defying the laws of nature

you can not defy nature, but you can defy the laws of physics, meaning you need to fix your law.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• relativistic
• skepticism
• philosophy
• nature
• laws
• defy

[WorBlux]

Well life creates a decrease in entropy states temporarily, in exhange with the universe for being able to increase total entropy after metabolism is completed.

[pyrrho314]

right, but consider this, when we turn on a refrigerator we start a process "explained" by thermodynamics, and entropy is reduced inside... the part that is not explained is choosing to turn the switch on.

[rhyfelur]

I think a lot of people view the laws of physics as the actual physical properties that govern the way the world functions, as opposed to the "proposed rules" of physics, in which case everything that happens in the world is working within those laws. Walking uphill does not appear to be defying the law of gravity, because other physical laws allow gravity to be overpowered temporarily,etc.

Does that make sense or did I miss your point?

[pyrrho314]

no, that all makes sense, and there are multiple connotations... Walking uphill defies the known laws of physics due to no explanation for you making the choice to do so, or not do so.

One other thing, if people want to refer to actual nature, they should not call them laws. Calling them laws invokes a totally innappropriate metaphor, imo. There are patterns, but no laws.

[MoreSciFiThanScience]

how do we prevent someone using this argument to say that something like magic is conforming to an as yet undiscovered law of physics though?

[pyrrho314]

we don't, what we do is prevent ourselves from putting much stock in that unless there really does seem to be a new physical law at play.

[hyperseauton]

watch out for that Pioneer 10 anomaly

...must be that damn golden plate slowing it down :)

[pyrrho314]

nature doesn't have laws, it has pattern I think. We only ever see part of the pattern at a time, and the language works out much better to think there are patterns IN nature rather than laws.

[HaleyMary]

I hadn't thought of it that way before. That something defies the law of physics, but not of nature. It's interesting to think of. But, just because we don't understand why something works the way it does at the time doesn't mean that there won't be an explanation for it somewhere down the road.