Dear Guy, Let us get the first question out of the way. What, exactly, do you mean by orderly? As you use it here you appear to mean there is manifest order and that changes to become another manifest order. This is not what I take the question "Is nature orderly?" to address.
Is there order at all? What, exactly, is the ontological status of an ordered state? Is order merely the product of apprehension (perception)? For me, it is the case that perceived order is the product of apprehension alone; by which I mean things like ordinal and cardinal numbers have no ontological status beyond their apprehension (0 and 1 being the only numbers with an ontological status beyond apprehension). However, the above does not answer the question "Is nature orderly?" This question asks that we look beyond apprehension. Is the perceived order the product of an intrinsic order? Here I look for an ontology from primitive nature. In my case I will argue that natural laws are universal and that these address the question at hand. Nature is orderly if and only if natural laws are universal and derive as a consequence of primitive nature. The implication of there being no orderliness, by this definition, is that natural laws are not universal and there is no primitive nature from which to derive them. With respect, Steven On May 23, 2008, at 9:50 AM, Guy A Hoelzer wrote: > Greetings all, > > I, too, like the seed of this new discussion; although I recommend > slight modifications of the question. Frankly, I think it is > undeniable that there is a degree of orderliness, and a degree of > disorder, in Nature. I also think we would all agree that Nature > constantly constructs new order, even as it actively deconstructs > other instances of orderliness. The timely questions in my mind > include: > > To what degree is Nature orderly and how does this degree change > over time? > > How can we best describe the dynamical turnover of order/disorder > within Nature at large? > > Regards, > > Guy Hoelzer > _______________________________________________ fis mailing list [email protected] http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
