Origin of laws & Prof. Stenger

[1over137]

Hi.

Following is what I recently wrote to one friend. It may be of interest for you too.

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vste ... thing.html

"The laws of physics are not, as usually assumed, restrictions on the behavior of matter--handed down from above or somehow built into the logical structure of the Universe. Rather, they are restrictions on the way that physicists may formulate their theories."

"A scenario for the natural creation of the universe based on these well-established models is presented, along with an explanation of why there is something rather than nothing."

"Victor J. Stenger is adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder and emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Before retiring to Colorado in 2000 he spent 40 years doing reseach on elementary particle physics and astrophysics. He is author of Has Science Found God?, Timeless Reality, The Unconscious Quantum, Physics and Psychics, Not by Design, and the New York Times 2007 bestseller God: The Failed Hypothesis--How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist."

"V.J. Stenger . . . provides a scientific answer to the question, 'where do the laws of physics come from?' Remarkably, his elegant and mathematically detailed derivation of the laws is driven by the requirment that the models physicists develop to describe objective reality cannot depend on the standpoint of the observer."

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vste ... SciRev.pdf

- this is one page article and read it whole as I would be copying almost all of it.

Now my points:

* Stenger speaks about symmetries of abstract mathematical spaces that are responsible for the laws of quantum theory. My question to him would be why some symmetries of abstract mathematical spaces are responsible for the laws in nature and why others are not? Or others would be too?

* His nothing is not really a nothing. There are the laws of nothing together with his nothing and this is indeed not Nothing. Where are the laws of his nothing from? I see further in the article that his nothing is called there a void. But the question remains: where are the laws of a void from?

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vste ... g/Laws.pdf

- this is 26 pages long paper containing lot of equations you will not understand

Now my points:

* I would summarize the paper this way. Stenger lists all invariance principles in physics and suggest that they all belong under the point-of-view invariance (POVI). (The name POVI is his invention.) Furthermore, he uses POVI to derive quantum mechanics. Also he views superposition principle not as a postulate of quantum mechanics but as a requirement of POVI.

My view on Stenger: POVI seems to be an interesting idea. However, the two points I mentioned previously on the review article in New Scientist are of great importance and seem to be not addressed by Stenger.

[KBCid]

Now my points:
* His nothing is not really a nothing. There are the laws of nothing together with his nothing and this is indeed not Nothing. Where are the laws of his nothing from? I see further in the article that his nothing is called there a void. But the question remains: where are the laws of a void from?

In order for any group of intellects to interact on a subject requires that all of them have the same understanding of the subject. If nothing means the absence of anything then this would be the typical understanding of the majority of people. However, if nothing has structure then it is not nothing. Science can only be applied when there is a testable something, without this basic minimum then science cannot proceed. So, the concept of nothing is beyond the scientific method.
What hampers understanding of what nothing is in reality is the fact that no one has ever experienced nothing. Even a complete vacuum absent of all matter is something... we can call it space since it can be defined rationaly in a dimensional manner. So when he speaks about a void we need to know what is considered a void? is it the absence of everything except dimensional space? or is it dimensional space with things we have not yet been able to observe. Everything in our understanding relies on our ability to make observation and as technology has advanced we are able to observe more things that were previously beyond our senses. The question becomes where is the end of our ability to observe? and if that were definable then is it logical that there may be things in existence beyond that limit. In the end we can never state with any empirical foundation what nothing is since it is logically probable that there is always something beyond our ability to observe.

[1over137]

Well, maybe you can find an answer on what he means by a void here: http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/tag/victor-stenger/ it's a debate between him and Wiliam Lane Craig.