Star Wars and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy Series) - Kevin Decker [73]
Laws of nature are general descriptions of how all matter behaves all over the universe whether we observe it or not. But how are such laws ever justifiable? How are we to justify a claim about how all matter must behave all over the universe at all times? We can’t—at least not by observation. So is there an argument to show that there are laws of nature?
Well, we might argue that since the suns of Tatooine have always risen and set in the same way everyday, and they seem to be behaving in their typical way now, it’s reasonable to infer that they will continue to do so in the future because there is a law of nature guiding their motion. But, Hume points out, this argument only works if we have reasons for thinking that past regularity is evidence of future regularity. There are lots of things that were true in the past, and are true now, but will not be in the future; that’s why people buy insurance. In The Empire Strikes Back, it might have been true to say that Darth Vader had always obeyed the Emperor, and is now obeying the Emperor. But can we infer that he will always obey the Emperor in the future? Not unless tossing him down the second Death Star’s reactor shaft counts as obedience! 100
The only way to justify our belief that the future will resemble the past, such that things that were true in the past will remain true in the future, is if we had reasons for thinking that nature is orderly. But nature is orderly only if there are laws of nature. That is, past regularity is only evidence of future regularity if there are laws of nature, but this is what the conclusion of the argument is supposed to establish. This argument would be circular because we can’t assume that there are laws of nature in order to prove that there are laws of nature! So, Hume concludes, there is no non-circular argument which shows us that there are laws of nature.
Failing to specify how causes and effects are correlated allows things like coincidence, magic, wishful thinking, and the Force to count as true causes. But that’s not something we can tolerate as a scientific society. It’s precisely the account of how the laws regulate events that distinguishes true causes from non-causes. But if we can’t legitimately establish that there are laws of nature, then we’re in no position to claim that these laws explain what is required to be true causes. So laws of nature can’t ground our distinction between true causes and non-causes.
In sum, while we deeply believe that there are differences between real causes and pseudo-causes, precisely articulating and justifying those differences has eluded us. What this leaves us with is experiment and probability. In our search for an account of specific cause and effect relationships we must experiment to provide reasons for thinking that the correlations we observe between specific kinds of events isn’t merely coincidental. And while we may never be absolutely certain about the truth of our conclusions, we need not embrace Han Solo’s famous words: “it’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.”
“May The Force Be with You”
This discussion doesn’t show that there are no causes or laws of nature, nor does it show that inquiry into the meaning of “causation” is fruitless. But it does seem to show that our thinking about causation isn’t yet precise enough to do the kind of work we’d like it to. Indeed, our term “cause” probably doesn’t pick out any single kind of interaction, but rather refers to a whole host of different kinds of interactions. Moreover, like causation, the Force remains a deeply mysterious concept to us; neither one is easy to define and explain, but we have no trouble recognizing them. And what’s more disconcerting is that, from how we use the term, the Force qualifies as a kind of cause, even though we remain deeply puzzled by how the Force does what it does!
What makes this distressing is that most accounts of what makes science scientific is its ability to identify and explain true causes and distinguish them from pseudo-causes such as magic or mystical powers. This