…also posted under Natural Sciences forum because it is relevant to both.
It is a misconception that natural laws are not material and thus argument arises concerning whether immaterial things, “like laws” exist. The truth is that laws are actually material entities and actually nothing else really exists at all.
{{we really need to start advancing philosophy, not quibbling over the past}}
I’ll reply to that blog entry you linked (I’m going to assume you wrote it):
I’m sure plenty of people have “noticed” that… but no, a law of nature is not a material entity. Do you think verbs are nouns as well? Like a noun and a verb, the meaning (being/existence/whatever) of each requires the other. To see and recognize a material entity requires A) spotting it (perceiving the borders from it to that which it is not) B) perceiving it as an “it” once its physical form (the boundaries and that inside it) is focused on as a constant, in light of changes (a movement of other materials) in that outside its borders.
From there material entities can be labeled, and oftentimes there names (being) are–in order to distinguish them to similar physical forms–specified according to the ways the forms tend to move in certain situations (in certain unique environments/“material backdrops”).
But there’s a big difference between:
and:
Are you seriously making an argument that a law of nature is material because they can both be described using the word “firm” (even though a single word can have multiple meanings depending on the context of its use)?
But more than that, is the point that what a law is, is being entirely misrepresented.
…
And yet the very meaning of “affect” assumes (requires the idea of material) substances that affect and are affected
Of course an effect is not random, the two words are opposite by definition.
Huh?
This time you’re arguing laws are matter because “they matter”? Or just kidding…?
Anyway, it’s silly to say there isn’t really actually any matter, but only laws (effects)/behaviors (which only mean anything in light of one material thing compared to a backdrop of other material things), and from there say law is the only true material of reality.
I mean really, what is this?
A restriction to a process, is a “thing”. A law is the restriction or the “direction”. That makes it a noun.
It is also immutable, making it firm, the very essence of what “material” means. Without the restriction of action, of affect, there would be nothing to affect, there would be nothing to push against (the restriction). Because the restriction requires force to be applied upon it, it is firm, material.
The restraint IS the matter. The restraint is the law.
But that is the old primitive presumption of “My perception is independent of physical essence”. Your perception and what is being perceived are of the same essence - affect upon affect.
And I don’t really see the distinction between your (A) and (B); “spotting it” and “perceiving it as an object”
All you really said was, “to see a material entity, you must see it”.
I can’t see any relevance in what you said there at all.
The CONCEPT of the word “firm”. And that concept is what gauges material or immaterial (not to be confused with irrelevant). So I am seriously saying that whatever is firm, is material by definition, but I am not saying that fact is the more important issue at hand.
Yes. It is affect upon affect. It is changing of the changing and nothing else is there. The “matter” is MADE OF changing of change. A particle of matter is made of an EM wave within. The EM wave is NOT matter until it loops back to chase its own tail and become an inertial bundle, no longer free to radiate at light speed.
Some people would argue (and probably will).
If it was obvious, there would be no need to explain it.
Try to imagine that every substance is made of a lesser substance, every particle from a lesser particle. Now do you imagine that regression would go on infinitely? At what point is “stuff”, not really matter any more? Or do you believe, against modern Science, that matter is a fundamental element of reality? Science accepts that matter destroys into energy and energy envelops into matter.
From your perspective, just kidding. But from a metaphysical perspective, the reason the word “matter” also means “relevant” and “material” (as in “material to the case”), is due to all of these same issues. Something being relevant means it matters. And also physical matter is only matter because it is relevant/firm/material - it affects you and thus is relevant to your senses - touchable. The concepts are the same but merely applied to different realms of concern.
No. It is silly to say that there is only matter, but no laws (directed affects)/behaviors (which only mean anything in light of one material thing compared to a backdrop of other material things), and from there say material is the only true firmness/law of reality.
It is time to wake up.
Although I’m not a materialist per se, I agree that natural laws are a poor example of an “immaterial thing”. That being said, I’d prefer to describe them, not as physical entities (i.e. there is no object out there called a law of nature), but as subject to description in material terms. So, for example, one can’t point to (say) a physical object and say “That’s (an instance of) the law of gravity” but one can point to a physical object falling and say “What it’s doing is obeying the law of gravity”. And you’re right - there really isn’t anything more to such an event than physical entities undergoing physical actions.
