Laws of Nature: The Best System Analysis

This video outlines the Best System Analysis of laws of nature.

0:00 - Laws of nature
4:26 - The best system analysis
18:23 - Simplicity on the cheap?
21:46 - Perfectly natural properties
28:31 - The subjectivity problem
36:20 - Tied best systems
41:15 - Why experiment?

[rebeccar]

The best channel analysis of the best system analysis.

[HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke]

If you read Armstrong’s ‘What is a law of nature?’, make sure you finish the book. I only read the first half, with powerful criticisms of different concepts of laws. I did not get a satisfying replacement model. He broke me down and did not build me back up. It’s a great book!

[Bruh-spbj]

Hey, this was the subject of my paper where I focused on the Dretskey-Tooley-Armstrong interpretation of the laws of nature, very nostalgic.

[IntegralDeLinha]

Excellent video and insights about simplicity and strength. Thank you!

[InventiveHarvest]

"Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate but to limit. Do not ask Why? Be cautious with How? Why? leads inexorably to paradox. How? traps you in a universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite." - Frank Herbert, Dune

I completely accept this paradox. The laws of nature are both of regularities and neccesetarian. Circling between these concepts for given phenomena will create a positive feedback loop and lead towards ever increasing knowledge.

Take the example of all electrons being negatively charged. While this is mostly just a definition ( if we saw a negatively charged particle, we would call it an electron ), we can look to reasons why electrons are negatively charged. The reason behind the charge would both be a law of nature, and the local phenomena that causes electrons to be negatively charged.

When Richard Fineman was asked by an interviewer how magnets work, he replied that magnets attract each other. When the interviewer reacted with "yeah but" Richard explained that there were reasons why magnets attract each other and reasons for those reasons. The further go down into reasons for reasons, the more physics training you will need.

[sseisner]

I think you will be known for your work one day!

[BumbleTheBard]

Presumably, best systems also addresses the traditional problem of justifying inductive reasoning. The results of inductive reasoning are justified if they are the best ones we can come up with in accordance with the criteria of strength, simplicity, predictive and explanatory power, etc. There is no point asking for more justification than this. Maybe this could even address the problem of justifying deduction, which you covered in a previous video. Our deductive laws and principles are the best ones we have been able to come up with in our ongoing efforts to build a system that accounts for our experience of the universe.

[dummyaccount.k]

I came from the toki pona discord, straight to this. My head spun.

[HerrEinzige]

Like and comment for the Gigachad energy of 17:15 "Others would edit this out, but I don't need to"

[lolroflmaoization]

there are a lot more stronger objections to this view of laws of nature that have not been discussed here, objections to Humeanism in general from the broadly non Humean camp rather than attacking the BSA specifically.

[dummyaccount.k]

This is like that greek mesotes teaching that the good thing always lies betwixt two bad ones and here the two things are simplicity and explanatory strength .

[italogiardina]

Self-reflection is inherently limited by our individual perspective. We're all finite beings, so our understanding of the world, especially in relation to an ideal society, is subjective at best. Any timeline we impose on social progress is arbitrary and ultimately irrelevant to our lived experience.

[hearts-on-sleeves]

Thanks for the video! love the content as always.

Would it be fair to say that a necessitarian trying to understand the world would be prioritise describing/discovering the laws of nature, and consider matters of fact as clues to achieve this, whereas a regularitist would prioritise discovering/describing matters of fact, and consider describing the laws of nature as just a way to condense such information to something useful?

In short, would it be fair to say a regularitist believes that laws of nature are pragmatic, whereas a necessitarian believes that laws of nature is fact/truth?

[Wabbelpaddel]

Why are the natural laws invariant, i.e. why do they tend to stay the way they are?

Why can the laws be reapplied to their results?

Why doesn't causality suddenly stop?

[hiker-uybi]

why cant laws of nature both be necessary and depict regularities

[drdca]

Being tracked by a starving beast
looking for its daily feast
A predator on the verge of death
Getting close to its last breath
RULES OF NATURE

(sorry)

[newtonfinn]

Some 95 percent of the universe is dark, meaning currently beyond our ability to observe, much less understand. Hume didn't know this, and thus can perhaps be excused, unlike us, for making absurd blanket statements about what can or cannot happen in a still vastly mysterious universe.

[Giantcrabz]

I don't hear any compelling counterarguments to the best system idea. We can detect galaxies 13 billion ly away, splice genes, build maglev trains, and all sorts of other amazing things while analytic philosophy is still stuck on stuff that matters to nobody outside uber specialized academic circles, like treatises on mereology citing dudes from 13th century monasteries or whatever.

It all just seems like endless navel gazing without an ethical or at least practical end in mind.

[michaelpaulfrancis]

You need to have children brother. You can not truly look outside of yourself without creating life. You are lost in yourself.