Paul Davies - What is the Origin of the Laws of Nature? 

This channel is a treasure trove.

The Closer to Truth series is like a big candystore to me. Thanks for making and sharing this interesting interviews with all of us.

Love how this show has been ongoing now for about a decade and it continues to improve

awesome episode. Paul Davies is a really great science communicator.

Brilliant mind , wonderful to listen and learn.

Paul Davies is great. I have devoured his books over the years. He feels a little bit like a "feeling" physicist rather than a "hard" physicist. God bless him.

To my humble knowledge there is only one and one force that is holding all the laws in balance. The way it holds is something unbelievable for us because it holds without any burden to itself which means it is that easy and not an issue for him.

It never ceases to amaze me the hoops an apologist must go thru. There is a difference between reality and the laws that describe that reality. The laws are a product of our minds and as such they do not exist in reality.

Paul is an exceptional communicator

In 1990s, I wrote a term paper for a grad-level cosmology class I was taking. In my paper, I proposed that constants pertaining to electromagnetism could have been slightly different billions of years ago, which would have explained peculiarities in the observations of quasars. Two months later, a professor, who taught the class, showed me a new issue of the Nature mag, where same hypothesis was proposed by someone else n an article. They took the credit. Conclusion: in science, one might hurry to publicly announce new ideas before someone else claims them.

Paul Davies his book The goldilocks enigma is brilliant

Paul Davies has P4P strongest eye contact

Okay, now my mind is blown. This is amazing.

Thank you for posting every day 🌷🌷🇲🇦

Paul has not aged . He looks and sounds the same in this interview as he does in the video I made, with his kind permission. when he lectured at Kane Hall a couple of decades ago.. I bought his book About Time which he autographed and that meant so much to me. I would like to know what he thinks of the Constructor Theory. "When more information is available. a thing that was impossible becomes possible. " Well! For heavens sake! Is the theory a joke or is it being seriously considered?

I bet Einstein would love that. He would simply state that his theory of relativity, is based on a reference mollusc, where the physical laws and constants don't change.

I am not sure if i am right , If there is a nothing , something should arise to balance it. If nothing is state then there should be point something should arise else nothing becomes a defined state which brings GOD to the scene. If you see our universe there is always something to balance out each and everything.

sem vam ze pred leti govorila in povedala vse kar sem vedela..nekatere stvari..oziroma ogromno stvari je nadnaravno

i'm pleased about the origin of the focusing in this video

Laws & Constants emerge from the Universe. In a changing Universe laws & universal constant can't remain constant.

The laws of nature are only partly addressed by the laws of physics, physics often deals with the very small while the universe is very big. Focusing on 'top down' and holistic considerations embracing the whole lot at once will also be a fruitful avenue of research and contemplation. Further to this; consciousness is also a fact of the universe and maybe pervasive throughout; I'd suggest this is central to a proper understanding of existence.

If the universe has No beginning, then there would be No changes or transition to occur. Nothing can come to life from inanimate inorganic matter. Nothing can die because everything is just in a transition. If one is alive, then everything is also alive. If one is conscious, then everything must also be conscious (albeit in different levels). …

Waves and interactions emerged together and we describe persistent patterns we can detect as laws.

Constants seemed easier to understand as something more like simply units conversion. Inches or centimeters. The precieved numbers are stable or constant as the name suggests but for sure they can shift as time marches on. Obvious one is the scales big and small. Expanding universe. In small scale the next plank over has subtle differences that average out at scale.

So not only nature changes with time, but the laws of nature themselves may evolve through time, and be shaped by time, especially in the early high energy fractions of a second of the universe?

“What are the laws of Nature?” “Well, the laws of Nature are the laws of Nature. There are some big laws and some small laws. Maybe some of the bigger laws are made up of these smaller laws. And maybe there is a Super Law that underlies all laws.”

