the topic of today’s conference is fear
of everything and I think that it is
really hard to think of any scientific
theory let alone
a theory of everything without loss
scientists occupy themselves with the
task of discovering loss and formulating
them in a precise mathematical language
in order to advance our understanding of
the world surrounding us and of our
ourselves now I’m not a scientist but a
philosopher a philosopher of science to
be precise so you may wonder what kind
of philosopher tell tell you about laws
what does he know now let me explain
philosophers by profession are
interested in general questions
regarding the meaning of general world
words such as the word of Justice the
word morality the word knowledge time
space and loss that the word law belongs
to this category of you know very
important terms that we would like to
understand better so philosophers
basically would like to understand what
it means that something is a law what is
the nature of laws what do they do to us
and what is the relation with the world
okay so I would like to present you with
with two possible approaches to
reciprocal approaches to the notion of
scientific laws I call this approaches
governing versus non governing
conceptions of laws and let me start
with the first one which I consider more
intuitive and more appealing whereas the
second conception the non governing
conception will be a little bit less
intuitive nevertheless because of that
perhaps quite interesting okay let me
start with an example
I hope everybody
hurt at a certain point of their
education about the law of gravity as
discovered by this famous person Sir
Isaac Newton now the law of gravity is
supposed to tell us about how material
bodies behave when they interact with
one another in particular it’s supposed
to tell us how planets and stars and
galaxies interact with one another so
the law of gravity according to this
governing approach ensures that the
planets that surround a star like our so
our Sun that they will stay on their
orbits and they will not fly away into
the void in other words the law governs
them they basically the laws tell those
planets what to do and this respect
laws behave as if they were rulers as if
there were kings or queens as if they
rolled their domains as if the planets
were their subjects they are supposed to
obey okay that’s that’s that’s the
basically this idea in this respect the
laws of nature resemble a different
category of laws and let me see this
analogy you may see this similarity
between the laws of nature and so-called
laws of the land or laws in the legal
sense like legal rules and regulations
we all know that we have to obey certain
rules for instance if you’re a driver
and I believe everybody I mean the
majority of people here know how to
drive a car you know that you have to
obey a certain set of regulations the
traffic code the traffic law unless you
can end up in a situation if you don’t
do that you can end up in a situation
like this on this slide so for instance
you’re driving a car you’re entering a
city and what what do you have to do I
mean you have to slow down because there
is a certain speed limit that tells you
that this is what you’re supposed to do
and by analogy it looks like the laws of
nature act in the same way the law of
gravity in a sense tells the plan is
that if they enter
a gravitational field a gravitational
field of it started they have to follow
certain follow certain orbits that they
cannot stray from this this orbit so in
this respect it looks like laws of laws
of nature and laws of the land they are
quite similar and this one particular
feature that these two types of laws
share namely that they both act as if
from above they are sort of speaking
slightly metaphorically external from
the word because in order to govern the
world you have to be from outside of the
world okay so the governing conception
of laws stresses that laws cannot be
reduced as we philosophers say it cannot
be reduced to the totality of individual
facts and occurrences you may you may
think about making a long long list of
individual cases and instances in which
bodies material bodies attracted each
other gravitationally but still the long
list even if it were complete would
never be identical with what we call the
law of gravity the law of gravity would
be something else would be something
that each time in each possible instance
would make sure that this is what’s
going to happen that nothing else will
happen so that would be something
external okay now I think at this point
perhaps I have managed to convince you
that the governing conception of law is
to write one am i right now if you think
that’s the case think again because
actually what philosophers do very well
is philosophers love disagreeing with
one another and if somebody comes with
comes up with the conception such as the
governing conception of laws of course
there will be always another philosopher
who would say wrong this is definitely
not the case this is incorrect and let
me now start about start talking about
this alternative conception and first
let me try to shed a little bit of to
cast a little bit of doubt on this
governing conception of law
I’ve told you that there’s an analogy
between loss of the land and loss of
nature but unfortunately I didn’t tell
you that the analogy is not entirely
complete that there are some definite
