Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang, Essays on Mind and Matter

[ipecac]

We see them acting on stuff, what would you say gravity isn't provable? Just drop a pen from your desk. Since they are repeatable we know that a "law" exists here. A pen will always  fall towards the earth. It's like a black hole, we can't observe it directly, but we can see it pull in nearby objects, so we know it must be there.

Yes, as I said earlier to THH, we observe regular behaviour. It sounds like you're shifting goalposts here: previously you describe physics as 'powers' or a 'higher entity', now you're switching to 'our observations of regularity in nature'.

Are you instead having a problem with the term law used here? That, just like theory, is because science uses it differently than it's colloquial use.

We're talking philosophy and metaphysics here. Many have tagged onto 'law' further metaphysical addons than the mere scientific meaning, resulting in e.g 'laws of physics rule out miracles because they can't be broken'. Another common reason to add metaphysical layers to 'law' is to avoid or neutralise the problem of induction.

So there is a common belief that there are unbreakable rules that govern matter, to which our science attempts to discover and explicate. This is the definition of 'laws of physics' being used here in this thread.

[Japper007]

We see them acting on stuff, what would you say gravity isn't provable? Just drop a pen from your desk. Since they are repeatable we know that a "law" exists here. A pen will always  fall towards the earth. It's like a black hole, we can't observe it directly, but we can see it pull in nearby objects, so we know it must be there.

Yes, as I said earlier to THH, we observe regular behaviour. It sounds like you're shifting goalposts here: previously you describe physics as 'powers' or a 'higher entity', now you're switching to 'our observations of regularity in nature'.

Are you instead having a problem with the term law used here? That, just like theory, is because science uses it differently than it's colloquial use.

We're talking philosophy and metaphysics here. Some have tagged onto 'law' further metaphysical addons, resulting in e.g 'laws of physics rule out miracles because they can't be broken'. Another common reason to add metaphysical layers to 'law' is to avoid the problem of induction.

I'm not shifting the goalposts, you are constructing a strawman. I said that one could see physics and as of yet unexplained phenomena as a higher entity (as indeed deists insist on doing to this day), not that I do believe that.

The laws of physics rule out miracles because everything occurs in accordance with physics, even phenomena delusionally thought to be "miraculous".

[ipecac]

I'm not shifting the goalposts, you are constructing a strawman. I said that one could see physics and as of yet unexplained phenomena as a higher entity (as indeed deists insist on doing to this day), not that I do believe that.

I am curious, do you believe that?

The laws of physics rule out miracles because everything occurs in accordance with physics

What meaning of 'laws of physics' are you using here?

Thank you for the illustration of my point: that many add on to 'laws of physics' so that it is more than the scientific meaning, more than 'we see regular behaviour and we've deciphered it with mathematics and here are the equations that describe the behaviour.'

The scientific meaning alone doesn't rule out miracles.

[darrelljs]

This:

because everything occurs in accordance with physics

Does not prove this:

The laws of physics rule out miracles

Without a narrow definition of the word "miracle" and a broad definition of the word "physics".

Darrell

[Japper007]

I'm not shifting the goalposts, you are constructing a strawman. I said that one could see physics and as of yet unexplained phenomena as a higher entity (as indeed deists insist on doing to this day), not that I do believe that.

I am curious, do you believe that?

The laws of physics rule out miracles because everything occurs in accordance with physics

What meaning of 'laws of physics' are you using here?

Thank you for the illustration of my point: that many add on to 'laws of physics' so that it is more than the scientific meaning, more than 'we see regular behaviour and we've deciphered it with mathematics and here are the equations that describe the behaviour.'

The scientific meaning alone doesn't rule out miracles.

-No, I don't. But I still think it would be closer to rationality than most religions.

-The same meaning used before, to borrow your succinct description: regular behaviour of nature. I don't know what would've parted the Red Sea, but I can be sure that something happened that is predictable according to physics. Lot's of theories exist explaining it in a way that doesn't involve god, from geological phenomena to shifts in oceanic currents. There's also the theory that it is entirely fictional or allegorical of course, but that also corresponds to physics: our senses and minds are prone to deceptions and delusions and plain making stuff up because they operate in a flawed way but by entirely physical means.

[ipecac]

-The same meaning used before, to borrow your succinct description: regular behaviour of nature.

That we see regular behaviour doesn't rule out irregular behaviour.

I don't know what would've parted the Red Sea, but I can be sure that something happened that is predictable according to physics.

Why can't there be occasional irregular behaviour in addition to regular behaviour? Why can't there be something unpredictable?

What is supposed to rule this out, and why?

[Japper007]

I'm not going to argue with that, of course it's possible. That would change what we see as the laws of physics of course, since everything falls within them. If something impossible is proven to happen we adjust the law. For instance, warping the fabric of reality was thought to be impossible, but Einstein proved otherwise. Then we couldn't find enough mass to account for the strenght of gravity so we developed Dark Matter theory. Then we couldn't account for the rate of expansion, so we developed Dark Energy theories.
This is why I said miracles don't happen, since if they do they aren't miracles anymore, just another thing that happens within the boundaries of physics, which stretch to accomodate this new phenomena. Eventually we'll understand them and craft a law to predict them too. It is unromantic but science will always be there to show that the universe is an understandable and unmiraculous place, it just takes time and investigation.

Some miracles are very impropable however, and far more likely just misinterpreted and/or misremembered regular activity or made up out of whole cloth.

[ipecac]

This is why I said miracles don't happen, since if they do they aren't miracles anymore, just another thing that happens within the boundaries of physics, which stretch to accomodate this new phenomena. Eventually we'll understand them and craft a law to predict them too.

Which assumes further that the miracles will happen sufficiently regularly under laboratory conditions, and that we'll be able to to understand what's going on.

The first is something rather unlikely, especially since miracles (if they occur) are quite likely to be irregular. Whereas physics is the study of the regular.

The second seems unlikely too; after all I am reliably informed that we are mindless beasts.

[ipecac]

This:

because everything occurs in accordance with physics

Does not prove this:

The laws of physics rule out miracles

Without a narrow definition of the word "miracle" and a broad definition of the word "physics".

Darrell

Well, I understand that "rule out" isn't supposed to mean 'forbid' or 'prevent'.

[Japper007]

The first is something rather unlikely, especially since miracles (if they occur) are quite likely to be irregular. Whereas physics is the study of the regular.

This still doesn't make any sence:

if something is proven to exist outside of the regular then the regular has changed and a new scientific law will have to be crafted to explain it. If gravity doesn't work in a particular spot of the universe, then we need a new law of gravity. It doesn't matter at all how little times it happens. If there is even a 0.001 percent chance that a scientific law doesn't apply consistently (and this is proven to be so), it is now a defunct law, since by it's very nature a scientific law is: "by what we know to be true now, this happens 100% of the time". Let's say we discover that levitation isn't just some New Age bullshit, we'd need a new law of gravity and a new law of conservation of energy, since the old ones provably do not correctly predict the universe.