take place, merely because it is found in the highest degree."

This passage is from where Hume is still trying to convince his reader to take the proposed problem seriously, but Hume's solution, in a very caricature-like nutshell, is that it's a good thing we aren't too rational! We are creatures of habit and indeed better for it.

I don't agree with Hume on that, though, and as such I don't appreciate the welcome to "step out of dream world". What you describe in so many words, is the world I also inhabit. We just seem to have different opinions how to best make sense of it. I don't claim to know that belief in laws of nature, as in some metaphysical critters governing interactions between objects, is necessarily more rational view of the world than just, let's be blunt here, willful ignorance of the limitations of empiricism, but in my mind, that view does heck of a better job of explaining why decisions in everyday life, and science as methodology, are so successful.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

and as such I don't appreciate the welcome to "step out of dream world".

My point with all that is to make you aware by sudenth contrast that very often when we think about the logic based reasons of doing things we forget that often there isn't any, we have skiped that step altogheter (and I would even circle back to the tangent point that there can't be any, no logic will give you certainties about reality, and this is just a another consequence of it).