Awesome

The laws of nature are descriptive of nature itself. Nature itself is the origin of these laws. The only alternative would be that the laws are "stored" somewhere outside of the universe, an idea which raises two immediate difficulties: We have no possible means of investigating whether this might be true. It's not a falsifiable idea, therefore not a valid scientific hypothesis. Supposing there was a place outside of the universe where such laws are stored, what is to be done about storing the laws which in turn necessarily define that place? We would have explained one mystery by proposing a greater mystery.

I like Paul Davies. I don't agree with him on religion, but he writes well on physics. About Time is an extremely enjoyable book.

Big bang amalgamation..forces..symbiosis..our universal gift😃🇨🇦

it goes back to the basic unanswerable question as to why there are any laws at all. contemporary materialists believe it is laughable that there are moral or conscious laws, yet we all approach life every day, with the assumption based on a few hundred or so years of empirical evidence that these material laws exist. we have no idea what these processes or laws or patterns actually are, if they exist, or why they exist. hume figured this out a few centuries ago. the ancient skeptics realized it a few thousand years ago. obviously physical laws practically work for material engineering, but we really have no idea what any of this is, or if it really describes what is going on.

Is there a way to find simpler foundation to mathematics that might indicate a simpler foundation for physical reality / science laws?

what experiment was done to discover gravity??

The masses of the generations of the elementary particles shows that it requires a supersymmetry to make a balance between masses. And if there is an invisible moment after each moment of our moments then maybe we will not be able to detect those supersymmetric particles easily. And if the dark matter is not in our moment, then we can't easily observe dark matter too. And if there are elementary particles inside the Black Holes then it can be the supersymmetric group of all the elementary particles. And I think both elementary particles and black holes made a dependent origination too. - Suresh

He imagine any changes to be like rounding errors during computing :) That's cute but what is the computer that is running on?

this discussion confirms the physics of matter according to whitehead, where matter and the laws of nature come from the creative advance of the universe into novelty from nano-moment to nano-moment.

The first matter But before we get to that, let’s take a look at how “material” - physical matter - first came about. If we are aiming to explain the origins of stable matter made of atoms or molecules, there was certainly none of that around at the Big Bang - nor for hundreds of thousands of years afterwards. We do in fact have a pretty detailed understanding of how the first atoms formed out of simpler particles once conditions cooled down enough for complex matter to be stable, and how these atoms were later fused into heavier elements inside stars. But that understanding doesn’t address the question of whether something came from nothing. So let’s think further back. The first long-lived matter particles of any kind were protons and neutrons, which together make up the atomic nucleus. These came into existence around one ten-thousandth of a second after the Big Bang. Before that point, there was really no material in any familiar sense of the word. But physics lets us keep on tracing the timeline backwards - to physical processes which predate any stable matter. This takes us to the so-called “grand unified epoch.” By now, we are well into the realm of speculative physics, as we can’t produce enough energy in our experiments to probe the sort of processes that were going on at the time. But a plausible hypothesis is that the physical world was made up of a soup of short-lived elementary particles - including quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons. There was both matter and “antimatter” in roughly equal quantities: each type of matter particle, such as the quark, has an antimatter “mirror image” companion, which is near identical to itself, differing only in one aspect. However, matter and antimatter annihilate in a flash of energy when they meet, meaning these particles were constantly created and destroyed. But how did these particles come to exist in the first place? Quantum field theory tells us that even a vacuum, supposedly corresponding to empty spacetime, is full of physical activity in the form of energy fluctuations. These fluctuations can give rise to particles popping out, only to be disappear shortly after. This may sound like a mathematical quirk rather than real physics, but such particles have been spotted in countless experiments. The spacetime vacuum state is seething with particles constantly being created and destroyed, apparently “out of nothing”. But perhaps all this really tells us is that the quantum vacuum is (despite its name) a something rather than a nothing. The philosopher David Albert has memorably criticized accounts of the Big Bang which promise to get something from nothing in this way. Suppose we ask: where did spacetime itself arise from? Then we can go on turning the clock yet further back, into the truly ancient “Planck epoch” - a period so early in the universe’s history that our best theories of physics break down. This era occurred only one ten-millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. At this point, space and time themselves became subject to quantum fluctuations. Physicists ordinarily work separately with quantum mechanics, which rules the microworld of particles, and with general relativity, which applies on large, cosmic scales. But to truly understand the Planck epoch, we need a complete theory of quantum gravity, merging the two. We still don’t have a perfect theory of quantum gravity, but there are attempts - like string theory and loop quantum gravity. In these attempts, ordinary space and time are typically seen as emergent, like the waves on the surface of a deep ocean. What we experience as space and time are the product of quantum processes operating at a deeper, microscopic level - processes that don’t make much sense to us as creatures rooted in the macroscopic world. In the Planck epoch, our ordinary understanding of space and time breaks down, so we can’t any longer rely on our ordinary understanding of cause and effect either. Despite this, all candidate theories of quantum gravity describe something physical that was going on in the Planck epoch - some quantum precursor of ordinary space and time. But where did that come from? Even if causality no longer applies in any ordinary fashion, it might still be possible to explain one component of the Planck-epoch universe in terms of another. Unfortunately, by now even our best physics fails completely to provide answers. Until we make further progress towards a “theory of everything”, we won’t be able to give any definitive answer. The most we can say with confidence at this stage is that physics has so far found no confirmed instances of something arising from nothing.

