Mlodinow: We Invent the Laws of Nature

[Magnus Anderson]

Fuck off, imbecile.

[Skepdick]

Fuck off, imbecile.

You don't have to tell yourself to fuck off. Just do it!

You don't even know who the imbecille is in this dialogue, so I'l tell you. It's you.

[Skepdick]

I'm not speaking about fallibility, but that they are not permanent facets of reality. Not epistemology, but ontology.

Laws of nature are permanent by definition.

How do you know your definition is right?

Suppose you've defined impermanent laws as "permanent". That means your definition is wrong.

[Skepdick]

Funny, how I keep showing you all your errors (together with the material necessary to correct them) and yet I am "stunting your mental development".

You're not stunting MY mental development. You're stunting the mental development of other people on this forum. You're a pest.

By showing other people your error and expanding their perspective I am stunting their mental development?

So what do you want me to do then? Let everybody be as wrong as you are ?!?!?

Concepts don't allow or forbid anythig. You are anthropomorphising concents.

See? Utter and complete imbecile.

Now kindly fuck off, retard.

I saw it all along, that's why I am pointing out your error.

Showing other people that you are a fucking imbecille is helping other people's mental development, so as you can see - I am serving the greater good indeed...

That said, I can't teach other people anything about developing their kindness. When it comes to idiots - I am only as kind as the universe.

[Magnus Anderson]

Suppose you've defined impermanent laws as "permanent". That means your definition is wrong.

You don't understand what definitions are, dummy. This isn't the first time I said it. It's not even the second time.

[Skepdick]

Suppose you've defined impermanent laws as "permanent". That means your definition is wrong.

You don't understand what definitions are, dummy. This isn't the first time I said it. It's not even the second time.

I understand what definitions are much better than you do, dummy.

You think that definitions OF reality are impositions ON reality.

That your ego doesn't allow you to accept the fact that you are the imbecille in this dialogue isn't really relevant.

[Magnus Anderson]

Whatever, dummy.

[Skepdick]

Whatever, dummy.

Do you need help resuscitating that moral high horse of yours?

Or re-inflating your ego?

[Magnus Anderson]

Come again.

[Skepdick]

Come again.

What for? I don't kick a man while he's down.

[Atla]

Regularities are the surface phenomenon. They are a product of the underlying mechanism that is governed by a set of zero or more laws.

Ah and you know this for a fact? Too bad you just made up this whole story with an "underlying mechanism".

There is no alternative to "There exists an underlying mechanism that generates the state of the universe at every point in time based on what took place at an earlier point in time". It's similar to how "Bachelors are not married" has no alternative. Every "alternative" is a contradiction in terms, i.e. it's not a real alternative. But in order to see that, you'd have to understand what the term "mechanism" means -- which you very clearly don't. The fact that you don't see how such a mechanism exists does not mean that it does not. And the fact that you don't see the proof of its existence does not mean it's something made up.

The universe is either governed by laws or it is not. There is no alternative. If it is governed by laws, it means there are limits to what is possible, i.e. it means that not every conceivable universe is possible ( or rather, it means that conceivable universes are not equally possible. ) If there are no laws, it means that there are no limits to what is possible, i.e. every conceivable universe is as possible as every other. There is no third option. It's one or the other.

When we're discussing laws, mechanisms, etc, we're not discussing what is actual. We're discussing what is possible. The actual is merely one possible universe. When we're talking about laws, we're talking about the set of all possible universes ( and how possible they are relative to each other. ) The actual is merely a single aspect of the universe -- its surface. The set of all possible universes is the whole picture. And that's why regularities are a surface phenomenon. They refer to the actual.

I meant that if there's a multiverse, there's no reason to think that there's lirerally an underlying mechanism that generates stuff. That's likely just an unnecessarily made-up story which leads to major problems.
There's simply the sum of all possible universes.

[Atla]

Abstractions are concepts and concepts are mental objects, i.e. things that exist within minds. Whatever exists within a mind is mind-dependent, i.e. if all minds ceased to exist it would cease to exist as well. As such, you're claiming, without being aware of it, that laws of nature are subjective, i.e. mind-dependent. You're basically saying that, if all minds ceased to exist, laws of nature would cease to exist as well. That makes laws of nature SUBJECTIVE / MIND-DEPENDENT. You're a subjectivist with respect to laws of nature. You're merely BLIND to it. And you're blind to it because you have an above-average ability to fail to properly understand the implications of your statements.

It does not matter what these abstractions are about. A belief that a train is moving at certain speed is a belief about something that is mind-independent ( trains are mind-independent. ) But the belief itself is mind-dependent. Beliefs exist within minds. No minds, no beliefs.

You seem to speak like an idiot here. The mind-independent regularities of the natural world remain, doesn't matter if we create abstractions about them or not.

Give it up, dummy.

A simple Google search could provide you with dozens of scientific articles about the potentially changing laws of nature.

[Peter Holmes]

'We invent the laws of nature'.

No, we invented and will invent ways to describe nature. Snot hard.

[Skepdick]

'We invent the laws of nature'.

No, we invented and will invent ways to describe nature. Snot hard.

Peter "Dumb Cunt" Holmes keeps saying "no" even when he means "yes".

We invented ways to describe nature.
One of the ways we invented is describing nature in terms of laws. We call those descriptions "the laws of nature". Which are obviously invented. As all descriptions are.

And then comes the hard part: inventing ways to describe our descriptions as "right" or "wrong"; "correct" or "incorrect"; "accurate" or "inaccurate".

[Atla]

Yes, and? How does that contradict what I'm saying?

You removed the "moral" part from morality and mean something much broader by it. You still use the word but are talking about something else.

It is ALWAYS about the best course of action

No it's not. For example we can say that something is immoral, without working out what the best course of action could be.

and it is ENTIRELY about laws.

No it's not. Would you be amoral without formally established laws? Many people wouldn't be.

It is miles away from your misunderstanding of what morality is, that's for sure.

You are knowingly misusing the word, I wonder if we should call that sophistry.