Are there laws of Physics? 2

Continue foot note numbering from part 1

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Humean empiricql's failure to answer

Alan Chalmers discusses the way that followers of the Philosopher David Hume deal with the problem of explaining the regularity without prescriptive laws. Chalmers represents the scientific realists, Humeans are their oppents. Followers of Hume believe that it's going too far beyond the bounds of what can be proven to suggest that laws govern things or that properties of nature produce the effect of governance. Chalmers goes back to the billiard balls to illustrate Hume's position. Hume argued that we don't see one ball moving the other but one ball stop and the other one start. We don't see the causal process so we must assume it. Hume believed that we don't have a rational warrant for belief in physical bodies or the external world. These must be assumed on faith

. At least Chalmer's and the realists are willing to admit there's a problem. I will demonstrate that his solution is little better than Hume's (in the next chapter). Humean refusal to move out of deniel is indicative of modern science as a whole. This law-like regularity is just a set of behaviors and naturallaws are just descriptions of those behaviors, never mind how law-like they are. Chalmer's argument against Hume does not answer Hume, it just assumes that we know already that nature has activeproperties that make things happen. That's just refusal to believe Hume's logic. Hume's skepticism fuels atheist empiricism, that stands behind all their claims that there is no rational reason to believe in God. I wonder how many of them ever realize that according to Hume there's no reason to believe in the externalworld. Mattey says of Hume: Consider the question whether we are justified in believing that a physical world exists. As David Hume pointed out, the skepticism generated by philosophical arguments is contrary to our natural inclination to believe that there are physical objects. Nonetheless, after considering the causes of our belief in the existence of body and finding them inadequate for the justification of that belief, Hume admitted to being drawn away form his original assumption that bodies exist. "To be ingenuous, I feel myself at present..more inclin'd to repose no faith at all in my senses, or rather imagination, than to place in it such an implicit confidence," because "'tis impossible upon any system to defend either our understanding or senses." His solution to these doubts was "carelessness and in-attention," which divert the mind fromskeptical arguments.[21]

Hume tells us:

[T]he skeptic . . . must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, tho' he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity. Nature has not left this to his choice, and has doubtless esteem'd it an affair of too great importance to be trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations. We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body?, but 'tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasoning.” (A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section II) [22]

For an answer to Hume I turn to Hume's contemporary opponent, Thomas Reid. More specifically to G.J. Mattey and his use of Lehrer and Reid. Thomas Reid (1710-1790) Scottish philosopher, leader of the “common sense” school. He studied Philosophy at Marischl college, Aberdeen. He served as a Presbyterian pastor. He influenced modern philosophers such as Charles Sanders Peirce.[23]Reid argues that we are justified in following our senses.That the evidence of sense is of a different kind, needs little proof. No man seeks a reason for believing what he sees or feels; and, if he did, it would be difficult to find one. But, though he can give no reason for believing his senses, his belief remains as firm as if it were grounded on demonstration...Many eminent philosophers, thinking it unreasonable to believe when they could not shew a reason, have laboured to furnish us with reasons for believing our senses; but their reasons are very insufficient, and will not bear examination. Other philosophers have shewn very clearly the fallacy of these reasons, and have, as they imagine, discovered invincible reasons against this belief; but they have never been able either to shake it themselves or to convince others. The statesman continues to plod, the soldier to fight, and the merchant to export and import, without being in the least moved by the demonstations that have been offered of the non-existence of those things about which they are so seriously employed. And a man may as soon by reasoning, pull the moon out of her orbit, as destroy the belief of the objects of sense. (Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay IV, Chapter XX) [24]

He doesn't put it in these terms but he's arguing that living by the assumption that perceptions are real works. Ignoring that realization doesn't work. Now he does say that perceptions can be wrong and weneed attention to detail.[25] But in general he's talking about justification of belief in the external world and physical bodies. People go about their lives doing what they do and assume the reality of the world works. Now a student of philosophy may think “but that's the average person who knows nothing of philosophy and doesn't think. No philosopher lives by Humean skepticism. When a philosopher makes love he or shedoes not pull back at the most climatic moment and say “is my partner here real? Is this real? Am I really doing this deed in this place?” Philosophers who are drafted and sent to war don't walk into machine gun fire to see if the bullets are real. Reid argues that we have prima face justification to assume the reality of regular and consistent perceptions. Science couldn't really thrive on Humean skepticism. To a point skepticism is good for science since science is not about proving facts but testing hypotheses. Yet if we never assume the reality of perception why bother with empirical observation?

