Q&A: Maybe Our Specific Laws Are a Necessity of Reality?
Maybe Our Specific Laws Are a Necessity of Reality?
Question
In the context of the argument from the specialness of the specific laws, you argue that either the laws of nature were random or they were designed; since they are special (they allow low entropy), they were designed.
But what about the possibility that the laws of nature have to be these laws? For example, the value of pi has to be the value of pi; you can’t imagine a system of laws in which pi has a different value. Maybe as science advances and eventually we arrive at some single equation or one constant that describes all the laws of nature, we’ll understand that no other constant can even be conceived of, something like 1=1 or something like that. Just as pi couldn’t be otherwise, maybe the rest of the laws of nature are also subject to some kind of logical reality, and they weren’t random and weren’t designed, just as logic wasn’t designed or random.
Answer
First, you are mixing mathematics with physics. Second, even the value of pi is not necessary. Only in Euclidean space. The decision whether the world will be Euclidean or not is a decision like any other. The possibility that all the laws of nature are necessary in and of themselves (a Pythagorean approach) means that there is no physics in the world. Everything is mathematics and logic. Therefore there is also no need for observations in order to understand the world. Nobody really believes that today.