Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:12:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Victor Rosado <skygoya-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Laws and Patterns


To the devil's advocate:

The argument:
> 
> I see no reason to distinguish between scientific
> laws and
> patterns of events.  I say that scientific laws are
> valid in
> and out of the laboratory, they are patterns of
> events,
> although they are more complex patterns of events
> than
> Bhaskar is envisioning.

The question: 
 What is wrong
> with the
> argument I just made?
> 
I've been thinking over more and more about the above
question and the more i think the more i realize how
important it is to distinguish between the domain of
the real (laws) and the domain of the actual
(patterns).

If we did not distinguish between patterns and laws,
then Hume would be right.  Basically, our
understanding of the universe and the underlying
causal laws that run it would be the same.  

But they aren't.   What we do in experiments and what
actually happens in nature are two different things. 
To say that water will always to do this or that (boil
at 100 C), is nonsense because it doesn't, unless we
absent other things, etc.  

When we discover the specific tendency of water,
however, we get closer to real laws (that water
boils).       

Our knowledge of nature is not exactly equivalent to
the specific causal laws embedded in it. I think this
is important because it demonstrates that there IS an
ontological difference between the domain of the real
and our understanding of it derived through scientific
experiment.  Basically that there is a REALITY
independent of us knowing it.   

I think that we can learn a lot about nature and
throughout history have gotten closer and closer to
what the domain of the real is like.  But to collapse
the real and the actual or to say that what is "real"
is derived from our understanding of the universe,
impressions of the universe (Hume), language, etc.  is
a fatal error.

-Victor       



__________________________________________________
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 
a year!  http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/


     --- from list seminar-14-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---