PERENNIAL QUESTIONS
Added July 9, 1999
You frequently have said that laws are constructs and do not in fact exist in the universe.
In what sense, then, does the phrase, the 'laws of the universe,' make sense?
The fundamental question is "Do the so-called laws of the universe have an autonomous ontological status?"
What is meant when we use the word "laws" or, for that matter, the phrase "the laws of the universe"?
Much depends on WHO uses them.
The sources of usage include 
science, 
religion, 
theism, 
different
cultures,
societies, 
governments.
Consider a few uses of the term 'law': law of nature, law of Christ, law of the sea,
law of the Bible, law of the land, mathematical law, laws of the universe
and over a hundred more as shown in an all inclusive dictionary.
As a result of such a
wide-spread use of the term, there is much contention as to what are and are not "laws of the universe."
The question arises then, "Did man discover or conceive the 'laws of the universe'?"
If he discovered them, are there MORAL, SOCIAL, and CULTURAL "laws of the universe"?
Are there different laws of the universe governing the multiple forms of behavior of living entities?
I'm not trying to be facetious.
Do lower life forms with lower levels of intelligence, follow the "laws of the universe, even if not intentionally"?
Do lower animals, which love and protect their young, follow the moral "laws of the universe"?
Certainly all garden worms behave essentially the same way, therefore, there must be a "law" of garden-worm behavior.
If the laws are autonomous, then they are causal.
There is no law of chance or of necessity.
There is only chance interaction and necessary interaction; i.e.; inanimate matter cannot "behave" other than it does given the existing conditions of the universe.
Generally, when the phrase "laws of the universe" is used, it refers to MATHEMATICAL: logical and deductive; and/or PHYSICAL: logical and/or inductive, terms and systems.
What of social or cultural laws of behavior, different from one culture to another, are they laws of the universe?
If there are other intelligent beings in the universe (Are we alone?) with radically different concepts of morality, behavior, scientific technology far more advanced than ours, are there "laws," that we do not yet know of, underlying them?
If laws are deduced, then they must be based on certain premises founded upon both predictable, and very often fallible, experiences which we call "perceptions" and "conceptions" of a presumed external world.
However, theists speak of God's Moral laws (which, in fact, are the laws of behavior they themselves conceived and promulgated).
There is little doubt that moral laws were developed by observing human behavior and interrelationships and conceiving "good" behavior from preferred or desirable results of those
interrelationships.
This certainly is borne out by the history of what was, and now, on the contrary, is considered good (i.e., acceptable) behavior--not to mention the diversity of opinions on what is good behavior in different cultures, societies, and religions.
If God does exist and if God created the laws of the universe, then the laws do not have an autonomous ontology--unless of course God is equated with the universe as He sometimes is.
But, since theistic language is not verifiable, there is no need to consider the ontology of "His" laws.
Ignoring theism, and the diversity of social and cultural moral laws then, did any laws exist before intelligence emerged in the universe?
Yet, there remains the question whether laws, moral or physical, exist in the absence of a god and have an autonomous ontology.
That is, were the laws ontologically embedded in the pinpoint of substance we've come to know as the source of the Big Bang?
Did
those laws evolve, ontologically, as new kinds of matter and interactions evolved?
Since these laws are expressed in mathematical, geometrical scientific, ethical,
(whatever) terms and concepts, we are obliged to raise the question about their ontological status particularly because so many people, including philosophers, insist that such laws, at least physical and mathematical laws, EXIST.
Are the laws of the universe proscriptive, i.e., punitive? prescriptive, i.e., commanded,?
descriptive, i.e., perceptually representative? causal, i.e., creative?
The position of this presentation is that there is no autonomous ontological status of the "laws of the universe," moral, mathematical, physical, etc.
Though such laws may have linguistic
"substantiveness," they do not have spatio-temporal substantiveness.
Fundamentally, this raises the philosophical problem of the nature and imputed existence of numbers and concepts because our expressions of these laws are in terms of perception,
conception, quantity, quality, and interaction.
Such laws "exist" as functions of intelligent minds which themselves, being not physical, "exist" as functions of physical brains.
Such laws are but the creations of intelligence.
In the absence of such intelligence such laws do not exist linguistically or spatio-temporally including such concepts as alternate ( 10, 12) dimensions.
Confusing mathematical laws for deriving ten, twelve, whatever dimensions at best can mean only that such terms as
'length, width, depth, and time,' as we know them, lose their meaning on the subatomic, quark, strings, plasma levels of reality and in no way abrogate the law that two objects cannot occupy the same space (in different dimensions) at the same time.