…And you think you understand the difference between a word and what it represents (in “reality”)? 
I already explained the absurdity of this “point”. To say natural laws are material because they can both be described as “firm” is like saying “cold rationality” is a symptom of hypothermia.
Haha, restriction? Are you referring to natural laws as restrictions, as if the restrictions are objective? This is the kind of confusion that happens when you don’t do philosophy with a meticulous defining and following of terms. Your taking the idea of man-made laws restricting behaviors and applying it to natural laws (that doesn’t restrict contrary actions, because those contrary actions aren’t even possible–the laws GUIDE the actions); you can “break” man made laws, you can’t do so with natural laws.
I can’t believe you think you’re making sense when you type this stuff.
…you are actually pulling out that straw man right now?
That’s not all I really said. Shrug why did I even bother…
Okay. Basically you’re confused as all hell by abstractions, because your mind operates as if words are objective things, even if you claim you understand otherwise. Your arguing and making points about words, rather than using words as tools to express meaning. So you make some statement like “A” is “B”, and your mind will operate in an effort to equate A and B, but you have no static definition of either, you alter their meanings in order to maintain consistency of your claim that A is B.
But you’ve been using it as a point in this thread. Oh well I’ve lost patience anyway.
Good God man, why do you assume I’m such a moron? Languages and their words are to be used pragmatically, they are used to describe “reality” as it most people perceive it. Yeah, I know my friend Matt is not actually a constant being of unchanging material form, but my brain registers certain stimuli as being “Matt”, and that then connects to memories of him, and by identifying and thinking of him as such I can reliably obtain and predict things I wouldn’t otherwise.
The absurd thing you are doing is arguing that certain things don’t exist by assuming they do. “The ‘matter’ is MADE OF changing of change”? “Matter” like it isn’t actually matter, we just call it that? Then what IS matter?
That’s your problem, you are thinking and arguing according to hazy associations, rather than specific meanings.
This is what your mind has done with your OP:
materialism/matter/physical existence = (has connotations of logic/objective stance on) reality
physical existence = constant change of change
constant change of change = actual reality of what the primitive consciousness believes is a real physical thing made of material substance
natural laws = the only real things, the causes of the effects of constant changing of change
natural laws = real
natural laws = material/matter/physically existing
It’s just so ridiculous.
There are a lot of stupid people, yeah.
It’s not that it’s not obvious, it’s just an incoherent mess.
I can’t even reply to what you wrote, it is so riddled with ambiguity and internal contradictions that actually answering it with a yes or no would be like playing make believe with a child.
That’s my point. The only difference is your arguments are built on words that keep crossing over into other areas all over the place. All you’ve really done is contradicted the practical meaning of “matter” a bunch of times.
Is that what you think I’ve been saying?
[/quote]
Right…
I knew this wasn’t going to be easy 
It is a law of nature that forbids one particle from entering the same space as another. The description is not what forbids it. The actuality is what forbids it. It is the forbidding that stops the particle. The actuality is the reality. The actuality is the constraint. The constraint is the law itself, not the description of the law.
It takes careful thought. The object is not what stops something. The principle/law is what stops it. The object doesn’t exist except by its principles/properties/laws. The object IS no more than the principles/properties/laws.
There is no actual object except as a bundle of properties. But the properties are nothing but its principles - what it does". It properties are its principles which are its laws. The “object” is merely a named bundle of laws transpiring at a particular location.
I’m tempted to say, “Don’t you??”
With that little bit of irrationality, you just lost the right to even debate the issue. I already stated clearly that I am not talking about man-made laws and if a natural law cannot be broken, then yeah, I pretty much consider that to be a constraint. If you don’t then you have a serious problem.
So far as I can tell you’re basically saying that the “natural laws” and matter are the same thing… that our conception of the natural laws as something apart from matter is wrong. that without the laws matter would be a meaningless term since there would be no shape nor movement nor distinction… in other words… no-thing. and without matter “natural laws” would be in reference to no-thing
Am I understanding you correctly?
If so… the point seems hardly worth making. it follows from a monistic materialist position.
The atomic and molecular nature of objects is effected by energy. Yet, it’s precisely the molecular stability in objects that prevent them from melding into other things when brought into contact.
Well said. The constraint has to be physical, otherwise it could have no physical affect on physical objects. Good thread.