this similarities between these two
types of loss for instance one thing
that is quite obvious legal rules and
regulations they always have a lawmaker
they have somebody who creates them who
enacts them who enforces them on the
other hand with the laws of nature
things are not that simple now of course
you may have an idea of a divine creator
and many people subscribe to this idea
that there is a divine person a God
perhaps who actually created of us but
this is by no means a necessary part of
what we mean by laws of nature there’s a
perfectly acceptable naturalistic
scenario in which laws of nature do not
have a creator so that would be one
clear difference between these two cases
there’s also another even more important
difference laws in the legal sense they
come equipped with some sort of
sanctions now if you disobey if you
don’t obey a law of course you may be
punished so this is basically what can
happen if you disobey certain laws you
can just end up in this particular in
this place on the other hand it doesn’t
make much sense to talk about sanctions
and punishment with respect to loss of
nature okay I mean it’s not that the
planets follow their pre-assigned orbits
for fear of retribution that would make
no sense rather I think it’s much more
it would be much more appropriate to say
that they do that because they don’t
have any other choice it’s not as if
they make some sort of conscious a
conscious decision so as you can see
that this analogy between these two
cases is not complete and some people
some philosophers realizing that that’s
the case they came up with an
alternative conception of what laws are
and what is what their nature is and one
of those philosophers is this famous
rather
figure this is an 18th century Scottish
philosopher by the name of David Hume
and his idea general idea was that for
him laws of nature are nothing more than
as he putted regularities persistent
regularities persistent patterns that
occur and in in the in in several
instances individual instances of what
is happening in the world
so for Hume you may say that a law is
just a long list actually this is like
an empty piece of paper empty parchment
but you can imagine that there are some
things on this that there’s some some
items on this list and a law would be
just a long list of items a long list of
cases of individual cases that really
occurred in the history of the of the
world so for instance the law of gravity
for hume and humans humans are people
who follow him just to explain so for
human humans a law is basically like a
collection and long collection of
individual instances it’s not any hidden
power it’s not something that makes
things happen it’s not the driving force
behind those instances but just
instances themselves ok and the reason
why Hugh Monta to do that because he was
we call this position he was an
empiricist he really believed in
empirical investigations he believed in
what your senses would would tell you
and nothing more and he realized that
our senses our experience can tell us
only about individual cases this case
that guy is that case but it will never
tell us about something that’s outside
out of this world so we simply just
brushed away brushed aside this
conception of laws that would be somehow
from from outside that would be not out
of this world because we would never be
able to know laws a loss of that nature
another useful distinction that may help
you understand the difference between
governing and non governing conceptions
of laws is the distinction between
prescribed
versus description now according to the
governing conception of laws law
prescribe what should happen prescribed
in the sense they they create a norm
they say this should this ought to
happen on the other hand description is
just merely
telling you what’s happening without any
compulsion without any necessity without
any driving force this is what humans
would subscribe to loss merely described
they do not prescribe okay let me give
you an example that would further
hopefully increase our grasp of the
distinction between governing and non
governing conceptions of loss and this
example is going to be rather artificial
I apologize for that especially for
those of you who know a little bit about
physics because this is this is going to
be like a mockery physics not real
physics so suppose that there are in the
universe two types of objects there are
some objects we call X particles and
there are some objects we call Y fields
and suppose on top of that that due to
some coincidence in the entire history
of the universe not a single X particle
has ever entered a Y field so it was
just simply no occurrence of that sort
nothing in the history nowhere in the
history of universe we would have this
interaction between an expert achill in
my field now in spite of this if you are
a follower of the governing conception
of laws you may want to say that still
there may be a law that would tell you
that if an X particle had entered a Y
field it would have behaved in such a
such way for instance it would be lets
say deflected upwards or maybe another
possibility and that would be another
possible law that an expert that the X
particles would be deflected downwards
so these are options which for the
governing for somebody who believes in
the governing conception of laws this
would be too real
options to real possibilities but humans
would have none of that humans would say
this utter nonsense
I mean if no particles now X particles
have ever interacted with the Y field it
just doesn’t make any sense to talk
about any loss unrealized lost they just
don’t exist laws are just combinations
not combinations but rather collections
of everything that actually happened not
what would had have happened under some
circumstances for humans this picture
doesn’t make much sense as long as X
particles never interacted with Y fields
okay so I hope that this explains a
little bit more what is the difference
between these two approaches there’s one
more curious consequence of humanism as
we call it this approach by David Hume
and his followers one quite interesting
consequence the consequence is as
follows as I said according to Hume laws
are collections of individual facts
totality of individual facts but you may
ask a question what facts past present
or perhaps future now unfortunately for
Hume or humans this has to be a
collection of all facts past present and
future which means actually that for
humans we can we can know the laws of
the universe only at the end of the
world
as they say only in the end everything
will be revealed so at this very moment
we we can only make a guess
for instance we guess that the law of
gravity is really true but on on what
basis on the basis of our of our past
experiences we know from the past that
the law of gravity really you know
worked but we never know we may never
know whether it will continue working in
the future and if not it’s not a law
it’s just not a lot so you would have to
wait until the end of the work now this
is a little bit discouraging and for
that reason not everybody is very happy
with this
human approach to to the notion of law
and laws okay at the end of this
presentation I think you would like to
hear from me
which side to choose I mean which
conception of laws and law hood should
be following unfortunately I’m not going
philosophers are very very good at
debating things at finding arguments at
poking holes at other people’s arguments
but they are very bad at agreeing on one
solution so today in the community of
philosophers we have followers of Hume
and also we have people who are strongly
opposed to him and they continue
debating and more and more arguments are
brer are brought to the table if you’re
interested in these arguments you can
read about them and the philosophically
literature so the only thing I can leave
you with that with right now is it’s
your choice I have presented with two
options
it is definitely your choice to choose
your own poison as they say thank you
very much [Applause]
of everything and I think that it is
really hard to think of any scientific
theory let alone
a theory of everything without loss
scientists occupy themselves with the
task of discovering loss and formulating
them in a precise mathematical language
in order to advance our understanding of
the world surrounding us and of our
ourselves now I’m not a scientist but a
philosopher a philosopher of science to
be precise so you may wonder what kind
of philosopher tell tell you about laws
what does he know now let me explain
philosophers by profession are
interested in general questions
regarding the meaning of general world
words such as the word of Justice the
word morality the word knowledge time
space and loss that the word law belongs
to this category of you know very
important terms that we would like to
understand better so philosophers
basically would like to understand what
it means that something is a law what is
the nature of laws what do they do to us
and what is the relation with the world
okay so I would like to present you with
with two possible approaches to
reciprocal approaches to the notion of
scientific laws I call this approaches
governing versus non governing
conceptions of laws and let me start
with the first one which I consider more
intuitive and more appealing whereas the
second conception the non governing
conception will be a little bit less
intuitive nevertheless because of that
perhaps quite interesting okay let me
start with an example
I hope everybody
hurt at a certain point of their
education about the law of gravity as
discovered by this famous person Sir
Isaac Newton now the law of gravity is
supposed to tell us about how material
bodies behave when they interact with
one another in particular it’s supposed
to tell us how planets and stars and
galaxies interact with one another so
the law of gravity according to this
governing approach ensures that the
planets that surround a star like our so
our Sun that they will stay on their
orbits and they will not fly away into
the void in other words the law governs
them they basically the laws tell those
planets what to do and this respect
laws behave as if they were rulers as if
there were kings or queens as if they
rolled their domains as if the planets
were their subjects they are supposed to
obey okay that’s that’s that’s the
basically this idea in this respect the
laws of nature resemble a different
category of laws and let me see this
analogy you may see this similarity
between the laws of nature and so-called
laws of the land or laws in the legal
sense like legal rules and regulations
we all know that we have to obey certain
rules for instance if you’re a driver
and I believe everybody I mean the
