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Almost Persuaded (Free verse) by Dovina

While we’re sleeping something’s keeping the world spinning uniformity winning While we’re dueling for knowledge drooling something’s ambling comfortably ruling Something sensible? Responsible? Reprehensible!

zodiac 17-Jul-05/6:34 AM
A: SCIENTISTS made the laws of physics in order to explain (or better, predict) what as you might say happens and has always happened. That the laws of physics seem to hold true in most cases is a sign of scientists' throroughness and exactitude, and not necessarily God's. To wit, if today, July 17, water flowed uphill in a tiny suburb of Buenos Aires, scientists wouldn't abandon their laws of gravity or throw up their hands and accept the existence of God; they'd probably just write a law saying something like "Water tends to flow downhill, except in a Buenos Aires suburb on July 17, 2005." Sounds ridiculous? Consider that if we were having this conversation 100 years ago, we would have accepted the following as "uniform laws" of physics:

1) The forces two masses exert upon each other may be calculated by the formula F = 6.67 × 10^-11 x m1 x m2 / r^2

2) Matter cannot be created or destroyed.

3) An object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by a force, at which point it will act predictably according to the force. Ditto for an object in motion.

We know now that none of these hold entirely true - especially on the subatomic level, but probably on other levels as well. What happened when we discovered these laws didn't hold? We made up more laws to accomodate the contingincies. It's even possible that science could someday be an infinite set of infinitely contingient laws, specific to the point of uselessness. This, incidentally, is what I imagine a universe "without" laws of physics being like. All of this, too, is kind of moot since our universe being as it is is what allows us to be having this conversation, and in a semi-rational or scientific manner, I might add. It's kind of like saying "I wonder what I'd think about the meaning of life if I'd been born on Pluto instead of on Earth."

I do hope a topic's being moot doesn't prevent us from talking about it in the future.




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