Humans learn by observation. We discover knowledge. Laws are a shorthand explanation of our observations.

Paul should take Plato' "Forms" and Carl Jung's ideas on the Collective Unconscious and Archetypes a little more seriously. Like so many mathematical theorists these days he sounds, to my way if thinking, unconvincing, He should read "Flatland" again.

How do the constants of nature relate to the laws of nature? (Kuhn's question to Davies @ 3:33s, ) My answer is that they are re-created over and over again in this moment of 'time'. However, not significantly evolving or devolving from the past or into the future that was put into possibility by Davies..... Considering we are assuming 'mathematics' and the 'constants and laws of nature' are "true and absolute" to make these suggestions of fundamental significance in the first place, I find this possibility a little underweighted compared to the weight of life that can consciously sense all of these relationships because of the stability and our dependability of the constants and laws of nature, over and in this moment of "time". where the current prediction IS from the extrapolation of the mathematics , constants and laws of nature has been back to the origin of space-time and matter, at the breaking of symmetry from its predecessor, supersymmetry, currently termed the Big Bang. Great discussion!!

Another example of such interconnection of laws is between gravity and electrostatic force...they even have the same formula (F=gm1m2/r^2, F=kq1q2/r^2). But somehow they do not understand that gravity is an electric generated force (and only link it to mass, as an inherent property of mass). But it is, just watch how an electrostatic field generates something very similar if not identical to gravitational attraction on a crt screen for example, which attracts dust to it. Or how a static charged baloon can attract water and create a tide when you move it over a filled sink...just like the moon does with the sea. But its not the moons weight alone which attracts the sea, its its electrostatic charge generated by its internal friction of masses...just like the earths gravity is generated by its internal friction of masses. The earth is not one solid block of mass, its a collection of many spinning masses (such as magma and tectonic plates) which create a huge amount of friction and electrostatic charge, which is what we perceive as "gravity". But if the moon/earth would stand still and not spin at all, it would have no gravity at all. And there would be no attraction whatsoever between them, or any other objects. If the earth would stand still, we would float above it because its spinning core would not create friction and static charge anymore. So Newtons law is not complete on its own and in fact its dead wrong on its own because 2 masses alone do not attract just because they have...mass (this is easily provable by putting a cannonball and a tiny 1 mm ball near each other; they do NOT attract, unless there is a static or magnetic charge on one). One of them has to have a static charge or to have magnetic charge in order to be attractive to the other. So Newtons law must be combined with Coulumbs law and Farraday Electro magnetic law in order to get an universal gravitation law which works everywhere in the universe.

it's kind of like that. we are centered on a single planet in a single solar system but we can postulate that parts of atoms "squeeze" in the presence of Tesla- strong fields. is it true? are we applying the rules or are we following the rules? are there "standard" forms and then we keep refining (extending the terms) until we see a pattern that can be reduced to a more general style and we keep doing this again for the new 1?