If you were actually attempting to read and use words with precise definitions, and were debating accordingly, you’d have no trouble understanding what I’ve explained to you. However, your OP was simply the result of an intuition you deemed a “revelation” that, leaving you convinced from the very beginning that your insight that “natural laws are material entities” was right (it just felt right, really ), you wrote out your understanding, stretching the meaning of each word wherever it would affirm your original statement. Your arguing with no coherent idea other than you were “awakened” to something, and anyone who disagrees just doesn’t get it. So you take everything one says out of context (…actually, you’re incapable of ever reading it in anything close to the right context).
I’ll comment on your reply to gib, as what you write demonstrates my point above, that you excused as me ignoring that you “already stated clearly” that you are not talking about man-made laws". My point is that you denounce something, completely ignorant that everything you say is based on it.
How can a law of nature itself be a constraint (that this supposed constraint is the actual law itself) when “laws of nature” are simply rules that, given some physical condition/scenario (of A and B or C and D, blah blah), L always results/is (inevitable)–it cannot NOT be so given the conditions? How does a law of nature constraint something that–given the law of nature existing/reality (IE the truth of the law is absolute–it cannot be contradicted)–doesn’t and can’t exist/happen?
The very fact you say natural law forbids something immediately renders the statement nonsense, in terms of the commonly accepted (and thus communicable) meaning of “laws of nature”. Your’re not actually saying anything (sensible–making a coherent point, with distinct definitions, enabling another experienced with those words to interpret coherent, rational ideas from your messages, and to then provide their own in such a way you can follow their meaning and line of thought).
You told me “it’s time to up” (as if to reality) a few posts back. I’m going to give a simple illustration of how confused and out of touch you are with what is going on.
Imagine one is playing some simple game. A card game, or some board game. That game, ultimately, is defined according to the rules of what (must) happens in certain points and scenarios of the game. You cannot do something that contradicts (the rules) of the game, and still play that game. One cannot even imagine making a rule-breaking action while (imagining the action being in/of/) playing the game–to imagine that action taking place is to imagine a scenario where that law/rule is not/doesn’t exist, and thus imagining that action is to imagine that which is NOT the game.
And that is what you have been doing, by saying a law of nature is the constraint, that the actuality, and the reality, of a law of nature, is the constraint of that which contradicts it.
“Reality” is a bunch of constants that are no longer even consciously expected–something is (culturally) real because just about everyone agrees it is. This can include the idea that there are real things (a “reality”) we don’t yet know.
You’re taking “natural laws” that define reality, and then equating them with the prohibition of that which contradicts “reality”/(the natural laws that result in and define what we agree to call reality). Basically, your “reality” is just as subjective and description/language based as everyone elses, but yours, ironically denies reality as nothing but a constraint/prevention of other possible realities–a fantasy world.
What is this fantasy world you want so bad but feel the world is keeping you from? Feeling good/righteous?
Keep living in your silly transcendent “reality”, if it makes you happy.
The laws are descriptions of relations of the physical universe. The signified, not the referent.
You might have stated it better than I (such wouldn’t be all that hard to do).
Not everyone is a monist. And it is important to realize that laws being enforced at a specific location is what causes specific and particular particles. The “unified field theory” would of course be the monistic law of the universe, existent in all places at all times.
I believe the “laws” to not be the description statements, but the actual rules of conduct being enacted. A law pertaining to gravity is not the statement of behavior of the gravity. That is just a language sentence or a mental thought concerning the behavior. The “law itself” is the actual constrained behavior that always performed as the description expresses (assuming the description to be accurate).
Just as with man made social laws, the stated law is merely a communication tool. The reality of a law is its enforcement. It enforcement is what makes it relevant; what makes it firm; what makes it “matter”.
I’m not sure if you meant “effected” or “affected”. The nature of the particles is formed of energy. Energy is “the ability to alter”; to change something; to affect something; “affectance”.
The interesting point is that there is actually nothing else to be affected. The energy, or affecting, is the only existence. Matter is firm to the touch of other matter merely because of mutual affecting properties/principles/laws.
Thus what is usually taken to be an immaterial thing, a law, is actually the only true material thing in all reality.
Thank you. But the question is, how to say it such that it is obvious even to matthatter types. 
