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Constraint, Empowerment, and Guidance: A Conjectural Classification of Laws of Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2002

David Hodgson
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Abstract

This paper introduces a conjecture that laws of nature may be of different kinds, in particular that there may, in addition to laws which constrain outcomes (C-laws), be laws which empower systems to direct or select outcomes (E-laws) and laws which guide systems in such selections (G-laws). The paper defends this conjecture by suggesting that it is not excluded by anything we know, is plausible, and is potentially of great explanatory power.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , July 2001 , pp. 341 - 370
Copyright
© The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2001

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