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The content of the article is very interesting and worth reading, but the framing feels circular. Some laws of nature are fundamental and other laws are inevita

The content of the article is very interesting and worth reading, but the framing feels circular. Some laws of nature are fundamental and other laws are inevitable consequences of those laws. If the inevitable laws were not inevitable, then they would be fundamental. As our knowledge and explanatory power grows, some laws that first appeared fundamental have been explained in terms of deeper laws, but we must still ask why the deeper laws exist.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
The_rationalist 7y ago
Are there some sound theories that explain this why?
vanderZwan 7y ago
Not quite what you're arguing, but related: you might be interested in the strong anthropic principle. PBS Spacetime did a fairly accessible video about the reasoning behind it recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-6oU3jXAho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-6oU3jXAho
ilitirit 7y ago
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread it sounds as if what you're asking is related to the anthropic principle. Maybe it would be more appropriate to argue that "the set of physical laws that arise from the known fundamental constants are inevitable". But this itself is not strictly logical because changing the fundamental constants doesn't imply a change of the fundamental laws. The fundamental laws may very well work fine with different constants but we may just not be there to observe them in action because the outcomes may not result in a universe conducive to life (hence: anthropic principle). As a bad analogy, physics affects an egg falling to the surface of a planet in low gravity in the same way as an egg falling in high gravity. The outcomes may be different, but the laws are the same. And of course, in the latter case it's less likely for something to survive the fall and live to even ask these questions in the first place. There are some interesting possibilities that arise at this point. e.g. What if this Universe is only "somewhat" tuned for intelligent life? What if, on some more "appropriate" level of "tuning", more stable, fundamental particles are observable for longer periods of time yielding even more insight into the fundamental laws of the universe? Lots of interesting stuff to talk about around a camp fire...
jordanpg 7y ago
I agree with this. I've always found theories of everything to be unsatisfying in this way, because they never explain how the laws of physics got the way they are. Assuming the existence of some abstraction called spin to derive the fundamental forces is a great exercise in internal consistency, but hardly meets any definition of "bootstrapping" as I understand the term. The only theory I've ever encountered that passes this smell test to me is the mathematical universe hypothesis[0] because it's intuitive to me that math just "is" in some sense and does not require any upstream mechanisms or assumptions. As far as I'm concerned, if you have to assume the existence of anything whatsoever, it's not bootstrapping. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...
- discreteevent 7y ago
  As to how the laws got where they are Lee Smolin and Roberto Ungar say that it's possible they were not always the way they are and that they evolved spontaneously over time. And that the spontaneity just is the way things are i.e. there's no explanation for it. At least that's my recollection from reading their book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singular_Universe_and_the_Reality_of_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singular_Universe_and_th... The other explanation seems to be the multiverse. i.e. we just got a random set of self consistent laws. Again there seems to be no explanation as to why or how the multiverse came to be, is there?
  - jordanpg 7y ago
    > not always the way they are and that they evolved spontaneously over time But how did they get any way at all? How and why do they evolve? > multiverse. i.e. we just got a random set of self consistent laws. This raises even more questions. Why are there any multiverses with any laws at all? From where did the stuff in the multiverses come from? What initiated this chain of multiverse creation, or why is it inevitable? A bootstrapping theory would explain why anything is inevitable, or why there is something rather than nothing. Otherwise it is just a low-level physics theory.
throw0101a 7y ago
> ... but we must still ask why the deeper laws exist. Don't things have to stop somewhere, otherwise there's an infinite regress ("turtles all the way down")?
- hammock 7y ago
  That's the question.
- jffhn 7y ago
  Bootstrapping and infinite regress... that reminds me of this branch of logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitary_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitary_logic with which you can prove a theorem by assuming it in the first place, using infinitary (or circular) proofs and an algorithm to transform these proofs into usual proofs.
qubex 7y ago
The fact that the “line of reasoning is circular” is kind of the point: they are invariant fixed points in the space of possible sets of laws, such that they remain unaffected by iteration upon themselves. Kind of like Y Combinator or Turing’s Theta Combinator.
F_J_H 7y ago
Reminds me of the Douglas Adams quote: “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'"
- Koshkin 7y ago
  ... and then it dries out.
- AceJohnny2 7y ago
  Anthropic Principle: "a philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it, and that there is hence a survivorship bias." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
  - schwurb 7y ago
    I concluded this early in my life, which makes me a minority amongst beliefers. I believe in God and that creatìon shows occasional traces of his genious, but I don't think they are unambigous enough to warrant the christian god as a necessary conclusion.
    - acjohnson55 7y ago
      I feel similar. Although, I don't believe in God so much as a belief in some form of intelligent design. Or I guess, the belief that existence has some kind of reason, and hopefully, my conscious mind does too.
      - schwurb 7y ago
        I feel that the christian God fits this bill especially well, when you look at him a bit more abstractly: He is able to give purpose (does care and is something absolute rather than mending to what one particular human beliefs), is interested in staying in contact with his creation (as opposed to deistic Gods), values existence so high that 1) it should be contiued eternally and 2) not in a replaced, but a renewed form. Many christians, many opinions, but I feel confident in this faith. I can recommend C.S.Lewis, who is great about putting God, heaven, hell in terms that make sense and don't reek of religious fanaticism. I would be Buddhist if I would not be christian, but I am glad I can be christian. If what I believe is true, then boy are we lucky!
roywiggins 7y ago
It rules out having a universe with particles that have the known spins and completely different forces. It could have ended up different, they could have found that the possible forces are not constrained by particle spin configurations.
xelxebar 7y ago
I agree that the article plays a little loose with terminology; however, I wouldn't go as far to say that it's a circular argument. To snitch an example from mathematics, consider formal logic and set theory. These are oft considered the epitome of rigor, enough so that they form "the foundation of modern mathematics." However, when first begining to study these fields, one encounters a sort of philosophical conundrum, "How do you even state the rules if you start from literally nothing?" You can write them on a piece of paper, but without some system of processing, all those rules end up as just ink on paper. The standard terminology for just such a system is "metalogic." Anyway, at first blush it seems like any such metalogic is inaccesible to mathematical inquiry, but we can use a trick to "lift" the metalogic and logic one layer up. For example, we can (using some metalogic) start with standard Zermelo-Frenkel set theory (ZF), and then ask ourselves, "Is this ZF powerful enough to iplement a version of ZF within itself?" In other words, if ZF is too weak to implement ZF, then clearly out metalogic must be something stronger and more complicated. Fortunately, it turns out that ZF can implement itself just fine, and in fact, there are much simpler (read weaker) logics also capable of implementing ZF. Said another way, the bare mininum needed to write a program capable of verifying ZF proofs is quite bare and minimal, indeed. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, this line of inquiry has ended up discovering pretty nifty proofs of previously intractible problems. It also has practical implications for proof verifiers and the like (see Metamath[0]). So, by analogy, I read this article as saying something similar about the metaphysics of our physics. I.e. it turns out that there are some really simple rules capable of generating the complex physics that is the Standard Model. How much can we whittle down the metaphysics? What does that say about our universe? [0]:http://us.metamath.org/mm.html http://us.metamath.org/mm.html
Iv 7y ago
I think the bigger mystery is why there are less fundamental laws than inevitable ones. That the universe principles arise from simple rules. How comes there are not millions of different quark types? Why not 5180 fundamental forces? Going smaller nature becomes simpler. It is hard to express but I have always felt this universe has a complexification ability, where at every level it seems possible for simple rules to lead to complex outcomes.
int_19h 7y ago
I think we still have too poor understanding of the what to be pondering the why. If past history is any guide, such attempts tend to mislead - e.g. Einstein's "God doesn't play dice".