The actual rules are also rules - descriptions of relations. The law of gravity, describing the acceleration of two masses towards each other, is most certainly not the acceleration itself - it’s a description of the way in which that acceleration varies with the masses’ magnitude and separation, in the language of mathematical relation. The acceleration is the acceleration, that’s why it’s called an acceleration and not a law.
In any case, strictly speaking: relative positions of matter in a space-time continuum (and their rates of change, and rates of rates of change) are themselves not material, although they are most certainly physical. Space and time are relations of matter/energy, not matter/energy. Apologies if this comes across as pedantic.
?? The actual rules are ALSO descriptions?? The behavior of gravity is a description? or offers a form, a relationship, to be described?
No the acceleration is merely an aspect of the law/principle and that is why it is not called the law, but the acceleration.
But is the word “acceleration” the act of accelerating? Certainly not. Equally the sentence, “Mass particles attract mass particles” is not the actual attracting, not the actuality of the law, but merely a statement or description of it.
No, that is my point. They actualy ARE the ONLY material there is.
But space and time are not material.
Another thought concerning this is;
Energy is “the ability to affect”. But affect what?
Long ago, the thought was that energy is the ability to affect matter. But it was discovered that matter is merely energy in different form than radiant, kinetic, or simple potential. Matter is actually a bundle of potential energy from the perspective of anything outside the matter particle.
So if energy is an ability and it is merely an ability to act upon other energy, then we have nothing but ability acting upon ability with which to construct the entire universe.
But in addition, an ability is a property. A property is a specific affectance behavior. A specific behavior is a rule, principle, or law (a relationship in action). So what it all amounts to is that the entire universe is no more than laws being enacted upon themselves.
This is exactly my original point. The sentence is the signifier, the thing it refers to is the the signified, the actual object outside the language and representation is the referent.
This is incoherent, surely - space and time are not material, but relative position in space-time is the only material there is?
You’re trying to logically deduce how things must be from first principles and incautious definitions. Matter is not the same thing as mass, “the ability to affect” is not a definition of energy that fits in to modern physics, and rules, principles and laws all describe behaviour, without being behaviour.
I don’t know why they don’t have anything but social law being defined, but a natural law would be the same except for who is in authority. Note that there is NO reference to a law being a “description” or statement.
My apologies. I misread. You are right, “positions…” are not material. But what is in a position is no more than an instance of “an affect upon an affect”. Nothing else exists as anything “material”. The acceleration rate of affect is actually the “substance”. One thing bumps into another because of that acceleration rate being too high. When it is low, one will pass through the other. Science completely agrees. It is an issue of impedance.
I think I am being more cautious than you. Energy has been defined as “the ability to do work” since its inception. “Work” is no more than making change, thus energy is the ability to make change, to alter, to affect. My definitions are quite precise. A measure of energy is a measure of how much change can be made. Now “mass” is another “matter” (grin). Even Science doesn’t have a consistent definition for the word “mass”, but I haven’t been using that word either.
One can, and often does, conflate the statement of a law with the law itself. That is the error that misleads the mind. That is the “confusion of the map with the terrain” syndrome. A statement that describes a rule that is not ACTUALLY enforced, is not an actual statement of law. The description is not the law, but an effort to communicate or record its concept.
Ah well, if we call them both laws, they must be the same. 
It may be that social laws and natural laws are different in some way? Can you break them both as easily?
I honestly have no idea what you mean here. On a particulate level, one thing bumps into another because it can’t occupy the same point in time and space. On a macro level, because the electromagnetic fields repel. It’s purely a positional thing, there is nothing to do with the magnitude of the acceleration - which is a rate of change of rate of change of position. I can bump into a wall whether accelerating gradually, sharply or at constant velocity.
No. Work is a method of transfer of energy, which is a consequence of physical state, not an ability. Heat flow is also a method of energy transfer, that is different to Work, as is advection/convection.
Science has several definitions of mass, very precisely defined. It doesn’t have a good definition of “matter” - that is far less consistent, clear or useful as a term.
Your definitions are precise indeed, but I’m afraid they’re fairly fundamentally wrong in terms of physical theory. I don’t think it’s worth continuing the discussion.
Yes - what you mention first is confusing the signifier with the signified. Confusion of map with terrain is confusing the signified with the referent. That is the error I believe you to be making.
Perhaps this helps, if you’d like definitions with references:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_law
“The production of a summary description of our environment in the form of such laws is a fundamental aim of science.”
Similarly:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter