eh

Often, theists will insist that the existence of the laws of physics implies a lawmaker. After all, you can't have software without a programmer, and so the universe has a creator as well. A common reply is that the word law is misleading, as the laws of physics are not proscriptive laws that that tell the universe how to work, but are merely descriptive. That is to say, the laws we discover in natural are just descriptions of physical objects. Energy is conserved, not because a law tells it to behave as such, but because conservation is a nature property of the physical world itself. In such a case, the law of energy conservation is only a description of how nature works.

So to suggest the laws physics have independent existence seems silly. Or does it? Several physicists have been promoting that very idea - with physical things such as space and time not being fundemental to the existence of the universe. Rather, some abritrary laws are fundemental, almost as if the universe is some kind of computer program. This is a central idea of creation from nothing theories developed by Vilenkin, Guth and others. The pre big bang void is then a state where the laws of physics exist, but space-time does not.

In fact, Guth argues that findings from quantum theory seem to suggest that such laws exist independent of the physical world. He writes: "....If you bang two electrons together with enough energy, you produce protons. If there are no independent laws, then all the properties of protons must somehow be 'known' by the electrons. By extension every elementary particle must carry around enough information to produce the entire universe. I find that difficult to believe"

Yet with belief in any arbitrary laws of physics existing without the physical universe, God as a programmer no longer seems all that unlikely. To the posters here familiar with physics, what are some other examples of natural phenomena where the independent existence of laws is suggested?

Dominus Paradoxum

On the ontological status of "laws"

First of all, I don't think anyone (Not even an all-around Platonist) is enough of a Realist to believe in literal laws telling particles how to behave. Indeed, there's no way the particles could "understand" the message. I would say that the law about electrons producing photons is not a fact about any individual electron, but is rather inherent in the properties common to all electrons. Basically, I think 'natural laws' express the necessary relations that obtain between certain properties and property types.

SULPHUR

How many quarks make a hadron and how many gluons are required. One example is a meson which is uud

Tenek

Odd about the proton there. I'm pretty sure banging together the two electrons gives you three electrons and a positron. Maybe you can get protons out of that. But it seems unlikely. *shrug*

Shadowy Man

Well, I'm pretty sure that Isaac Newton wrote Newton's Laws and Michael Faraday wrote Faraday's Law.

But I can't be sure who wrote the rest of them.

yguy

I don't know what the big problem is. Seeds have all the information in them necessary to become functioning plants, but that is hardly apparent on first glance. I'd suggest we know less about the internal structure of electrons than we do about seeds.

And I think his extension is a bit much. Seems to me every elementary particle would only have to have enough info to produce every other particle.