majority of people here know how to
drive a car you know that you have to
obey a certain set of regulations the
traffic code the traffic law unless you
can end up in a situation if you don’t
do that you can end up in a situation
like this on this slide so for instance
you’re driving a car you’re entering a
city and what what do you have to do I
mean you have to slow down because there
is a certain speed limit that tells you
that this is what you’re supposed to do
and by analogy it looks like the laws of
nature act in the same way the law of
gravity in a sense tells the plan is
that if they enter
a gravitational field a gravitational
field of it started they have to follow
certain follow certain orbits that they
cannot stray from this this orbit so in
this respect it looks like laws of laws
of nature and laws of the land they are
quite similar and this one particular
feature that these two types of laws
share namely that they both act as if
from above they are sort of speaking
slightly metaphorically external from
the word because in order to govern the
world you have to be from outside of the
world okay so the governing conception
of laws stresses that laws cannot be
reduced as we philosophers say it cannot
be reduced to the totality of individual
facts and occurrences you may you may
think about making a long long list of
individual cases and instances in which
bodies material bodies attracted each
other gravitationally but still the long
list even if it were complete would
never be identical with what we call the
law of gravity the law of gravity would
be something else would be something
that each time in each possible instance
would make sure that this is what’s
going to happen that nothing else will
happen so that would be something
external okay now I think at this point
perhaps I have managed to convince you
that the governing conception of law is
to write one am i right now if you think
that’s the case think again because
actually what philosophers do very well
is philosophers love disagreeing with
one another and if somebody comes with
comes up with the conception such as the
governing conception of laws of course
there will be always another philosopher
who would say wrong this is definitely
not the case this is incorrect and let
me now start about start talking about
this alternative conception and first
let me try to shed a little bit of to
cast a little bit of doubt on this
governing conception of law
I’ve told you that there’s an analogy
between loss of the land and loss of
nature but unfortunately I didn’t tell
you that the analogy is not entirely
complete that there are some definite
this similarities between these two
types of loss for instance one thing
that is quite obvious legal rules and
regulations they always have a lawmaker
they have somebody who creates them who
enacts them who enforces them on the
other hand with the laws of nature
things are not that simple now of course
you may have an idea of a divine creator
and many people subscribe to this idea
that there is a divine person a God
perhaps who actually created of us but
this is by no means a necessary part of
what we mean by laws of nature there’s a
perfectly acceptable naturalistic
scenario in which laws of nature do not
have a creator so that would be one
clear difference between these two cases
there’s also another even more important
difference laws in the legal sense they
come equipped with some sort of
sanctions now if you disobey if you
don’t obey a law of course you may be
punished so this is basically what can
happen if you disobey certain laws you
can just end up in this particular in
this place on the other hand it doesn’t
make much sense to talk about sanctions
and punishment with respect to loss of
nature okay I mean it’s not that the
planets follow their pre-assigned orbits
for fear of retribution that would make
no sense rather I think it’s much more
it would be much more appropriate to say
that they do that because they don’t
have any other choice it’s not as if
they make some sort of conscious a
conscious decision so as you can see
that this analogy between these two
cases is not complete and some people
some philosophers realizing that that’s
the case they came up with an
alternative conception of what laws are
and what is what their nature is and one
of those philosophers is this famous
rather
figure this is an 18th century Scottish
philosopher by the name of David Hume
and his idea general idea was that for
him laws of nature are nothing more than
as he putted regularities persistent
regularities persistent patterns that
occur and in in the in in several
instances individual instances of what
is happening in the world
so for Hume you may say that a law is
just a long list actually this is like
an empty piece of paper empty parchment
but you can imagine that there are some
things on this that there’s some some
items on this list and a law would be
just a long list of items a long list of
cases of individual cases that really
occurred in the history of the of the
world so for instance the law of gravity
for hume and humans humans are people
who follow him just to explain so for
human humans a law is basically like a
collection and long collection of
individual instances it’s not any hidden
power it’s not something that makes
things happen it’s not the driving force
