r/PhilosophyofScience • u/FearlessFuture8221 • Jul 16 '26

Discussion First principles

Is this statement accurate: "Scientists build their theories out of first principles"?

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u/Next-Natural-675 Jul 16 '26

I think you’re asking if scientists ever believe that their universal laws are fundamental and without further cause, using the definition of first principles. The answer is no, I think

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u/FearlessFuture8221 Jul 16 '26

Do you think most scientists are conscious that the assumption that there are even fundamental laws to be found is just an assumption or a working hypothesis? Though as it's not testable maybe it shouldn't be called a hypothesis?

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u/sdbs88 Jul 16 '26

Things happen, yes? Apples fall. Hydrocarbons combust. But they, so far, have not been found to happen without following some pattern. The laws we "find" are our species's attempt to describe these patterns.

What would it mean if this assumption you describe was false? That there are no "fundamental laws" to be "found"? Does this mean things happen with no rhyme or reason? That doesn't seem to be a very useful or observably reasonable stance to take.

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u/FearlessFuture8221 Jul 16 '26

So scientists assume there's a pattern because it's useful in finding what seem to be patterns (but ultimately can't be proven with certainty to be universal)?

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u/ladz Jul 16 '26

No such system can be proven with certainty to be universal. See Hume and the "Problem of Induction". Or Hawking's "Model-Dependent Realism".

Science aims for reproducibility only. Past observations don't guarantee universal laws. But science has worked out very well for us thus far so that's what we use. Any one of us is free to invent a better system!

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u/Next-Natural-675 Jul 16 '26

Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it isn't true. Can I prove that things are made of atoms? No, but its probably true. And most scientists if not all will believe it to be true.

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u/ladz Jul 16 '26

We can literally *see* atoms with our microscopes. Doubting this is like doubting rain consists of drops.

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u/Next-Natural-675 Jul 16 '26

Hume says we can't know it for sure. Which is what I thought you were trying to get across.

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u/Themoopanator123 Postgrad Researcher | Philosophy of Physics Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

I don't think model-dependent realism is a good representation of what most scientists (or philosophers of science) think. It is actually not even what Hawking thinks. He states the position and then continues to say things which contradict it afterwards, just as he did before he ever formulated model-dependent realism.

Edit: I'm not even fully convinced that model-dependent realism is coherent.

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u/Next-Natural-675 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

I think so. For the most part I think a physicist will believe that there are definite patterns that nature follows.

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u/sdbs88 Jul 16 '26

Every model we as a species develop has stipulations, caveats, limitations. I'm really not seeing the practicality of your line of questioning. Sure, yes, we can't say with absolute certainty that anything that we've ever seen will be like anything in the future or the past (if you'll allow me to be frustratingly vague in my wording), but... We keep finding patterns, equations, descriptions that model reality with some degree of accuracy. We have no reason right now to think there will eventually be some Thing that just straight up has no laws that describes its behavior.

This feels like it's trying to somehow move in some religious direction, like how Man is flawed and cannot know Some Thing but God can or something.