64. The Epistemological Status Of The ‘Laws’ Of Physics

The epistemological status of the ‘laws’ of physics can be usefully examined in terms of the interpersonal system of modality, in which modalisation is distinguished from modulation. Modalisation covers probability and usuality, whereas modulation covers obligation and inclination. Congruently, the ‘laws’ of physics are propositions — held with very high values of certainty — that describe phenomena in terms of very high values of modalisation: probabilities/usualities. If these probability/usuality descriptions are deemed to be laws in the sense that the universe obeys them, then such a construal is (interpersonally) metaphorical — and needs to be unpacked to avoid misunderstanding — since modalisation is reinterpreted (misinterpreted) as modulation: obligation.[1] A description of phenomena is re-presented as a prescription for phenomena; statements that describe are re-presented as commands that are obeyed.[2]

Mistaking this metaphor for a congruent rendering can lead to ideationally inconsistent claims about the epistemological status of the ‘laws’ of physics, two of which can be identified here. As already discussed, one stance is to equate (mathematically ‘=’) the ‘laws’ of physics with the categorisable phenomena being described. The model and the modelled are one and the same, with one copy “out there in the observable world” and another copy “in the heads of physicists”. This leads to such confusions as being amazed that humans can understand the universe[3] — whereas understanding, modelling in the pursuit of consistency, is a process that humans, as animals with neurological recognition systems, undergo. 

The other ideationally inconsistent stance proceeds from the view that ‘the physical laws govern the universe’. The view here is that the (abstract) physical laws, as governors, transcend the (material) universe they govern.[4] This can result in the physical laws being located in an idealised and unobservable — and so: unscientific — Platonic realm, and, since the physical laws are both outside the universe and in control of it, it can also entail a sort of deification of the laws, since they both occupy the position, and perform the functions, ancestrally ascribed to gods.[5]

Footnotes:

[1] Note that (interpersonal) obligatory modulation (x must y) corresponds to (experientially) a passive causative process (x is required to y). See Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 523).

[2] This metaphor also pervades mathematics, the major tool for physics, where ‘consistently describable by numbers’ is interpreted as ‘governed by numbers’. For example, in his The Ascent Of Man, Bronowski says:

Pythagoras proved that the world of sound is governed by exact numbers, and he went on to prove that the same thing is true of the world of vision. 

[3] This applies to mathematics as much as physics. For example, Ruelle (1993: 161): 

We do not understand why the world of mathematical truth is accessible to us.

[4] Similarly, before General Relativity, it was also thought that time and space transcend the universe, in the sense that the universe is “in” space and time, rather than space-time being the dimensions of the universe.

[5] Einstein’s ‘God (the laws of physics) does not play dice’ criticism of quantum mechanics.

ChatGPT revised:

The Reification of Physical Laws

The epistemological status of the so-called laws of physics can be usefully clarified in terms of the interpersonal system of modality, in which modalisation (probability, usuality) is distinguished from modulation (obligation, inclination). Congruently, the laws of physics are best understood as propositions — descriptions held with high interpersonal certainty — in which the experiential content is construed with very high degrees of modalisation: high probabilities or high usualities.

However, when such descriptions are taken as laws in the sense that the universe obeys them, the construal becomes metaphorical — specifically, interpersonally metaphorical — and this metaphor needs to be unpacked to avoid epistemological confusion. In this reinterpretation, modalisation is misread as modulation, i.e., as obligation.[1] A description of what usually or probably happens is re-presented as a command that must be followed.[2] The clause type has not changed — it remains a proposition — but its interpersonal meaning has: the indicative statement has been metaphorised as if it were an imperative.

Mistaking this metaphor for a congruent rendering leads to ideational inconsistencies about the epistemological status of the laws of physics. Two such inconsistencies are especially prominent.

The first equates the laws of physics with the phenomena they describe. Here, the model and the modelled are treated as one and the same — with one copy “out there” in the observable world and another copy “in the heads of physicists.” This leads to an apparently profound, but ultimately misplaced, sense of wonder: that humans are somehow able to understand the universe.[3] But understanding is not a miracle. It is a function of recognition — the brain’s capacity to build consistent models of experience.

The second inconsistent stance takes the metaphor at face value: that the physical laws govern the universe. This assigns to the laws a governing role that transcends the phenomena they describe. Abstract relations, which are part of the modelling system, are projected into a transcendent realm beyond the material universe — effectively a Platonic heaven of pure form.[4] Since these laws are imagined as both outside the universe and in control of it, they inherit the role of deity — occupying the same explanatory niche that gods once filled.[5]

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Notes

1. Obligatory modulation (e.g. x must y) is congruent with the experiential clause type of passive causation (e.g. x is required to y). See Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 523).

2. This metaphor also pervades mathematics, physics’s primary modelling tool. Descriptions such as “consistently describable by numbers” are reinterpreted as “governed by numbers.” For example, Bronowski writes:

Pythagoras proved that the world of sound is governed by exact numbers, and he went on to prove that the same thing is true of the world of vision.

3. This confusion extends to mathematics. As Ruelle (1993: 161) puts it:

We do not understand why the world of mathematical truth is accessible to us.

4. Before General Relativity, time and space were similarly construed as transcendent — with the universe seen as being “in” space and time, rather than space-time being the dimensions of the universe itself.

5. For example, Einstein’s famous metaphor: God (the laws of physics) does not play dice — a personification of the laws as a rational agent rejecting randomness.