Yes Paul - as we go back in time to the big bang, the laws do become combined and simplified. The first and all inclusive law is "and God said let there be...:

It is the consistent pressure of the dark matter of space that creates our universal constants. That is why the systems we measure 1,000s of light years away follow the same math as here. Dark matter is made of extremely pressurized electron neutrinos. It is time for these questions to finally have law abiding explanations.

what about direction, is this fully understood as we have learned that time is not completely linear in that it bends thru space.. but there doesn't seem to be any theory or physical evidence that the direction of time or expansion of space is occurring in unknown directions as opposed to past, present and future. Or out and in..In other words physics only understands the dimension that is there.. will quantum computers capable of multitudes of abstract possibilities open us up to a newer enlightenment? Or are we stuck like Chuck??

No one can answer this question.

Big bang

So if even the "fundamental" laws seem to be changing over time, could we say that the "superlaw" is actually entropy?

The answer is to find out the truth of the beginning of everything

I think they are eternal.

School? who needs school when you have youtube to learn that the earth is a pizza? god loves pizza

All things are surrounded by, and aspects of, the 'origin'.. But the nature creates and persists eternally.. spaceandmotion

If there's a big bang, can there be a big banger?

This is a surprise? Everything changes…given enough spacetime 😉

There was a "universal law" that said that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Maybe things are different out there.

I believe that the idea that laws are simply "read out of nature" belies the fact that we have, in principle, no contact with nature except through our experience of it. Scientific laws, then, are descriptions of how our experience interacts with nature. This is simply another way of stating the egocentric predicament, viz., only through our experience (consciousness in the broad meaning of that term) can we have we any knowledge or interaction with nature. I believe that, as we continually refine ways to experience nature we will, at the same time, continue to revise and extend the "laws of nature".

The 2nd Doctor returns to explain the laws of the Universe.......

1. Something can be produced. 2. It is produced by itself, something or another. 3. Not by nothing, because nothing causes nothing. 4. Not by itself, because an effect never causes itself. 5. Therefore, by another A. 6. If A is first then we have reached the conclusion. 7. If A is not first, then we return to 2). 8. From 3) and 4), we produce another- B. The ascending series is either infinite or finite. 9. An infinite series is not possible. 10. Therefore, God exists.

Time🤔what chaos ⚡🇨🇦🇺🇸🌐

Circular reasoning is dizzying

The same origin of the laws in ones heart due to DNA. Laws require a law maker. Law is a code of of rules. Such comes from a conscious mind, not nature. The laws of nature are encoded into created reality, especially into the heart of physical nature which lies in extra dimensions at the core.

Not much established here. Love Paul Davies, though.

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⚡🎯🎯

What if the magnetude of gravity is determined by a quality of space-time, that is its ratio of flexibility to rigidness? What if the magnetude of Gravity was higher, during The Universe's infancy, that it is today? What if the quality of space-time's ratio has changed so that today it is more flexible & less rigid? -& this more flexible & less rigid quality of current space-time, emerges Lambda, The Cosmological Constant? What is expansions in The Universe are really just an emergent phenomenon of space-time's quality tending toward being more flexible & less rigid as Entropy increases & as The Universe ages?. I guess we need VERY accurate & sensible equipment that can measure gravity waves from an early pair of 2 merging Blackholes; billions of years ago. & then a civilization many years from now would need to measure gravity waves from a pair of blackholes merging, as I type this. Lastly, compare the measurements. If they don't match, find the difference & note the order of magnetude where the 2 measurements do not agree. & maybe that can offer a case in support of the magnetude of Gravity changing throughout The Universe's sustenence. *EDIT* I wrote the comment, before listening to Davies speak. I kinda paralleled what he said. & What I have stated, was just my own thoughts. Lol

That's our mistake..we are geocentric in our hardwired genome 👽😃🇨🇦

On the off chance that an all powerful eternally existent "God" doesn't exist, it's an all powerful eternally existent "Nature" that does. And a particularly brutal one at that.

