I’m unsure of how to interpret the third question. We know that our current theories of physics aren’t complete, so at least for “the laws of physics as we currently understand those laws” the answer would be “incorrect”; you cannot exhaustively describe the evolution of physical stuff using the laws that we currently know. But I guess that’s not actually what you’re asking? And you probably mean to talk about something like “an idealized version of the laws of physics that’s waiting to be eventually discovered”?
But then the answer seems to hinge on whether or not we define the ideal version of the laws of physics as something that exhaustively describes everything? So I’m still not quite sure what the actual intent behind this question is.
Right, good point. The question is whether you think the future version is some (in most contexts) tiny modification, like Newton → Einstein, or something that adds new laws to account for what consciousness is doing. E.g., interactionism is (usually) considered to work outside the current laws, so you would need something very different to explain the role of consciousness.
Changed it to
The laws of physics (or a future refinement of them) are causally closed. (I.e., they exhaustively describe how physical stuff evolves.)
I just took this and answered “unsure” since this version still confuses me. If “conciousness” is doing something that’s not currently understood, why wouldn’t it be included in future/better laws of physics?
Think about it as how much changes and under what conditions. Special Relativity only becomes relevant when you move things with close to the speed of light. But if Interactionism is true, the laws of physics are violated every time a human decides to something. So it happens under perfectly normal circumstances, and the effects ought to be sizeable. It might be included in future laws, but they would contradict the old laws much more than Relativity contradicts Newtonian mechanics.
I mean, it’s not a formal distinction, but I still think it’s a useful one.
I’m unsure of how to interpret the third question. We know that our current theories of physics aren’t complete, so at least for “the laws of physics as we currently understand those laws” the answer would be “incorrect”; you cannot exhaustively describe the evolution of physical stuff using the laws that we currently know. But I guess that’s not actually what you’re asking? And you probably mean to talk about something like “an idealized version of the laws of physics that’s waiting to be eventually discovered”?
But then the answer seems to hinge on whether or not we define the ideal version of the laws of physics as something that exhaustively describes everything? So I’m still not quite sure what the actual intent behind this question is.
Right, good point. The question is whether you think the future version is some (in most contexts) tiny modification, like Newton → Einstein, or something that adds new laws to account for what consciousness is doing. E.g., interactionism is (usually) considered to work outside the current laws, so you would need something very different to explain the role of consciousness.
Changed it to
I just took this and answered “unsure” since this version still confuses me. If “conciousness” is doing something that’s not currently understood, why wouldn’t it be included in future/better laws of physics?
Think about it as how much changes and under what conditions. Special Relativity only becomes relevant when you move things with close to the speed of light. But if Interactionism is true, the laws of physics are violated every time a human decides to something. So it happens under perfectly normal circumstances, and the effects ought to be sizeable. It might be included in future laws, but they would contradict the old laws much more than Relativity contradicts Newtonian mechanics.
I mean, it’s not a formal distinction, but I still think it’s a useful one.