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Unmasking the Laws of Nature
How close are we to truly understanding the universe that we inhabit?
Does nature exist apart from our idea of it? For as long as we have been using the word “nature,” we have assumed that there is a certain order to things, that immutable laws rule the universe. Logic dictates that a Supreme Being once created those laws, or that they have always existed. Either way, nature is its laws. Nature with a capital “N” that is — nature as a recognizable fabric, as an indivisible whole. But all this is highly speculative. Nature, defined even in this the simplest of terms, still remains a profound assumption embraced by religious and secular minds alike.
Who’s to say that chaos doesn’t rule the universe? How can we be sure that what we call nature isn’t an illusion?
Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation not only marked the final triumph of Copernican’s sun-centered worldview over ancient and medieval fallacies, it ushered in a whole new way of thinking, predicated upon the belief that all nature operates according to unvarying mathematical laws. The Age of Enlightenment began with this fundamental concept. With the acceptance of Newton’s gravitational law, scientific method emerged in the late 17h Century as the best possible way to solve problems and promote technological innovation. And today it remains the dominant paradigm.
