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The existing terminology may be inadequate. But when we discovered atomic forces, and it turned out that Newtonian physics could not accurately describe them, w
by sooheon 8y ago
The existing terminology may be inadequate. But when we discovered atomic forces, and it turned out that Newtonian physics could not accurately describe them, we did not split the natural world at that boundary and claim atomic forces could not be explained by "appeal to fundamental laws of nature". No, we developed our understanding, phenomena that occurred inside nature came to be considered natural. Our understanding of what the physical world consisted of grew, it did not fragment.
- riffraff 8y agothe claim is not that they are not explained by laws of nature, but that they are not explained by physics. It's like saying you can't model a football game in terms of the behavior of proteins. Sure there are proteins, and there is no magic anywhere, but the conceptual gap is just too vast.
- simonh 8y agoRight, so they are meta-phenomena. They are still entirely physical. The actual process occurring is physical, but there is information being processed and meaning in what’s happening that can be analysed independently of the physical substrate.