Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 18, 2013 Author Share Posted January 18, 2013 (edited) The notion that laws could be spread by fields would seem to be counter to the concept of a field, which is the result of a law or laws which describe the field. So it seems to be a circular argument. Ok so if fields are out for the reason you say. That leaves by . Laws carried by matter. And as I understand things matter isn't everywhere. or at least very thinly spread in some locations. and yes if matter carries the laws with them, ok but if matter is very thin surely the laws will become thin with them. or distorted. Or the fabric of space time ? If so how, in what form ? Or some form of Universal Law web ? Or is there some form of medium , we currently do not accept, that carries the laws ? . Universal Law Grid If so what is its nature ? . Edited January 18, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted January 18, 2013 Share Posted January 18, 2013 Ok so if fields are out for the reason you say. That leaves by . Laws carried by matter. And as I understand things matter isn't everywhere. or at least very thinly spread in some locations. and yes if matter caries the laws with them, ok but if matter is very thin surely the laws will become thin with them. or distorted. Or the fabric of space time ? If so how, in what form ? Or some form of Universal Law web ? Or is there some form of medium , we currently do not accept, that carries the laws ? . Universal Law Grid If so what is its nature ? . I think any approach that treats laws as being material/substantial in any way is flawed. In any event, unless you can find a way to test the hypothesis, then this is metaphysics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 18, 2013 Author Share Posted January 18, 2013 (edited) I think any approach that treats laws as being material/substantial in any way is flawed. In any event, unless you can find a way to test the hypothesis, then this is metaphysics. Yes ,but with something as fundamental as the laws of physics, and their assumption to be the same in all frames of reference, an which a large section of physics is currently based, deserves some form of explanation as to where they come from , or from where do they spread out from. The more provable one I would have thought is: That they come out , or are intrinsically bound up in the very nature of matter itself. Which is fine if that is the general consensus of scientists ! However I find it somewhat odd that it is seldom discussed ( unless I missed something.) That still leaves the problem of " where matter is scarce or very concentrated " . Are the laws distorted from normal, at these places. ( I would think that was testable, if not already having a little taster proof from the voyager probe, heading out of the solar system. Or , that the laws shine down from some higher Universal Region, which as you say is a little difficult to test. ( but none the less an option ) So which one or yet another do the consensus of scientists hold to.? Hang about I have missed out the Platonic Maths / Geometric shapes, casting shadows out of a cave option. It strikes me as fairly important, as I cannot see a nation of people obeying or being governed by a set of laws that they had no idea where they came from ! So which one are you going for Mr Swansont or anyone else for that matter ?, if I dare to push you slightly Edited January 18, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACG52 Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 It strikes me as fairly important, as I cannot see a nation of people obeying or being governed by a set of laws that they had no idea where they came from ! The laws of physics don't give you a choice about obeying or not. They're not the type of laws passed by governmental bodies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 (edited) The laws of physics don't give you a choice about obeying or not. They're not the type of laws passed by governmental bodies. . Fine, but where are the physical laws coming from? And what mediates them ? Edited January 19, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Angel Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 That still leaves the problem of " where matter is scarce or very concentrated " . Are the laws distorted from normal, at these places. One way that question has been investigated is by measuring the bending of light from stars by gravity. Space has been determined to be curved by very massive bodies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commonsense Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 The laws of physics are not "laws" in a since that we as people understand laws. The laws of physics are merely observations of nature. Humans have behaviors that we might think are laws such as our tendency socialize, imitate and explore but not all people follow these behaviors. Also not all particles in nature are confined by certain laws of physics such as particles that can pop in and out of existance and particles that can be in two places at once in "quantum physics." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michel123456 Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Particles do not obey laws. We humans have artificially extracted some "laws" that help us understand nature, make calculations and predictions. These laws are usually simplifications of what really happens (for example the laws of motion). As much scientists go deeper trying to understand what is deeply going on, the laws get more and more obscure. I guess one could derive the laws of motion of a macroscopic object from sum of all little quantum-foam-laws of each sub-particle, but in the end, if you go into calculations by this way you would do slower than nature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 On the contrary, if particles don't obey them then they aren't laws. The best evidence we have shows that nature does indeed follow rules we can express with mathematics, which are precisely what laws are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 (edited) On the contrary, if particles don't obey them then they aren't laws. The best evidence we have shows that nature does indeed follow rules we can express with mathematics, which are precisely what laws are. O.k. So what the consensus of the last few comments are. That 'nature' as some form of summation of the whole shebang, ( matter, resultant fields, other yet unidentified matter and energy , Mathematical Structure) result in some form of controlling / enforcing environment within which things move and exist. Does that sound like what you are all saying. That's interesting, but it does leave me with a few loose ends like: :- What is the nature of this NATURE environment .:- . . ( this amalgum of electro-magnetic spacial force energy field like, Maths Matrix 'Soup' )? How pervasive is it ( eg everywhere, in the region of matter, in the region of energy, charge,etc ) ? Plus a few things I havn't thought of just at the moment!. . . Edited January 19, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamBridge Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 (edited) "Laws" aren't materials like Swan said, they are observations that we observe from matter, they are not "generated" from matter, it's what we scientifically see matter doing. If we observe matter acting a particular way all the time, and find no evidence that it acts differently, then scientifically it is safe to assume it's the same in every location that those laws can describe. For locations such as outside the universe (which don't really exist) or you're imagination, scientific laws cannot describe what happens there. But, there's physics for space and distance, and as far as our observations are concerned, those equations are true for whatever there is space and distance, which we assume based on other observations is the entire universe. Edited January 19, 2013 by SamBridge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 (edited) "Laws" aren't materials like Swan said, they are observations that we observe from matter, they are not "generated" from matter, it's what we scientifically see matter doing. If we observe matter acting a particular way all the time, and find no evidence that it acts differently, then scientifically it is safe to assume it's the same in every location that those laws can describe. For locations such as outside the universe (which don't really exist) or you're imagination, scientific laws cannot describe what happens there. But, there's physics for space and distance, and as far as our observations are concerned, those equations are true for whatever there is space and distance, which we assume based on other observations is the entire universe. Well I understand what you are saying , and don.t really have a problem with it, apart from your assumption that this "natural" environment is the same throughout the entire universe. to me that is a bit overly Assumptive. ( if that is a legitimate word ) Yes where similar conditions of matter exist ( Star Planet system, Galaxy ) Yes possibly , but what about the spaces ( inter quark, inter star, inter galaxy, inter cluster Voids , and all the heavy stuff ( blackholes, neutron stars, Quasars, dark matter, big bangs ) Can we just say . Oh well nature is the same there ! Humm. I am not sure about that. Edited January 19, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACG52 Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Well I understand what you are saying , and don.t really have a problem with it, apart from your assumption that this "natural" environment is the same throughout the entire universe. to me that is a bit overly Assumptive. ( if that is a legitimate word ) Yes where similar conditions of matter exist ( Star Planet system, Galaxy ) Yes possibly , but what about the spaces ( inter quark, inter star, inter galaxy, inter cluster Voids , and all the heavy stuff ( blackholes, neutron stars, Quasars, dark matter, big bangs ) Can we just say . Oh well nature is the same there ! Humm. I am not sure about that. What we can say definitively is this: The laws of physics are the same everywhere we have been able to observe, which currently reaches out to 13.7 billion lys, and down to the subatomic level. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 (edited) What we can say definitively is this: The laws of physics are the same everywhere we have been able to observe, which currently reaches out to 13.7 billion lys, and down to the subatomic level. Are you really sure we ( current body of science research) have (A) observed back to 13.7 billion years with enough observation details to say categorically " hey the laws of physics are behaving exactly as they are right now here on earth. Similarly looking down ( B) at sub atomic levels and find everything is behaving perfectly normally. B) Well second first. I thought this is what all the fuss is about. Quantum sized stuff is behaving in a very peculiarly unnatural way ( to what we are used to up here at 1 meter high. A ) Covering the First point , We are finding some peculiar things way back.(part way back 73 quasars occupying 4 billion light years across) and pre- 12 Billion Years , I think is very vague . I appreciate the spectral analysis seems to stack up when we look at individual stars . But the entire body of physical laws will take some checking out to be sure . I think if I were able to take some time warp, space warp, leap to 13.7 billion years ago relying on ALL the laws of physics being the same, I would think Twice, or 100 times before going and getting spaghettiified. However, May be you are perfectly right. I wonder if its not wishful thinking possibly . Not sure there is enough evidence yet . Edited January 19, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACG52 Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 A - yes B - yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Angel Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 Particles do not obey laws. We humans have artificially extracted some "laws" that help us understand nature, make calculations and predictions. These laws are usually simplifications of what really happens (for example the laws of motion). As much scientists go deeper trying to understand what is deeply going on, the laws get more and more obscure. I guess one could derive the laws of motion of a macroscopic object from sum of all little quantum-foam-laws of each sub-particle, but in the end, if you go into calculations by this way you would do slower than nature. True, but some scientists have theorized that the entire universe can be thought of as being a quantum computer. At this smallest of scales, however, the universe is governed by the famously weird laws of quantum mechanics. Computers that operate using quantum bits (or qubits), such as those stored on individual electrons, inherit this weirdness: bits can read 0 and 1 simultaneously, and quantum computers can solve problems classical computers cannot. See "The universe is a quantum computer http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/03/the-universe-is-a-quantum-computer.