laws of nature and necessity: a thought experiment on necessity, laws of nature, Aquinas's Third Way and more
Materialists deny the existence of an immaterial necessary being while affirming that matter itself operates as it does necessarily. They posit the laws of nature as the source of this necessity.
Aquinas argues for a self-necessary being in an interesting manner: starting with contingent beings, inferring that there must be at least one necessary being, distinguishing derived from underived necessity, and finally inferring the existence of a self-necessary being, i.e., one with underived necessity. Also worth noting is the fact that part of this argument is said to commit the fallacy of composition.
What I'd like to do here is explore (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say "invent") an analogy between the two ways of thinking. My starting point is the suggestion, made by Sean Carroll and other scientists, that we are in a multiverse.
Here goes...
Suppose there is a multiplicity of universes, each with its own laws of nature, and that these universes arise through fluctuations in the quantum field.
That would mean that while each set of laws of nature seems to be necessary to those within its respective universe, it would not really be so. Those laws could change. But nevertheless, the way in which those laws change, and the way in which distinctive laws arise would itself be determined by laws of a higher order. We might call those laws of the multiverse. Of course, laws of the multiverse could change as well, but the way in which those laws change would itself be lawful, but in a manner that stands in preeminence over other multiversal laws. We might call these preeminent laws meta-laws of the multiverse. But there may be an orderly relationship among those preeminent laws, and that relationship itself may be regarded as the primordial, supereminent law of the universe.
If all of the above is not pure hogwash, well, then a few interesting points could be made regarding more parochial debates about laws of nature.
First of all, the necessity we ascribe to those laws must be qualified: these laws are only necessary in a parochial sense (quoad nos, we might say), for a law that holds necessarily in our universe might not hold at all in another (caveat: this qualification of their necessity does not bear upon the question of free will).
Secondly, that parochial necessity is derived from the relation of that local law to the supereminent law(s) of the universe.
Thirdly, all of the above is loosely analogous to some of the reasoning employed by Aquinas in his third way. For he infers the existence of a Being whose necessity is underived after he has argued that there must at least be necessary beings with underived necessity. There is a kind of hierarchy sketched in the third way, as there is here with the talk of many not-quite-as-necessary-as-you-probably-thought laws of nature and the one law that is.
Fourthly, I think it right to criticize the overblown philosophical significance sometimes attributed to laws of nature. The term "laws of nature" is a kind of metaphor for the pattern of operation that we discover in things in virtue of their dispositions. In forgetting about how their concept of law begins with a metaphor, one can end up talking of laws almost as if they were more like lawmakers rather than disposition-governed patterns of action. It is easy for one who is thus forgetful to commit the fallacy of misplaced concreteness: laws of nature might be said by them to exist before matter itself and tell matter how to behave.
Fifthly, we might rewind the above argument, keeping in mind that laws describe dispositions of individuals to act, and from there go on to try to construct a line of reasoning about the necessity and contingency that has to do with things acting (or not) according to their dispositions. Starting with a local phenomenon, we might find a way of reasoning that ascends to the cosmic level in a manner paralleling what I did above with the laws of nature. That sort of argument would look like Aquinas's third way, but it would not be about a necessary being but about a necessary disposition had by a being. Methinks this first being would be analogous to the medieval notion of a primum mobile rather than to ens primum.
Aquinas argues for a self-necessary being in an interesting manner: starting with contingent beings, inferring that there must be at least one necessary being, distinguishing derived from underived necessity, and finally inferring the existence of a self-necessary being, i.e., one with underived necessity. Also worth noting is the fact that part of this argument is said to commit the fallacy of composition.
What I'd like to do here is explore (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say "invent") an analogy between the two ways of thinking. My starting point is the suggestion, made by Sean Carroll and other scientists, that we are in a multiverse.
Here goes...
Suppose there is a multiplicity of universes, each with its own laws of nature, and that these universes arise through fluctuations in the quantum field.
That would mean that while each set of laws of nature seems to be necessary to those within its respective universe, it would not really be so. Those laws could change. But nevertheless, the way in which those laws change, and the way in which distinctive laws arise would itself be determined by laws of a higher order. We might call those laws of the multiverse. Of course, laws of the multiverse could change as well, but the way in which those laws change would itself be lawful, but in a manner that stands in preeminence over other multiversal laws. We might call these preeminent laws meta-laws of the multiverse. But there may be an orderly relationship among those preeminent laws, and that relationship itself may be regarded as the primordial, supereminent law of the universe.
If all of the above is not pure hogwash, well, then a few interesting points could be made regarding more parochial debates about laws of nature.
First of all, the necessity we ascribe to those laws must be qualified: these laws are only necessary in a parochial sense (quoad nos, we might say), for a law that holds necessarily in our universe might not hold at all in another (caveat: this qualification of their necessity does not bear upon the question of free will).
Secondly, that parochial necessity is derived from the relation of that local law to the supereminent law(s) of the universe.
Thirdly, all of the above is loosely analogous to some of the reasoning employed by Aquinas in his third way. For he infers the existence of a Being whose necessity is underived after he has argued that there must at least be necessary beings with underived necessity. There is a kind of hierarchy sketched in the third way, as there is here with the talk of many not-quite-as-necessary-as-you-probably-thought laws of nature and the one law that is.
Fourthly, I think it right to criticize the overblown philosophical significance sometimes attributed to laws of nature. The term "laws of nature" is a kind of metaphor for the pattern of operation that we discover in things in virtue of their dispositions. In forgetting about how their concept of law begins with a metaphor, one can end up talking of laws almost as if they were more like lawmakers rather than disposition-governed patterns of action. It is easy for one who is thus forgetful to commit the fallacy of misplaced concreteness: laws of nature might be said by them to exist before matter itself and tell matter how to behave.
Fifthly, we might rewind the above argument, keeping in mind that laws describe dispositions of individuals to act, and from there go on to try to construct a line of reasoning about the necessity and contingency that has to do with things acting (or not) according to their dispositions. Starting with a local phenomenon, we might find a way of reasoning that ascends to the cosmic level in a manner paralleling what I did above with the laws of nature. That sort of argument would look like Aquinas's third way, but it would not be about a necessary being but about a necessary disposition had by a being. Methinks this first being would be analogous to the medieval notion of a primum mobile rather than to ens primum.
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