Out of curiosity, do you have on hand any good articles on how Humeans (metaphysically, epistemically, etc.) distinguish ‘mere patterns’ from ‘capital-p Patterns’? (Aside from anthropocentric concepts like explanatory reducibility.)
The classic neo-Humean account is David Lewis’s. It’s described in the SEP here. I also wrote a post about it here. The account does appeal to the simplicity of descriptions, which is arguably a somewhat anthropocentric concept, but I see that as a feature, not a bug. The laws are ways of efficiently organizing our understanding of the universe, not fundamental mind-independent entities (see the last section of my post). I don’t think Lewis would agree with my characterization in this regard, I should say.
The classic neo-Humean account is David Lewis’s. It’s described in the SEP here. I also wrote a post about it here. The account does appeal to the simplicity of descriptions, which is arguably a somewhat anthropocentric concept, but I see that as a feature, not a bug. The laws are ways of efficiently organizing our understanding of the universe, not fundamental mind-independent entities (see the last section of my post). I don’t think Lewis would agree with my characterization in this regard, I should say.