I hesitate to send this since we are dangerously off topic. My point was not about laws of nature but rather about the way people talk about rules. I'm sorry my point is buried under quibbling about non-design issues. I hope I do not appear too sensitive if I point out that I went to high school long enough ago to have some understanding of the way the term "law" is used in science and what a metaphor is.
On Oct 16, 2012, at 7:50 PM, Ken Friedman wrote:
> The term “laws of nature,” in contrast, is not a metaphor. This term is a descriptive phrase denoting phenomena far more durable and universal than any human law.
I do not currently have the time to do a serious look at the history of the use of the word "law" in science. I do know that the word "law" in science is comparatively recent compared to its use in jurisprudence. The term was adopted from an earlier and different use that had some commonality. That is why I say its use was a metaphor even though, like other "dead metaphors," its use is not now dependent on its analogical origin.
My suspicion is that the comparison was not to legal code but rather to The Law, i.e., the Ten Commandments (although this is speculation on my part. Have fun reciting detailed etymology.)
> It is impossible to violate the laws of nature.
Sure it is. At that point, we note that it is no longer a law. I'll try to bring this back to something to do with design. Most readers of this list are probably familiar with Loos' "Ornament and Crime." It lays out a design philosophy based on (dare I say a metaphor of) the recapitulation theory, then known as Haeckel's Law. That one got repealed by a later legislature and "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is not longer part of the vehicle code.
> They are descriptions of the invariant behavior of matter, time, and space from one end of the rather large universe to the other.
Yes. They are descriptions not prescriptions. There is a difference.
> The apparent confusion here involves the use of one word – law – with different kinds and levels of meaning in different domains. It is also a difference in describing things we observe that are simply so, and things we observe that are so because the laws of nature require that they be so.
And what does law enforcement do when the requirement is violated? Once again, descriptions not prescriptions.
> Here, I’m going to apologize for a short and relatively crude discussion.
My suspicion is that I am not alone in having a slightly different notion of short than you have.
Gunnar
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Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
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