Since you challenge me to make a positive contribution on this site @gbrooks9, I offer the following thoughts and point of view:
It is generally understood that what we regard as laws of nature include outcomes to the human senses (and to reason) from nature’s activities, or phenomena - these responses may be quantified by observation and hypothesis and tend to suggest an instrumentalist attribute of a human being in a world of objects. I would argue against instrumentalism, but I believe a non-passionate view, or a sensible one, as an indifferent response to nature, is reasonable. Observations of nature and hypothesis by scientists are activities of a reasoning human being and cannot be law-of-nature; in that a human being measures, weighs, calculates etc., the human being is ‘active’ in thinking and measuring, and thus his activities are within nature. In this way, it is difficult to differentiate between activities of a human being and those of an object; all consist of activity of matter in time and space, (in motion or in a dynamic state) and thus considered explicable via the scientific method. It is thus erroneous to believe that we humans are able to bring a law into existence when providing a theory, a hypothesis, or a formulation. The difficulty faced by us is that of differentiating between ourselves as reasoning beings, and the objects of our inquiry - since both appear to be in the world. However, the subject-object or ‘both are in the world’, arises from a human being, not from the world. This actualises into language activity, which leads to a differentiation between the world of phenomenon/ dynamics and that of human reality - although it may be reasoned that both are activities and thus explicable in time and space by the scientific method.
If nature’s laws are known, a person’s actions and anticipated consequences should be explicable, but may not necessarily be changed simply through choice. The dynamics of any natural system would be the same whether these were, or were not, understood – even if one were to think to conform to such dynamics. Science attempts to provide explanations or descriptions believed to encompass the universe. A ‘law’ as something that may be considered as arising from reason applied to an object is unnecessary. It may appear, however, that ‘mega-knowledge’ is sought to enable a human being to attain to a complete understanding of the phenomena and its objects, and this may provide an intellectual perception, or inference, that objects behave according to some principle; or, objects are required to be as they are by a ‘something in their being-ness’. This search for an explanation of everything, or a universal, arises from a human being’s intellectual questioning and doubting. A scientific law is an articulation, or combination, of words and symbols, to provide meaning of the world of objects to human beings. It is unnecessary to argue that a law is present (or it has been added by the human being to the universe) to ensure the universe is what it is. We may reason that the universe is ‘lawful’ because it continues to be what it is, and also we may conclude that there is a finality, or that we may ‘finally’ or ‘completely’ understand it; we may also seek comfort from an ideal, suggesting that the universe and our understanding of it may become one and the same, or everything will finally be totally reasonable. The essential question in natural studies is therefore the intelligibility of nature – how is it that human reason and intellect can access natural phenomena and natures ultimate realities? One response to this question is the attribute often termed ‘image of God’ to humanity.
It has been suggested we may see the ‘mind of God’ in the universe, but the discussion on the meaning of the word God negates such a view. The impact of the vast universe on the human senses, however, may be overwhelming, as we seek to understand its beginning and end. The universe does ‘talk’ to us of God (in its silence). This is shown in Psalms 19:1-14. The writer of this psalm shows us that it is the law of God that he understands, and through the law of God, he hopes to be free from error and those that indulge in error. The universe cannot reveal God. Our senses may be influenced by the silence, and our reason may comprehend the glory of God that the heaven declares. In this way we may understand beauty without feeling we have ‘invented’ it. In this silence, we do not listen to our own feverish mind constantly trying to explain to ourselves all that our senses may respond. Rather, the glory of God proclaimed by the silent beauty may lead us to wish we could share, and be a part of, such splendour. The Universe in all its splendour points to its Creator’s Glory, and similarly to the beauty that is found in the Law of God.
Currently astronomy and particle physics have been popularised and discussions have dealt with the origins of the Universe. The many difficulties faced by evolutionism are at times put to one side by the notion that the Universe is anthropomorphic – i.e. a Universe evolved that was conducive to the evolution of life and human beings on earth. The origins of the Universe appear to have crystallized into the big-bang theory, although others speculate alternate notions. Generally the view has been that God is the cause of causes, or the primal cause; since no-one witnessed the event, we cannot discuss this notion as a verifiable/testable theory– but people may feel this is sufficient, since the Faith teaches us that God can do anything. It is necessary, however, to consider the scientific view point as serious and believe that scientists are interested in obtaining a good understanding of the Universe. The scientific method requires theory to be tested – in this case, tests are performed using particle accelerators to obtain data on the particles that constitute the Universe. These tests rest on theory devised by theoretical physicists and are, generally speaking, mathematical expressions that encapsulate the thinking of the theoretical physicists and leading mathematicians. It appears appropriate, to my way of thinking, to consider the language of mathematics when examining these activities. We have examined the limitations of language when considering the meaning ‘God’ and concluded that all godly attributes were singular and human language was insufficient to give full meaning to these. The Universe, however, is accessible to human sense, and it appears reasonable to assume that a language such as mathematics would be sufficient when examining the Universe. Difficulties however, stem from a human assumption, in that the origin of the Universe may also be considered as a singular event; in this case physicists cannot dealt with such an event using the laws of physics; i.e. they contemplate notions in which the laws of physics may not apply. Indeed, notions such as “nothing existed” (nothingness!?) are difficult ones for science, and thus it may be inappropriate for science to think it can define a beginning per se.
Quantum mechanics and quantum physics generally commence with an equation that describes the energy of a system as a wave. Once again, we commence with a system – not a beginning. However, these comments point to difficulties that human being must of necessity experience when considering such questions, because we are ‘in the world’, and in this case, we cannot be ‘above the world’ and position ourselves in a privileged position (transcend the Universe) to analyse beginnings and ends of the totality of all that can be know. The scientific method does enable us, however, to examine physical reality in the Universe and dispassionately draw conclusions from our observations. If physicists conclude the wave equation may be expressed as the sum of the forces in the Universe and these are measured in some way, then in theory such an activity conforms to the scientific method. If astronomers observe galaxies that provide light that has travelled for an enormous amount of time, than this too is reasonable. However, if scientists perform mathematical calculations and conclude that these observations lead to errors that are so large that under ordinary circumstances such results would be rejected as unacceptable according to the scientific method (e.g. cannot account for 94% of the calculated Universe) than such activities must be considered speculative. Otherwise, we have the situation found so repugnant to scientists, in that irrational dogma replaces reason. These scant remarks serve to indicate that the phrase ‘laws of nature’ is understood within (and thus confined to) the physical sciences.