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

The_rationalist 7y ago

Are there some sound theories that explain this why?

vanderZwan 7y ago

Not quite what you're arguing, but related: you might be interested in the strong anthropic principle. PBS Spacetime did a fairly accessible video about the reasoning behind it recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-6oU3jXAho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-6oU3jXAho

ilitirit 7y ago

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread it sounds as if what you're asking is related to the anthropic principle. Maybe it would be more appropriate to argue that "the set of physical laws that arise from the known fundamental constants are inevitable". But this itself is not strictly logical because changing the fundamental constants doesn't imply a change of the fundamental laws. The fundamental laws may very well work fine with different constants but we may just not be there to observe them in action because the outcomes may not result in a universe conducive to life (hence: anthropic principle). As a bad analogy, physics affects an egg falling to the surface of a planet in low gravity in the same way as an egg falling in high gravity. The outcomes may be different, but the laws are the same. And of course, in the latter case it's less likely for something to survive the fall and live to even ask these questions in the first place. There are some interesting possibilities that arise at this point. e.g. What if this Universe is only "somewhat" tuned for intelligent life? What if, on some more "appropriate" level of "tuning", more stable, fundamental particles are observable for longer periods of time yielding even more insight into the fundamental laws of the universe? Lots of interesting stuff to talk about around a camp fire...

jordanpg 7y ago

I agree with this. I've always found theories of everything to be unsatisfying in this way, because they never explain how the laws of physics got the way they are. Assuming the existence of some abstraction called spin to derive the fundamental forces is a great exercise in internal consistency, but hardly meets any definition of "bootstrapping" as I understand the term. The only theory I've ever encountered that passes this smell test to me is the mathematical universe hypothesis[0] because it's intuitive to me that math just "is" in some sense and does not require any upstream mechanisms or assumptions. As far as I'm concerned, if you have to assume the existence of anything whatsoever, it's not bootstrapping. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

discreteevent 7y ago
As to how the laws got where they are Lee Smolin and Roberto Ungar say that it's possible they were not always the way they are and that they evolved spontaneously over time. And that the spontaneity just is the way things are i.e. there's no explanation for it. At least that's my recollection from reading their book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singular_Universe_and_the_Reality_of_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singular_Universe_and_th... The other explanation seems to be the multiverse. i.e. we just got a random set of self consistent laws. Again there seems to be no explanation as to why or how the multiverse came to be, is there?
- jordanpg 7y ago
  > not always the way they are and that they evolved spontaneously over time But how did they get any way at all? How and why do they evolve? > multiverse. i.e. we just got a random set of self consistent laws. This raises even more questions. Why are there any multiverses with any laws at all? From where did the stuff in the multiverses come from? What initiated this chain of multiverse creation, or why is it inevitable? A bootstrapping theory would explain why anything is inevitable, or why there is something rather than nothing. Otherwise it is just a low-level physics theory.

throw0101a 7y ago

> ... but we must still ask why the deeper laws exist. Don't things have to stop somewhere, otherwise there's an infinite regress ("turtles all the way down")?

hammock 7y ago
That's the question.
jffhn 7y ago
Bootstrapping and infinite regress... that reminds me of this branch of logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitary_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitary_logic with which you can prove a theorem by assuming it in the first place, using infinitary (or circular) proofs and an algorithm to transform these proofs into usual proofs.

qubex 7y ago

The fact that the “line of reasoning is circular” is kind of the point: they are invariant fixed points in the space of possible sets of laws, such that they remain unaffected by iteration upon themselves. Kind of like Y Combinator or Turing’s Theta Combinator.

F_J_H 7y ago

Reminds me of the Douglas Adams quote: “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'"

Koshkin 7y ago
... and then it dries out.
AceJohnny2 7y ago
Anthropic Principle: "a philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it, and that there is hence a survivorship bias." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
- schwurb 7y ago
  I concluded this early in my life, which makes me a minority amongst beliefers. I believe in God and that creatìon shows occasional traces of his genious, but I don't think they are unambigous enough to warrant the christian god as a necessary conclusion.
  - acjohnson55 7y ago
    I feel similar. Although, I don't believe in God so much as a belief in some form of intelligent design. Or I guess, the belief that existence has some kind of reason, and hopefully, my conscious mind does too.
    - schwurb 7y ago
      I feel that the christian God fits this bill especially well, when you look at him a bit more abstractly: He is able to give purpose (does care and is something absolute rather than mending to what one particular human beliefs), is interested in staying in contact with his creation (as opposed to deistic Gods), values existence so high that 1) it should be contiued eternally and 2) not in a replaced, but a renewed form. Many christians, many opinions, but I feel confident in this faith. I can recommend C.S.Lewis, who is great about putting God, heaven, hell in terms that make sense and don't reek of religious fanaticism. I would be Buddhist if I would not be christian, but I am glad I can be christian. If what I believe is true, then boy are we lucky!

roywiggins 7y ago

It rules out having a universe with particles that have the known spins and completely different forces. It could have ended up different, they could have found that the possible forces are not constrained by particle spin configurations.

xelxebar 7y ago

I agree that the article plays a little loose with terminology; however, I wouldn't go as far to say that it's a circular argument. To snitch an example from mathematics, consider formal logic and set theory. These are oft considered the epitome of rigor, enough so that they form "the foundation of modern mathematics." However, when first begining to study these fields, one encounters a sort of philosophical conundrum, "How do you even state the rules if you start from literally nothing?" You can write them on a piece of paper, but without some system of processing, all those rules end up as just ink on paper. The standard terminology for just such a system is "metalogic." Anyway, at first blush it seems like any such metalogic is inaccesible to mathematical inquiry, but we can use a trick to "lift" the metalogic and logic one layer up. For example, we can (using some metalogic) start with standard Zermelo-Frenkel set theory (ZF), and then ask ourselves, "Is this ZF powerful enough to iplement a version of ZF within itself?" In other words, if ZF is too weak to implement ZF, then clearly out metalogic must be something stronger and more complicated. Fortunately, it turns out that ZF can implement itself just fine, and in fact, there are much simpler (read weaker) logics also capable of implementing ZF. Said another way, the bare mininum needed to write a program capable of verifying ZF proofs is quite bare and minimal, indeed. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, this line of inquiry has ended up discovering pretty nifty proofs of previously intractible problems. It also has practical implications for proof verifiers and the like (see Metamath[0]). So, by analogy, I read this article as saying something similar about the metaphysics of our physics. I.e. it turns out that there are some really simple rules capable of generating the complex physics that is the Standard Model. How much can we whittle down the metaphysics? What does that say about our universe? [0]:http://us.metamath.org/mm.html http://us.metamath.org/mm.html

Iv 7y ago

I think the bigger mystery is why there are less fundamental laws than inevitable ones. That the universe principles arise from simple rules. How comes there are not millions of different quark types? Why not 5180 fundamental forces? Going smaller nature becomes simpler. It is hard to express but I have always felt this universe has a complexification ability, where at every level it seems possible for simple rules to lead to complex outcomes.

int_19h 7y ago

I think we still have too poor understanding of the what to be pondering the why. If past history is any guide, such attempts tend to mislead - e.g. Einstein's "God doesn't play dice".