All physical systems(and our universe) is "described by derivation from"/"explained by" an appeal to set of equations. This set is the set of "fundamental equations"/"laws of nature". Of course, the hope is that the progress in science would allow us to reduce the size of this set. This is nice methodologically, because by reducing the size of the set, we also reduce the number of fundamental assumptions in our complete theory. I have two questions.

1. what is the ontological status of laws. If laws cause the events in the world to happen, then how is it possible that a description can reach out to effect the physical world. If laws are descriptions of events, then how do we account for subjunctive conditionals. E.g "If the ball start at height h, then it it will fall with velocity v at height k".

2. Why this set of laws? Laws are not hard to make it. It is easy to make-up laws. In fact, it seems there are infinite many self-consistent set of laws. We can called this ensemble theoryspace. Why did nature pick a particular theory from theoryspace , and give it physical existence?

---A physical "law" is simply a reliable pattern in the way
things happen. It doesn't actually make anything happen.
If you posit some energy (ie, "let there be light"),
it will fly around or be trapped or interact according
to certain 'ways'. So, a law is not a motive force,
it is a channel.

---Why this set of laws? Nobody really knows the ultimate
reason. Many laws are intimately connected to each other
in a self-consistent system, though. The articulation
of stuff that starts with a particle phases into bigger
structures and people, etc.. as this law makes certain
things possible and gives rise to bigger-scale things
covered by bigger-scale laws. At the tiniest
(strings, quarks, etc) and the most complex (ie, a
human mind) scales, laws fade out, since we cannot see
well enough. They fade into 'rules of thumb' or
competing theories. I could tell you what temp.
water will boil at in Denver, but I can't tell you
who the next famous mass-murderer will be.


Your question about laws 'making things happen' is understandable
though. Pop-science and reporting often talk that way. It's
a mild psychosis. Some people even believe that math makes
the universe run. It doesn't...it just a human abstraction,
one more step from reality, past laws. But things make things
happen, not laws. Or ultimately, pure energy makes things and
makes things happen. Laws are just "the ways" we think of,
shorthand expressions for patterns.

"---A physical "law" is simply a reliable pattern in the way
things happen. It doesn't actually make anything happen.
If you posit some energy (ie, "let there be light"),
it will fly around or be trapped or interact according
to certain 'ways'. So, a law is not a motive force,
it is a channel."

There are at present two standard views on this matter. The pattern view is one of them. Another view is causal realism. Under this view. A law the describes the electron is not a description, but a dispositional property of the electron.



"---Why this set of laws? Nobody really knows the ultimate
reason. Many laws are intimately connected to each other
in a self-consistent system, though. The articulation
of stuff that starts with a particle phases into bigger
structures and people, etc.. as this law makes certain
things possible and gives rise to bigger-scale things
covered by bigger-scale laws. At the tiniest
(strings, quarks, etc) and the most complex (ie, a
human mind) scales, laws fade out, since we cannot see
well enough. They fade into 'rules of thumb' or
competing theories. I could tell you what temp.
water will boil at in Denver, but I can't tell you
who the next famous mass-murderer will be"

This is different from what i am asking. What you have in mind is emergent laws from fundamental laws. I am asking why the fundamental laws are as they are and not something completely different.


"Your question about laws 'making things happen' is understandable
though. Pop-science and reporting often talk that way. It's
a mild psychosis. Some people even believe that math makes
the universe run. It doesn't...it just a human abstraction,
one more step from reality, past laws. But things make things
happen, not laws. Or ultimately, pure energy makes things and
makes things happen. Laws are just "the ways" we think of,
shorthand expressions for patterns."

It is a very popular view among philosophers that there are causal power in laws. One reason for this is that it explain subjunctive conditionals.

There are at present two standard views on this matter. The pattern view is one of them. Another view is causal realism. Under this view. A law the describes the electron is not a description, but a dispositional property of the electron.


An electron is a behavioral boundary of other subatomic energies, basically.
The ingredients could be whipped into other things, but 'electron' is a stable
state. A lot like 'quantum states' are. A pattern is the manifestation of
that. To me it seems like all the same thing. There are only certain
solutions that work...



This is different from what i am asking. What you have in mind is emergent laws from fundamental laws. I am asking why the fundamental laws are as they are and not something completely different.


Right. That's half my answer, then, the one that says, "nobody knows why".
"why the fundamental laws are as they are" goes back and back to...who knows why?
That is an existential void. People say "because God was lonely", or various
other things, but a Physicist can only point you back through relationships,
and the final bedrock will have no 'reason' to be. I guess that means..
..laws cannot give you an ultimate meaning. "why" turns out to be a
non-scientific term, at its origin. (the 'fundmental' laws).




It is a very popular view among philosophers that there are causal power in laws. One reason for this is that it explain subjunctive conditionals.


Ah. OK. The laws to cause things to happen 'in a certain way'. If we look
at that closely, it's intimately tied to making things happen. It needs
some 'push' though. Let's take a simple causality, a baseball bat hitting
the ball. Theoretically, you could derived it back to the Big Bang, to make
all the 'hows' become the 'what'. But, for practical purpose, the ball players
are providing motivation and energy, and they have to learn how the laws
play out in the objects to make things happen. In a practical sense, laws
are largely about how or a constraint, unless they are actually fruit of
other laws. A lot of what we call laws or constants does stem back, actually.
The speed of light, for example, is simply a consequence of magnetic and
electrical properties (of the vacuum, water, etc).
A law cannot be a "power", exactly. It is a channel for a power. Always
back to pure energy.