behind those instances but just
instances themselves ok and the reason
why Hugh Monta to do that because he was
we call this position he was an
empiricist he really believed in
empirical investigations he believed in
what your senses would would tell you
and nothing more and he realized that
our senses our experience can tell us
only about individual cases this case
that guy is that case but it will never
tell us about something that’s outside
out of this world so we simply just
brushed away brushed aside this
conception of laws that would be somehow
from from outside that would be not out
of this world because we would never be
able to know laws a loss of that nature
another useful distinction that may help
you understand the difference between
governing and non governing conceptions
of laws is the distinction between
prescribed
versus description now according to the
governing conception of laws law
prescribe what should happen prescribed
in the sense they they create a norm
they say this should this ought to
happen on the other hand description is
just merely
telling you what’s happening without any
compulsion without any necessity without
any driving force this is what humans
would subscribe to loss merely described
they do not prescribe okay let me give
you an example that would further
hopefully increase our grasp of the
distinction between governing and non
governing conceptions of loss and this
example is going to be rather artificial
I apologize for that especially for
those of you who know a little bit about
physics because this is this is going to
be like a mockery physics not real
physics so suppose that there are in the
universe two types of objects there are
some objects we call X particles and
there are some objects we call Y fields
and suppose on top of that that due to
some coincidence in the entire history
of the universe not a single X particle
has ever entered a Y field so it was
just simply no occurrence of that sort
nothing in the history nowhere in the
history of universe we would have this
interaction between an expert achill in
my field now in spite of this if you are
a follower of the governing conception
of laws you may want to say that still
there may be a law that would tell you
that if an X particle had entered a Y
field it would have behaved in such a
such way for instance it would be lets
say deflected upwards or maybe another
possibility and that would be another
possible law that an expert that the X
particles would be deflected downwards
so these are options which for the
governing for somebody who believes in
the governing conception of laws this
would be too real
options to real possibilities but humans
would have none of that humans would say
this utter nonsense
I mean if no particles now X particles
have ever interacted with the Y field it
just doesn’t make any sense to talk
about any loss unrealized lost they just
don’t exist laws are just combinations
not combinations but rather collections
of everything that actually happened not
what would had have happened under some
circumstances for humans this picture
doesn’t make much sense as long as X
particles never interacted with Y fields
okay so I hope that this explains a
little bit more what is the difference
between these two approaches there’s one
more curious consequence of humanism as
we call it this approach by David Hume
and his followers one quite interesting
consequence the consequence is as
follows as I said according to Hume laws
are collections of individual facts
totality of individual facts but you may
ask a question what facts past present
or perhaps future now unfortunately for
Hume or humans this has to be a
collection of all facts past present and
future which means actually that for
humans we can we can know the laws of
the universe only at the end of the
world
as they say only in the end everything
will be revealed so at this very moment
we we can only make a guess
for instance we guess that the law of
gravity is really true but on on what
basis on the basis of our of our past
experiences we know from the past that
the law of gravity really you know
worked but we never know we may never
know whether it will continue working in
the future and if not it’s not a law
it’s just not a lot so you would have to
wait until the end of the work now this
is a little bit discouraging and for
that reason not everybody is very happy
with this
human approach to to the notion of law
and laws okay at the end of this
presentation I think you would like to
hear from me
which side to choose I mean which
conception of laws and law hood should
be following unfortunately I’m not going
philosophers are very very good at
debating things at finding arguments at
poking holes at other people’s arguments
but they are very bad at agreeing on one
solution so today in the community of
philosophers we have followers of Hume
and also we have people who are strongly
opposed to him and they continue
debating and more and more arguments are
brer are brought to the table if you’re
interested in these arguments you can
read about them and the philosophically
literature so the only thing I can leave
you with that with right now is it’s
your choice I have presented with two
options
it is definitely your choice to choose
your own poison as they say thank you
very much [Applause]
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