Well obviously, once you accept that everything else follows. What I’m asking is why you think that, give that it looks very lawful: objects fall down, energy is conserved, if a prediction is true on Monday it stays true on Tuesday, every exception to known rules turns out to obey deeper rules with practical consequences we can exploit. Why can’t we just say “The thing has looked absolutely lawful for millenia, case closed”?
This would be a good time to define what you mean by a physical law. Likely it is not the same as what Abd means. I am guessing that you assign some meaning to this term other than “it’s a useful mathematical model for humans to explain and predict some of the stuff they see sometimes”. I’m guessing further that Abd concludes from your implied (and possibly misunderstood) definition that if physical laws are guiding “reality” than they are not reducible to quarks and leptons themselves, which does call the whole idea of reductionism in question.
I’d suggest clarifying this concept first before arguing about it.
This would be a good time to define what you mean by a physical law. Likely it is not the same as what Abd means. I am guessing that you assign some meaning to this term other than “it’s a useful mathematical model for humans to explain and predict some of the stuff they see sometimes”. I’m guessing further that Abd concludes from your implied (and possibly misunderstood) definition that if physical laws are guiding “reality” than they are not reducible to quarks and leptons themselves, which does call the whole idea of reductionism in question.
I’d suggest clarifying this concept first before arguing about it.
Thanks, shminux. Yes, you understood me. I do get the sense, though, that MixedNuts is getting it. We’ll see.