Subject: Actually it's potential
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 19:17:16 -0700


Viren asks:

>Would Bhaskar say that we experience laws? Does the scientist >experience a 
>law when he is doing an experiment?

I would say no we do not experience laws directly.  Bhaskar argues that laws 
are the tendencies that reside in objects.  They are mere potentialities.  
We only experience events that are the actualizations of these tendencies.  
It is the inability to observe the laws directly that forces the scientist 
to construct the experiment to try to get the laws to actualize in a way 
that the scientist can understand and then use them.  Hence, during the 
experiment the scientist is not experiencing the law itself.  Rather, the 
scientist is experiencing the actaulization of the laws in a controlled and 
artificial environment that makes the functions of the laws more apparent.

If this is true, as long as something exists even if humans do not exist, 
then there would still be scientific laws.  These laws would reside in 
whatever exists and govern its behavior.

P.S. Why is there something rather than nothing?

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