Game on buddy! - A christian :)

The laws originate from the phenomena.

Stephen Hawking and the No Boundary Proposal. "I still believe the universe has a beginning in real time, at the big bang. But there's another kind of time, imaginary time, at right angles to real time, in which the universe has no beginning or end." -Stephen Hawking Black Holes and Baby Universes

edino kaj je..ali mi boste zaupali,ali pa ne..to je problem tistih ki mi ne verjamejo..vcasih je potrebno ,,samo verjeti,,in drugo ni pomebno

The programmer. Then just hit the "run" button.

The fact that we have 2 different ways of describing Gravity for example, show that science is merely a language and not unique. Newton and Einstein. They are both correct in the same way that English and French are valid ways of describing reality. If science is merely a language then there has to be a blueprint of reality living in a higher plain.

🎯🎯😃

Ok, but what about the ORIGIN?

Speculation scientist

The laws of nature are descriptions of natural processes, observed and communicated by people who then claim they're more than natural processes due to logical fallacies and cognitive dissonance.

Wholly😃🇨🇦

A message from God in the form of a simple equation, Inre, is a Legal reference to establishing his lore before all others, without his lore their would be no lore, Through Mathematics, we learn the word Reign Is the result of a Grand universal lore,

Fuck me..fundamental laws of physics are an invention..

obviously there are no perfect laws out there lol -- the laws themselves have evolved.

When the Catholic priest Georges Lemaître created the Big Bang theory, it followed that the Big Bang theory would be enmeshed with the idea that the universe was created by a god, as Stephen Hawking learned when he visited the pope. ... "In 1985, I attended a conference on cosmology at the Vatican in Rome. The gathering of scientists had an audience with Pope John Paul II. He told us that it was okay to study the workings of the universe, but we should not ask questions about its origin, for that was the work of God." Stephen Hawking

Well this didn't age well...

So he's telling me " Nature" wrote these laws? Where did these laws come from. Nothing just happens. Where did these laws come from. Oh I know the Easter Bunny wrote these laws and, of course developed them.

Axioms take millennia 👽⚡

🙏💪💪💪💕

William Lane Craig gives this argument in the following general form: 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2. The Universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause.

*"What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?" Stephen Hawking*

When the amount of elementary particles falling on the head from space is 100 When the amount of elementary particles penetrating from the Brazilian side of the earth to your feet is 80 This difference 20 becomes gravity.

"Laws of nature" are made up by men and, while they may be a guide to understanding they are artificial. It is the greatest hubris of Western philosophy to think that man is so pivotal to the universe that it can make the laws of nature or that somehow the entirety of the universe is "fine tuned" just for us.

😂😂🇨🇦

Xi Jinping, of course.

Everything in the end of the end ( in general ) "moves" in the direction of the least "resistance". That's all. There's no beginning and no end, no Big Bang, no Black Holes, no universal attractive so-called "gravity" ( universally it is repulsive ) , etc. I am amazed at how easy some humans repeat stupidities like perfect parrots without thinking a bit more than the logical trap created by the erroneous clever cliches of many present theories so-called "scientific".

The super-law is Karma.

Laws of nature he suggested math model true. Problem man brains dont knows nature or brains. God arent mind man.

I love it people are trying to figure out who they are 😂 it's similar to trying to see the back of your own head with your own eyes ... you can use a mirror but it's just not the same is it? We use people as our mirrors to see what we can't see with our own eyes.

The universe is like an intelligent entity with awareness. The problem is how to define nature? Nature makes the laws but we can't really comprehend it!

Because the fundamental properties of the universe is infinite, we have a constant. From that constant we create a laws on physics.

This series balances out some of my other RU-vid interests

I am not convinced that one can explain the nature of laws of nature in terms of the 'cosmic computer' running a program, since running programs requires there already be laws in place. In other words, one cannot say that laws depend on running programs because running programs already depends on laws. Davies just seems to be putting the cart hopelessly before the horse and not noticing.