Absolute Natural Laws

[The Lonely Rationalist]

I'm sure the question will sound stupid, but here I go:

How can we know for certain that natural laws are absolute? How can I be sure that if I drop my pen, it won't fall up instead of down? How can we be sure that a law will act the same way every time?

Can the concept of absolute natural laws be proved logically, or is it an axiom of existence that one must accept?

[Plasmatic]

I'm sure the question will sound stupid, but here I go:

How can we know for certain that natural laws are absolute? How can I be sure that if I drop my pen, it won't fall up instead of down? How can we be sure that a law will act the same way every time?

Can the concept of absolute natural laws be proved logically, or is it an axiom of existence that one must accept?

We can be sure that what ever we observe is a result of the law of identity. And that if we are observing ,we are conscious, and that for us to be conscious and observing anything means that we and those things exist.

Edited April 8, 2009 by Plasmatic

[TuringAI]

We can be sure that what ever we observe is a result of the law of identity. And that if we are observing ,we are conscious, and that for us to be conscious and observing anything means that we and those things exist.

So long as 'identity' is defined in relation to existence, IE recognizing that something's identity IS its existence, yes.

And you've only mentioned the starting point for knowledge. I think what the OP was getting at was "How are we sure that what we predict will happen is exactly the case?" to which I respond, "We use induction. We define our terms. There is no 'falling up' because falling is gravitational. Gravity won't change its nature, lest it cease to be a fundamental force. At a point in time after repeated observations we can draw such conclusions, and hence label the force absolute. But it is absolute within the context of our experience as a whole. Speaking about 'what if' scenarios, in defiance of observation and appeal to the senses, is absurd, UNTIL there IS proof, in the sensory experience sense of the term." and let this case be pretty much shut.

[DavidOdden]

How can we know for certain that natural laws are absolute? How can I be sure that if I drop my pen, it won't fall up instead of down?

Since all natural laws contain a context, I don't know what you mean in saying that they are "absolute", but I would suppose you mean "absolute within that context". Natural laws are the recognition of a fact of reality, so if an equation is a natural law (not simply an error), it does always apply because that is the identity of that aspect of reality.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

How can we know for certain that natural laws are absolute? How can I be sure that if I drop my pen, it won't fall up instead of down? How can we be sure that a law will act the same way every time?

I think your mistake is in thinking that there is something out there in reality that you are referring to as a "natural law" that makes things do what they do. That is, you are saying that it is the law of gravity that makes the pen drop, as if a natural law is some sort of entity or existent out there that makes the world work the way it does. This is intrinsicism. There are no natural laws that are out there, but rather it is man's mind grasping what happens in reality codified into concepts.

Entities are what they are and act the way they do because they are what they are -- i.e. the law of identity. There is not a natural law out there that makes them be what they are and acts on them making them do what they do. Entities are and they do what they do because they exist.

To put it another way, there is no law of evolution that acts on living entities making them transform over time; those living entities exist and as they reproduce they change over time due to changes in their DNA brought about by the act of reproduction. There is no law of evolution guiding those changes.

All natural laws are conceptualizations of how the world works, they are not some sort of global "forces" acting on entities making them do what they do. In other words, natural laws do not exist out there, they are conceptualizations of observations.

[Grames]

How can we know for certain that natural laws are absolute? How can I be sure that if I drop my pen, it won't fall up instead of down? How can we be sure that a law will act the same way every time?

Can the concept of absolute natural laws be proved logically, or is it an axiom of existence that one must accept?

It could fall up, if there was a reason for it to act that way. Birds and airplanes don't refute the law of gravity, they have a means of lift which is greater in magnitude than their weight. In the absence of any reason to fall up, it won't.

You used the phrase "a law will act", which reifies laws into things. Only things are things, and laws are about the actions that things do.

The issue here is accepting and expecting the arbitrary to happen. Metaphysically the arbitrary should be rejected because of the Law of Identity, the principle that contradictions cannot exist in nature. A law will apply the same way every time so long as the entity acting is the same thing. Epistemologically, accepting the arbitrary means accepting as true and treating as knowledge propositions which are neither observed nor deduced nor induced. The arbitrary should be rejected because there is no reason to accept it.

Another issue is the word absolute. This use in regard to knowledge means in effect, "since I know this to be true I can stop thinking about it and take it for granted in all future circumstances." But this is wrong because it claims a kind of omniscience in asserting that there can never be a context where something known no longer applies or is offset by some other factor. Omniscience, being a kind of infinite and indefinite knowledge, contradicts the Law of Identity. The application of the Law of Identity to knowledge itself means that its validity is limited to a certain context, the original context of observation and reason that created it.

Limited knowledge applies conceptually. Once you know something about pens, you know something about all pens not just the specific pens you have observed. But you only know with certainty when they share the same context.