On 3/8/2014 9:53 PM, LizR wrote:
On 9 March 2014 18:51, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
On 3/8/2014 9:36 PM, LizR wrote:
On 9 March 2014 16:52, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au
<mailto:li...@hpcoders.com.au>> wrote:
Yes. See Noether's theorem, and particularly Victor Stenger's
discussion thereof, which is far better than anything I've written on
it. Brent has posted quite a bit on this.
In summary, conservation of energy is due to the time invariance of
our physical theories, which is a constraint we have chosen for our
theories. We could choose a non-time invariant theory, and such a
theory would not have an energy conservation law. It may be a rather
silly thing to do, but just like one can use Ptolemy's epicylce theory
to compute the positions of the planets, it is certainly possible.
This seems to fall foul of David Deutsch's analysis of the bleen/grue
theory (I
think it's called). That is, it's positing an unnecessary complication
apparently
simply for the sake of it. A theory with energy conserved isn't *just* a
human
choice, it's also the simplest choice available. Or at least it appears to
be.
Surely this is a constraint we normally use (Occam) ? And the simplest and
most
reasonable assumption is that that is how the universe actually works,
although
admittedly this is a metaphysical assumption.
Well sure, it seems like the simplest choice *now*, but for thirty millenia
or so
before Newton, Carnot, Gibbs, Boltzman, et al, it was *obvious* that
everything on
Earth tended to run down and come to rest, *its natural state*.
In other words, science has made progress.
Just don't get too cocky.
Brent
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