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamBridge Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 (edited) True, but some scientists have theorized that the entire universe can be thought of as being a quantum computer. I can guarantee you that no credible scientist has "theorized" such a thing, a theory is not a hypothesis, it's build off of scientific experiments. Hypothesis' may have been extrapolated from exploring the quantinization of matter and energy (which makes sense without a computer universe) and nothing more. Edited January 20, 2013 by SamBridge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 O.k. So what the consensus of the last few comments are. That 'nature' as some form of summation of the whole shebang, ( matter, resultant fields, other yet unidentified matter and energy , Mathematical Structure) result in some form of controlling / enforcing environment within which things move and exist. Does that sound like what you are all saying. No, because it sounds like you're equating laws with space, or material in space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 20, 2013 Author Share Posted January 20, 2013 (edited) No, because it sounds like you're equating laws with space, or material in space. o.k. that is a fair comment. I was just attempting to pull a few previous comments together probably ineffectively . I think I am picking up the message that 'things' follow paths according to how 'things' find themselves under influence at the time. But if that is the case, it very much would support the idea , that if conditions are different at other locations the influence is going to be different, thus the named laws different ? I f ( I am not sure if you were saying ) maths is the ultimate influence then that is a very heavy subject to argue out ( is maths at the root of everything ). Even if that were thought to be so, it begs the question , are there vaste as yet unexplored areas of maths that behave, or influence under other regions of the universe where conditions are different ? . Edited January 20, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 o.k. that is a fair comment. I was just attempting to pull a few previous comments together probably ineffectively . I think I am picking up the message that 'things' follow paths according to how 'things' find themselves under influence at the time. But if that is the case, it very much would support the idea , that if conditions are different at other locations the influence is going to be different, thus the named laws different ? The laws account for different influences, e.g. you have a star with twice as much mass, there will be twice the gravitational acceleration at a given distance from it. The commonality is that the behavior is predicted by general relativity/Newtonian gravitation. Or the energy of electrons in atoms of differing charge being in accordance with QM. For the laws to be different you would have to be deviating from the equations, and that's not been observed. Or, more precisely, any deviations are limited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 20, 2013 Author Share Posted January 20, 2013 (edited) The laws account for different influences, e.g. you have a star with twice as much mass, there will be twice the gravitational acceleration at a given distance from it. The commonality is that the behavior is predicted by general relativity/Newtonian gravitation. Or the energy of electrons in atoms of differing charge being in accordance with QM. For the laws to be different you would have to be deviating from the equations, and that's not been observed. Or, more precisely, any deviations are limited. Ok Thats fine , so you are saying the influence on anything like the mass of the star ( or 2 x the mass) is following Newtonian F= Gm1m2/d(squared) and general relativisticly responding to the matrix of space time. So the 'law' or influence is born out of the nature of the matter and the fabric of space-time local to the two masses . Ok. Well can we be sure that the same amount of matter 'squidged' up into some form of degenerate neutron star type material , finding itself in a particularly distorted area of space time near 73 quasars, with space time doing a loop-de-loop , is going to follow the same natural influence (laws) as the same amount of matter just out half way to Proxima Centurus our nearest neighbour star. ? If that is so . --------- I concede defeat. __ I------_=O __________ ------------- ( Just for the moment ) ----------------- Edited January 20, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamBridge Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 o.k. that is a fair comment. I was just attempting to pull a few previous comments together probably ineffectively . I think I am picking up the message that 'things' follow paths according to how 'things' find themselves under influence at the time. But if that is the case, it very much would support the idea , that if conditions are different at other locations the influence is going to be different, thus the named laws different ? I f ( I am not sure if you were saying ) maths is the ultimate influence then that is a very heavy subject to argue out ( is maths at the root of everything ). Even if that were thought to be so, it begs the question , are there vaste as yet unexplored areas of maths that behave, or influence under other regions of the universe where conditions are different ? . Math doesn't equal the universe, we say physics is the same everywhere because that's what we observe. So far in our entire observable universe, the laws of physics are the same, that's not a tangible object, that's just the consensus we have. There is no way to determine if the physics aren't the same in a location that we haven't observed, so it's pointless to speculate about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michel123456 Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 On the contrary, if particles don't obey them then they aren't laws. The best evidence we have shows that nature does indeed follow rules we can express with mathematics, which are precisely what laws are. I didn't expect that from a bright mind like you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 I didn't expect that from a bright mind like you. You'll have to elaborate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michel123456 Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 Nature does its job. We are the stupid ones who need laws to understand what nature does. A particle does not follow any law. It would be like saying that an apple follows what Newton said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now