If the cat leaves the mat, then it is not true that the cat is on the mat. You do not have to know that it is true, for a statement to be true; but a statement need be true for you to know it is true. So, whether or not you know something is true has nothing to do with whether the statement is, in fact true. You are confusing knowledge with truth. There were many truths we did not know but were true anyway (e.g. that there were electrons in the 15th century), and there are many truths now that we do not know are true. And, before there were any people on Earth who could know the truth. there were truths. For example, that there were stars in the sky. Again, knowledge implies truth, but truth does not imply knowledge.

I'm worried because you are talking about science. The laws of nature are not the laws of science. Even if the laws of science will always be incomplete and inaccurate, that doesn't matter with the discussion of natural laws. You haven't really said anything that hits on the topic.

The question we're asking is, are the laws of nature descriptive or prescriptive? Here's our two options:

1. Is it a law of nature that nothing can accelerate faster than light because nothing accelerates faster than light?

2. Does nothing accelerate faster than light because it is a law of nature that nothing can accelerate faster than light?

The logical consequences of these accidental regularities, however, are necessary.

I suppose I am talking more about science than about Natural Laws. I think that the only view that makes sense is Regularity. If there were indeed some Natural Laws in the Necessitarian sense, we could not verify them, and they would not be logically necessary, so they might as well not exist, as we cannot know if they exist. They are like any other unverifiable metaphysical entity.

I see that we did not ever disagree, but were talking about two different things. I don't know why you seemed to think I was disagreeing with you, since I was clearly talking about science the whole time up until you brought up the articles. Generally I agree with Ayer's way of dealing with metaphysical claims like 'There are fundamental Natural Laws that govern the universe' which is not very much different from 'There is a being that made the Natural Laws that dictate the universe'.

If the cat leaves the mat, then it is not true that the cat is on the mat. You do not have to know that it is true, for a statement to be true; but a statement need be true for you to know it is true. So, whether or not you know something is true has nothing to do with whether the statement is, in fact true. You are confusing knowledge with truth. There were many truths we did not know but were true anyway (e.g. that there were electrons in the 15th century), and there are many truths now that we do not know are true. And, before there were any people on Earth who could know the truth. there were truths. For example, that there were stars in the sky. Again, knowledge implies truth, but truth does not imply knowledge.

Necessitarians do not say that Natural Laws are logically necessary, but physically necessary.

I understand that logical necessity isn't appealed to, but what does 'physically necessary' even mean? Why is a law 'physically necessary' rather than just happening to be the case? What real difference does it make if they aren't physically necessary?

I understand that logical necessity isn't appealed to, but what does 'physically necessary' even mean? Why is a law 'physically necessary' rather than just happening to be the case? What real difference does it make if they aren't physically necessary?

Do you believe that it just happens to be true that when we lower the temperature of water to 0 degrees C, that the water freezes? Don't we know why it freezes? I do. It has to do with what happens to molecules that constitute water.We know that if some substance, say oil, were composed of water molecules, then that substance would freeze, don't we. So it is not an accident that water freezes.

not accidental - we can be sure it will always happen, so long as the laws of nature remain the same.

Of course, we still have to assume pragmatically that the basic laws of nature are not about to change, i.e. we still have to assume some unexplained regularities. But if these are confined to basic laws, they will presumably be relatively few in number. This at least seems an improvement on the idea (which was bothering me earlier) that every individual regularity in the universe is due to chance, which would be fantastically unlikely.

I don't understand how it follows logically. That's one of the Hume's points, that nothing in the world could logically necessitate anything else. That was the entire point of bringing up causal or physical necessity.

Satan, are you saying that the causality postulation is not logical?

Of course it's true. It's not false. There's no other option.

That's because you've defined its components as such. It's not true because it's some inherent truth in the world.

I've just invented a number system. The first number is ^. There is another number, ~, and ~ happens to represent twice the value of ^. There is no "plus" sign, but in my number system "&" is the symbol used to designate an arithmetic combination and # is a statement of equivalence.

Therefore, the statement ^ & ^ # ~ is a true statement. There's no other option. This statement is just as informative about the world as the statement "2+2=4"

Ok -- but what is the value of a truth judgement if it can only be applied to something of our own invention?

Can anyone give me an example of how anything is logically necessary in the way that "all bachelors are unmarried men" is?

some inherent truth in the world.

Ok -- but what is the value of a truth judgement if it can only be applied to something of our own invention?

You're asking for us to provide an example of how something is logically necessary without using a fixed logical system? Something can only be logically necessary in a logical system. Without assigning semantic values, things just are. The question doesn't really make any sense.

There's no such thing as an "absolute truth" or "inherent truth". For some reason we enjoy contrasting the truths we obtain through logical systems with some other kind of elusive truth that is supposed to be "objective" in some way.

What regularity makes it logically impossible for water not to freeze?

Truth can have several meanings, though. Truth can be what we discover to be true, rather than what we a priori design to be a true statement. If you dispute that, take note that at least in colloquial speech that is probably the most common use of the idea "truth". The idea that all humans are mortal is only deduced (and predicted based on past experience) but this is how the idea of "truth" is conceived for most people. Are they wrong?