That is learned by experiment. So, it seems you were wrong when you claimed you didn't have to experiment.

Anyways, nothing physical is ever explained, only described. So, appealing to explanation won't help you. Consider the following two sentences.

Explanation: Water freezes at its freezing point because its molecules lose enough energy to stick together and form crystal lattices.

Description: Water freezes at its freezing point after and only after its molecules lose enough energy to stick together and form crystal lattices.

In the explanation, we have mysterious causation. In the description, we have correlation. Explanations work for people (intentional objects). I went to the store because I wanted milk. They don't work for physical objects.

Well, you're wrong. This has been proved by several people, in several ways: Lob, Church/Fitch, Chaitin.

But the latter sentence does not imply that.

Yes, it does. That's why I wrote "after and only after". I anticipated this response from you. It's a shame that it didn't do any good.

But that does not imply what the causal sentence implies, since even if it did not occur the descriptive sentence would still be true, but the causal sentence would not be true.

The former sentence implies that if the molecules did not lose enough energy to stick together and form crystal lattices the water would not freeze. But the latter sentence does not imply that.

Moving goal posts. This is what you said:



It does imply that. By saying after and only after, it does imply that if the molecules did not lose enough energy to stick together and form crystal lattices the water would not freeze.

Of course, anything is physically possible, but would and could are two different things.

So, for you to tell me that I'm the one using the terminology wrong is kind of silly. If you haven't read the philosophy on this subject then you're the one that's ignorant of what other people are saying, not me.

It's just so confusing (to me) that you write physical impossibility when you mean logical impossibility. I haven't read that book, but I don't think the term is generally used how you're using it. But, alright, as long as everyone understands that the way you use physical impossibility it isn't how most people mean by the term.

It's just so confusing (to me) that you write physical impossibility when you mean logical impossibility.

To abandon necessitarianism means to elevate - and to live with - contingency: the world does not have to be the way it is; it just is. The charge on the electron does not have to be -1.6 ? 10-19 coulombs; it just is. Light does not have to have a constant, finite, velocity; it just does. To invoke nomological necessities to 'account' for such constancies (order, etc.) is to engage in explanatory hand-waving. Is it really any more informative to be told that light has a constant velocity because there is a law of nature to that effect than to be told that opium is sleep-inducing because it has a 'dormative power'? The form of an explanation has been given, but the content is chimerical.

There is orderliness is Nature. That's the way Nature is. There are no secret, sublime, mystical laws forcing Nature to be that way. Or at least, there is no good rational reason to believe that there are such queer entities. Physical laws are descriptions, they neither are, nor function like, prescriptions.

The dispute here is over whether or not the laws of nature are necessary prescriptions of the way the universe must be or merely contingent descriptions of the way the universe just is.

If the laws of nature are contingent then some people argue that implies the universe is random. It could be that one moment, everything is obeying the laws of nature and the next moment, cats are sprouting wings, men are getting pregnant, water is boiling instead of freezing, etc.

.

But I don't think that if the the laws of nature are contingent then that implies the universe is "random"

Given the laws of nature, it is impossible for water to turn to steam when cooled.

The problem is that kennethamy thinks it implies it can't happen where as I think it implies it won't happen. He thinks the laws of nature are prescriptions of what can or cannot happen. I think they are descriptions of what does or does not happen. If my view is accepted then the problem of being under the control of the laws of nature is solved. The laws of nature are simply true statements. True statements such as "you will wear a shirt tomorrow" don't control you and thereby lock you into wearing a shirt. They are true statements only because you will in fact wear a shirt tomorrow.

Try to put this argument back in the context of the first post in this thread.

But don't you see that you say "can't" and when kennethamy says "can't" you mean two different things? He is distinguishing between logical impossibility and physical impossibility. And when he says water can't turn to steam when cooled, he is referring to the "can't" of physical impossibility (nomological impossibility, different than logical impossibility).

I'm saying physical possibility too. Stop telling me what I'm talking about. I think I know better than you. The difference between our positions is the difference between these two statements.

1. Men physically can't get pregnant.
2. Men physically won't get pregnant.

The laws of nature are descriptions of whatever happens. So how can whatever happens be incompatible with its description? Men physically can get pregnant but they physically won't.

Under the laws of nature, men physically can't get pregnant. And men won't get pregnant.

The laws of nature are descriptions of whatever happens. So how can whatever happens be incompatible with its description?

What's incompatible?

Isn't that what physically impossible means? If physically impossible means incompatible with the laws of nature and the laws of nature are descriptions of whatever happens. Then how can whatever happens be physically impossible? Whatever happens is what produces the laws of nature.