This is a v.g. exposition of why there are no laws in the sense Ben & others think – per past discussions here.
“This Davidsonian Problematic, according to Horst, is based on an outdated (Logical-) Empiricist philosophy of science in the last century, which treats scientific laws as true universal statements about the world. Horst undermines this view through Nancy Cartwright's critique and proposes "Cognitive Pluralism" as his own alternative. Following Cartwright, he points out that if scientific laws were indeed universal statements about the world, none of them would be true. For example, even the law of gravity would be false: think of the falling of a paper plane and a paper ball of the same mass in the real world. In this sense, even physics doesn't have laws or, if it does, only ceteris paribus laws. Instead of treating laws as true universal statements about the world, Horst argues, we should view laws as part of models that isolate real causal invariants --"causal powers" or "potential partial causal contributors"-- in the world. But a model adopts a particular representational system suitable for its theoretical interest and domain, idealizes away other factors, and even fundamentally distorts how things unfold actually. Thus, in this view, laws are true only in models, and models should be evaluated not as true but only as apt. These models don't provide us with a single unified picture but only piecemeal fragments of the world. And the current status of our science is a patchwork of such partial models mostly incommensurable with one another. This pluralistic nature of scientific modeling might suggest that it is in principle futile to pursue scientific unification to get an integrated view of the nature. Horst hints at such pessimism, but he does not go as far to endorse it. He simply points out that current sciences clumsily provide pluralistic patchworks.” Laws are indeed only true in partial models of the world which define only limited sets of factors in the events they explain. And the beautiful example of “the falling of a paper plane and a paper ball of the same mass in the real world” is a first for me. (Nor are there natural algorithms (i.e. of Nature) , Matt). Oh, and notice that scientific models are “patchworks” - as indeed are all algorithms, when considered as productions, rather than how they are used/executed. http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=6812&cn=394 ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
