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19667 | If the laws of nature are contingent, shouldn't we already have noticed it? [Meillassoux] |
Full Idea: The standard objection is that if the laws of nature were actually contingent, we would already have noticed it. | |
From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
A reaction: Meillassoux offers a sustained argument that the laws of nature are necessarily contingent. In Idea 19660 he distinguishes contingencies that must change from those that merely could change. |
19670 | Why are contingent laws of nature stable? [Meillassoux] |
Full Idea: We must ask how we are to explain the manifest stability of physical laws, given that we take these to be contingent? | |
From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
A reaction: Meissalloux offers a very deep and subtle answer to this question... It is based on the possibilities of chaos being an uncountable infinity... It is a very nice question, which physicists might be able to answer, without help from philosophy. |
9426 | The world is just a vast mosaic of little matters of local particular fact [Lewis] |
Full Idea: The world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact, just one little thing and then another. | |
From: David Lewis (Introduction to Philosophical Papers II [1986]) | |
A reaction: Basing laws on this picture is what Lewis calls 'Humean Supervenience'. |