What is this thing called science? Ch. 14

(Originally written November 17, 2006 in Book 8)

What is this thing called science?
Ch. 14 - Why should the world obey laws?

[Introduction]

This section deals with the ontological questions.

What kind of entities are assumed to or shown to exist by modern science? Why do we assume that there are laws that govern the environment's behavior?

The notion that laws govern the world and that it is the aim of science to discover them is commonplace.

What makes matter conform to laws? This is highly problematic.

[Laws as regularities]

One way of dealing with natural laws is to deny them as David Hume did. This line of thinking brings causation into question.

Laws are seen as matter of fact realities by Hume. They appear regular and that's why we label them as laws, though they aren't.

A problem with this view is that we see regular before and after things all the time and do not label them as laws.

There is more to laws than mere regularity.

If laws are taken as exceptionalness regularities than no scientific law qualifies because there are always exceptions.

When proponents of law as regularity are confronted with difficulties they reformulate the law from "when X, Y follows" to When X, Y normally follows unless some extra condition denies it".

But, after adding a condition, experiments are made null and void because the laws cannot be tested under any other condition than the one specified.

[Laws as characteristics of powers or disposition]

The world is active. Thus, natural objects behave in the way they do because they have the power or disposition to behave that way.

Laws can then be understood as characteristics of material things' tendencies.

Causes and laws are intimately linked in this view. "Events are caused through the action of particulars that possess the power to act as causes" (Chalmers, 219).

Law-like behavior is brought about by efficient causation.

Many philosophers reject this view of ontology because it seems primitive. Chalmers questions why this is so. Scientists invoke powers and dispositions in their work all the time. Chalmers admits though that there are laws of science that do not fit nicely in this scheme.

[Thermodynamic and conservation laws]

The first and second laws of Thermodynamics and a host of conservation laws in fundamental particle physics do not mesh well with the dispositional account of laws.

The first and second laws of Thermodynamics cannot be construed as causal laws.

A large range of laws within physics can be understood as causal laws, but a few cannot. "What makes systems behave in accordance with the laws of conservation of energy? I don't know. They just do. I am not entirely comfortable with this situation, but I don't see how it can be avoided" (Chalmers, 225).