Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
Still, there is a sense in which science subscribes to a certain metaphysical outlook, and that in believing that the world makes sense at all. It didn’t really have to. The laws of physics could have been completely random and arbitrary; and perhaps in some alternate universe, they are. The universality of the laws of nature in this universe, so far as we know its nature and those laws, is a quite remarkable and under-appreciated thing in itself.
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But the laws of physics are arbitrary, aren't they? Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that there will always be a point at which we have to stop and say "This is how things are, to the best of our knowledge. We don't know why, but we know it is so." I don't think there is any reason that we know of for the speed of light to be... whatever it is
It could well be random and arbitrary. However, it doesn't change, in our universe. Is this what you mean?
It's hard for us to imagine that the universe could be built on a different set of arbitrary laws. We are born from a long succession of life forms that were born within this set of laws, and evolved according to it. If the dice had rolled differently at the start, we might not be here, or maybe a completely different species would be here asking the same question we are asking, or maybe... hard to say. But we are here because we have adapted to this universe we live in, to this specific set of arbitrary laws. Not because the laws were specifically meant to produce us, or have a special meaning that another set of arbitrary laws would not have.
I do hope the above makes some kind of sense... I should probably get back to work now