It seems clear that a great deal of the fuss is the result of the words, “law” vs. “description.” The prescriptive/descriptive dichotomy is probably too simplistic. Neither is it so simple to just find a new term. One of the more interesting developments in philosophy of science is the small, yet determined, group of feminist science critics. Their social project is to clean science up from it's “sexist spin” (my term) by ridding it of paradigms based upon dominance, hierarchy and linear understanding. Naturally one of the first places they have to start is in dealing with the notion of natural law. Nelson quoting Keller:

Our under standing of what constitutes a law (in nature as well as in society) is of course subject to change, and not all laws necessarily imply coercion. Certainly not all scientific laws are either causal or deterministic; they may, for example be statistical, phenomenological, or just simply the 'rules of the game.'....The extreme case of the desire to turn observed regularity into law is of course the search for the one 'unified' law of nature that embodies all other laws, and that hence will be immune to revision.[35]

Keller doubts that the P/D dichotomy distinguishes the law of nature metaphor from coercion, (Nelson's analysis of Keller). Keller wants to draw upon biology rather than bases her alternative on biology rather than physics. She moves from moves from search for laws to a search for order. Linear hierarchy of the legal metaphor limits our relation to and understanding of nature. Keller admits that order can imply the same hierarchical relationships as does law. It also allows for other kinds of relationships. “Order is a category comprising patterns of organization that can be spontaneous, self generated, or externally imposed; it is a larger category than law precisely to the extent that law implies external constraint..”[36]

Ruth Bleier says dominance determinism and hierarchy is in genetics, so biology is not free of it. She also uses that fact to justify using political concerns as guides to scientific paradigms, because in matters such as racism the relationship between the scientific and political was one-to-one. In other words the dominance and hierarchical nature of genetics was used to justify racism.[37] A Derridian might say, however, that the tension between the two implications of “order” is the point of deconstruction. Law and order go together like soup and sandwich. There's an even better answer as to way the idea of using order rather than law is not a defeat for my argument: order, and organizing principle might fit tether well. Oder might be the product of organizing principle.



Notes

[21]G.J. Matty, 2002 Lecture Notes, Lehrer's Theory of Knowledg e, Second edition chapter 4 the Foundation Theory: Fallible Foundations. Online resource, URL: http://hume.ucdavis.edu/mattey/phi102kl/tkch4.htm accessed 9/2/15. Mattey was one of the top Reid scholars. Mattey is senor lecturer at U*.C. Davis, Joinws faculty in 1977 (Ph.D. from U. Pittsburgh). He specializes in 17th and 18th century philosophy, epistemology and logic.

[22]David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section II, Mineola, NY&: Dover Pu8blishing 2003, 134-157.

[23] C. S.Peirce , "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities", Journal of Speculative Philosophy 2, (1868) pp. 140–157, see p. 155 via Google Books. Reprinted, Collected Papers v. 5, paragraphs 264–317 (see 311), Writings v. 2, pp. 211–42 (see 239), Essential Peirce v. 1, pp. 28–55 (see 52).Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay IV, Chapter XX)

[24]Thomas Reid, Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay IV, Chapter XX, quoted in Mattey, op. cit.

[25]Ibid

[26] Brian Weatherson, "David Lewis", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .

According to Weatherson:

David Lewis (1941–2001) was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century. He made significant contributions to philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, decision theory, epistemology, meta-ethics and aesthetics. In most of these fields he is essential reading; in many of them he is among the most important figures of recent decades. And this list leaves out his two most significant contributions.

[27] John W. Carroll, "Laws of Nature," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition),

Edward N. Zalta (ed.), online resourse URL = . [28]Ibid. the article sites: David Lewis, Counterfactuals, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973.

[29]Ibid. The article sites: David Lewis, Philosophical Papers, Volume II, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

[30]Ibid. On mind dependent criticism: “See, especially, Armstrong 1983, 66–73; van Fraassen 1989, 40–64;

Carroll 1990, 197–206.”

