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Laws of the universe

Anonymous Thu 23 Jul 17:01:02 2020 No.11930686 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>11930804 >>11932479 >>11932625

Although we can understand and predict how the inherent laws of the universe behave, will we ever reach a point where we can understand what exactly dictates how and why these laws behave the way they do? What determines why these axiomatic laws and their seemingly arbitrary properties exist in the first place? Literally why does gravity exist, why do objects with mass attract one another for no apparent reason, and will we ever understand why it happens?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 23 Jul 2020 17:02:24 No.11930690 Report

Quoted By: >>11930711

maybe

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 23 Jul 2020 17:08:04 No.11930711 Report

Quoted By: >>11932652

>>11930690
How would we test how/why they work when these laws are what we derive all other experimentation from, and we take them for granted as being true to begin with? There isnt anything to observe, it seems like things just are a certain way for no apparent reason.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 23 Jul 2020 17:26:52 No.11930804 Report

Quoted By:

>>11930686
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 03:50:48 No.11932471 Report

Quoted By:

This is an excellent article that should illuminate for anyone really interested in this why this is such an intractable problem, and why it may remain so forever.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/are-the-constants-of-physics-constant/

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 03:55:37 No.11932479 Report

Quoted By: >>11932493

>>11930686
The laws change depending on where you live in the universe, because the universe is infinite.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 04:05:15 No.11932493 Report

Quoted By: >>11932632

>>11932479
>https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/are-the-constants-of-physics-constant/
From the article
>Paul Dirac, wondered in a Nature paper whether the constants were indeed constant if one were to look at the entire history of the cosmos
Through observation, we have determined that they are constant no matter where you look in the universe. The problem is that there is no _theoretical_ reason why this should be so. It is just so (as far as we can see). It's an unresolved (unresolvable) problem.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 05:04:10 No.11932603 Report

Quoted By:

Someone said something in the other thread that I never got to address because I went to bed. He said something along the lines of "the people saying 'we will never know' and 'you can't know nuffin' are wrong, because somehow there is still progress." I wanted to say at the time that that's a whole other huge subject that should really have its own thread. First of all, most people's ideas about what constitutes "progress" turn out to be extremely naive if held up to any scrutiny. That's probably one of the biggest reasons why "progress" is such a vast topic. You can go in a million different directions and get into a million different things. So let's narrow it down by ignoring questions about "what is progress" and such. You can talk about that for hours. What I really want to get at is that, no matter your conception of "progress", this is something that is preserved despite our inability "to know". Most fruits of human labor are evident by just looking around. Saying that some things about the world might be off limits to our understanding doesn't erase them, nor does it nullify our demonstrable ability to generate them. The question of progress here is really neither here nor there. It is really a separate question. We are just trying to say some things about what we can glean about the world, and what we (perhaps) can't. That's it. It doesn't encroach on technological progress one iota.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 05:04:43 No.11932606 Report

Quoted By:

Having dispensed with that, let us actually get into the weeds of how progress might actually relate to the topic at hand. Faced with what some might see as the futility of humanity's attempts to apprehend certain more inscrutable aspects of reality, we might be tempted to throw up our hands and say "what's the point." I would put to you that this is not reason for despair or fatalism. Science has so far helped us get over what might have once seemed as insurmountable hurdles. And science is singularly the tool in humanity's toolbox and that has allowed us to even scrape the surface of these mysteries. As such, it would behoove us to keep going down the path that has proved so fruitful over the generations. Yes, while this may seem like reason for hopelessness, the best thing we can do is elect to remain hopeful instead, and keep pushing ahead. Something as seemingly impossible on its face as the world of limits attempting to get closer to the limitless reality that might envelop it might seem out there, but we have nothing better to do except to quite literally die trying.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 05:11:46 No.11932625 Report

Quoted By:

>>11930686
>What determines why these axiomatic laws and their seemingly arbitrary properties exist in the first place?

Anonymous

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Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 05:15:06 No.11932632 Report

Quoted By:

>>11932493
>Through observation, we have determined that they are constant no matter where you look in the universe.
Only if you assume inflation, which is not consistent and has entirely fine-tuned on and off swiches to match observations. The alternate is variable light speed and variable physical constants generally.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 05:23:08 No.11932652 Report

Quoted By: >>11932680

>>11930711
In the pursuit of knowledge you might find the answer. Isaac Newton wondered why the moon didn’t crash into the Earth. Instead of giving up andconcluding it’s impossible to know, he came up with some of the most important discoveries of all time

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 05:42:57 No.11932680 Report

Quoted By: >>11933395

>>11932652
Except we are literally trying 'to know god'. That's why this one might feel a little different.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 05:45:18 No.11932685 Report

Quoted By:

SUSY was supposed to help with some of this. LHC failed to find it.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 24 Jul 2020 12:53:10 No.11933395 Report

Quoted By:

>>11932680
It’s only different because currently we don’t have an explanation. You’re substituting a lack of knowledge for God which is what people have done forever.

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