Inveterate and unapologetic toolbox-thinker here. I really appreciate this write-up as a reminder that there _is_ (probably ;) ) a reality and it’s not just maps all the way down. [edit much later: it can still be maps a LONG LONG way down, with reality being inaccessible to any perception of agents within that reality.]
I must admit that the advice to think of laws as descriptive statements makes no sense to me. Why use the term “law” rather than the simpler and more precise term “prediction” (or “measurement”, or maybe even “truth” (but I can’t tell if you’re making that equivalence))?
One key difference between a claim of Law and a claim of Truth: truth-claims are abandoned (or refined, but that’s really “abandoned and replaced by a slightly different truth-claim”) after a single counter-example. Law-claims, from what I’ve seen, are fuzzier and tend to wiggle rather than breaking when shown not to be universal.
Right. Also “Iron Law” sometimes seen as a strong tendency but not provably universal. Mixing them up is an error which is easy to make when “Law” is used without qualifiers.
Inveterate and unapologetic toolbox-thinker here. I really appreciate this write-up as a reminder that there _is_ (probably ;) ) a reality and it’s not just maps all the way down. [edit much later: it can still be maps a LONG LONG way down, with reality being inaccessible to any perception of agents within that reality.]
I must admit that the advice to think of laws as descriptive statements makes no sense to me. Why use the term “law” rather than the simpler and more precise term “prediction” (or “measurement”, or maybe even “truth” (but I can’t tell if you’re making that equivalence))?
One key difference between a claim of Law and a claim of Truth: truth-claims are abandoned (or refined, but that’s really “abandoned and replaced by a slightly different truth-claim”) after a single counter-example. Law-claims, from what I’ve seen, are fuzzier and tend to wiggle rather than breaking when shown not to be universal.
There’s “Law of Physics” and there’s “Human Law”, which I think might be getting confused here.
Right. Also “Iron Law” sometimes seen as a strong tendency but not provably universal. Mixing them up is an error which is easy to make when “Law” is used without qualifiers.