Before the appearance of intelligence in the universe, according to the available evidence and logic, nothing existed except "things" and their reactions toward each other, not even laws.
Those existents and their interactions were later observed by intelligent beings who first evolved language in order to communicate about their perceptions and conceptions of those presumed existents and their interactions.
Those existents "behaved" in the sense of "I am what I am and do what I do," not by some existent metaphysical law but by accident, chaos (a particular kind of pattern "order in itself").
In a universe of "discreet substances," "things," if you will, in such complex interactions, patterns of interactions had to appear.
Out of that chaos, a few intelligent beings recorded observed patterns of interactions, i.e., "things."
"Things" denotes assigned spatio-temporal substantiveness; though in colloquial usage,
it is used to mean even non-spatio-temporal concepts.
This, in turn, denotes matter which in Einsteinian terms is interchangeable with energy, i.e., matter-energy.
All matter-energy repels or attracts other matter-energy.
Apparently, these permeative properties of interactive matter give rise to our conception of "the laws of the universe."
But, "things" are not laws!
Nor are their interactions.
The things and their interactions are "JUST THERE."
Things are complexes of interactions interacting with other complexes of interactions.
Obviously if there were no things, there would be no interaction.
According to available evidence there are not definite boundaries to things.
We conceive
boundaries because we are unable to perceive the connectedness of "a thing with its environment."
We abstract "things" from their environment and assign them (i.e., the abstractions)
names, symbols, numbers, etc.
It is these ideas we form into "laws."
Is it an accurate exercise of language to speak of laws, i.e., mathematics and geometry EXISTING without committing the fallacy of equivocation?
Obviously "exist" here does not have the same meaning as it does in the sentence, "This chair exists."
For example, do numbers "exist"?
Certainly not in the sense that the chairs we sit in exist.
We perceive chairs.
We do not perceive numbers--or laws for that matter.
Exactly what is it that the number "1" names.
Numbers, too, are only relative TERMS, i.e., NAMES for relationships which themselves do not occupy space in the absence of objects in relation.
If we say it names a singular unit, we are but being tautological.
All units are but complexes of other units, the physical boundaries of which only appear to be definitive.
Is there existing a unit that is not a complex of units--an ultimate (indivisible) particle, an absolute "whole"?
"Wholes" are only complexes of other "wholes."
Wholes and parts are only relative TERMS.
Numbers are only tools used to help us manipulate and "make sense" of the profusion and confusion of our perceptions.
The number, "one," is but a term, a concept, a name we apply to a perception.
Any number can be applied to any "thing."
Our laws are our INTERPRETATIONS of our perceptions of aspects of the universe.
If I may appeal to mathematical EXPERT-authorities, even Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and G. H. Hardy insist that the laws of mathematics do not describe the universe.
That they do not is a fact supportable by evidence.
Let us not forget the evolution of the meanings of mathematical symbols and concepts in the course of history.
Those "laws" are changed and/or are refined according to the availability of new evidence, i.e., supportable perceptions.
Those processes we call "things" are GIVEN spatio-temporal descriptions geometrically.
Motion, (interaction), can be described only in terms of a thing's changing spatial positions from one point-instant to another.
This is true of internal motions as well.
It is perhaps this concept that led
Samuel Alexander to claim that MOTION is the ultimate "substance," a metaphysical claim beyond verification.
The wave frequencies of
electro-magnetic impulses would not "exist" in the absence of something, i.e., the "presence" of nothingness.
According to the available evidence, there is no pure energy in the absence of some spatio-temporal something.
As has been explained, there can be an infinite number of mathematical, or geometrical descriptions of the universe.
Observe, plane geometry, spherical geometry, Newtonian science, Einsteinian Relativity, and others--all logical systems.
Why do our various logical systems work so well?
They work well because each system relies on and maintains a consistency of meaning of such basic terms as
'axioms,' 'plus,'
'minus,' 'equal,'
'square root,' 'law of
contradiction,' in general the primitives and laws of logic, and does not impose itself upon other systems.
But not every logical conclusion from a valid argument can be verified.
The premises, first, must be verifiable.
If such non-substantive concepts as laws, numbers, relations, etc., exist, I would be very interested in locating their positions in space.
It must be recognized, however, that the "laws of the universe" are excellent and efficient ideas,
in John Dewey's words, instruments, in explaining behavior, dealing with perceptions, and predicting future perceptions of events in the universe.
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