[31]Hugh McCarthy, “The Universal Theory of Physical Law,” Hugh McCarthy's ASC blog. (Dec. 17, 2014) On line Resource URL:

https://hughmccarthylawscienceasc.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/the-universal-theory-of-physical-law/ I hesitate to site another blog by a Ph.D. candidate, but this is the most cogent and helpful explanation of Armstrong I've seen. McCarthy: This blog is part of an ASC research project that I am completing as part of my PhB (Science) degree at the Australian National University, in the summer of 2014-2015. I am looking at the relationship between law and science, trying to answer questions like “What is difference between a legal law and a scientific law?” The project is supervised by Joshua Neoh from the ANU Law Department, and Pierre Portal from the ANU Maths Department.

[32]Ibid.

[33]Davies, Cosmic Jackpot..., op.cit., 11-12. [34] Plato, Republic. 596a: We customarily hypothesize a single form in connection with each collection of many things to which we apply the same name 596a-b: Then let’s now take any of the manys you like. For example, there are many beds and tables ... but there are only two forms of such furniture, one of the bed and one of the table.

[35]E. F. Keller, quoted in Lynn Nelson, Who Knows?... op. Cit., 220. Evelyn Fox Keller (born March 20, 1936) American, feminist, physicist professor emerita at MIT

[36]Ibid.

[37]Lynn Nelson, op cit, 221. Ruth Bleier was a neurophysiologist, Ph.D, from Johns Hopkins, she was a life long activist, summoned before the HUAAC by Joe McCarthy, for running a peace committee in Maryland. She also taught Psychiatry, was professor at University of Wisconsin at Madison, and one of the first feminist thinkers to bring a feminist critique to scientific paradigms.

[38]Alan Chalmers, in Sankey, op. Cit., 7-8.

[39]Ibid., 10.

[40]Ibid.

[41]Ibid., 11

[42]Brian Ellis, “Causal Powers and Laws of Nature,” in Saknkey, ed. op. Cit. 19-39.

[43]Ibid, 23.

[44]Caroline Lierse in Sankey, op. Cit.,., 83.

[45]Frederic Jameson, The Prison-House of Langauge: a Critiocal Accountof Structuralism and Russian formalism, Princeton: Princeton University press, 1975, 3.

[46]Joseph Hinman, God, Science, and Ideology

[47] Sewell Write, “Panpsychism and Science,” In Mind in Nature.Lanham Maryland:University press of America, ed. Cobb and Griffin 1977, 82. Sewell Wright (1889-19880)American geneticist known who was known for his work on evolutionary theory. He discovered the inbreeding coefficient in hybred animals. He taughtvat university of Chicago and Wisconsin. His Doctorate

. was from Harvard. He won many notable awards including National medal of science (1966). [48] Timothy O'Connor and Hong Yu Wong, "Emergent Properties", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . Accessed 9/13/15

. [49]David Chalmers, “Strong and Weak emergence,” Research School of Social Sciences, Austrailian National University, online resource, PDF URL: http://consc.net/papers/emergence.pdf accessed 9/13/15.

. [50] David Cole, "The Chinese Room Argument", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = .

. [51]Paul Almond, “Searl's Argument Against AI and emergent Properties—part 1,” MLU: Machines Like Us, (December 29,

. 2008) online resource, URL: http://www.machineslikeus.com/news/searles-argument-against-ai-and-emergent-properties- part-1 accessed 9/13/15.

. [52] Joseph Hinman, The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief. Colorado Springs: Grand Viaduct Publishing, 2014,

. [53] Nagel, Thomas. "What is it like to be a bat?", Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 166. pdf: http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf accessed 9/14/15. originally from The Philosophical Review LXXXIII, 4 (October 1974): 435-50

. Nagel is philosophy professer atv NYU. Ph.D Harvaed 1963, awards: 1996 for Other Minds (1995PEN/Diamonstein- Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

. [54]Sean Carroll, review “Mind and Cosmos,” Sean Carroll (blog)(posted August 22, 2013) URL: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/08/22/mind-and-cosmos/ accessedd 9/14/15.

. [55]Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos:...op. Cit., 3. (see chapter 1).

. [56]Ibid., 4.

. [57]Ibid., 55.

. [58]Ibid., 57.

. [59]Carroll, “Mind...”op. Cit.

. [60]Ibid,

. [61]Ibid.

. [62]Ibid.

. [63]Ibid.

. [64]Ibid.

. [65]Ibid.

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