Are Laws of Physics Real?

 An interesting article in New Scientist by theoretical physicist Sankar Das Sarma considered the issue about laws of science as an obsolete notion. In a way this is a position written with good information yet with one significant categorical error in regard to language. Laws are verbal constructions and linguistic paradigms as are all information put into words. Kripke’s Naming and Necessity considered that paradigm in depth. Even Saul Kripke didn’t support unlimited Platonic realism for word meanings. With W.V.O. Quine he had a temporal, nominal element to his word meaning universes or ontology.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2349359-why-the-laws-of-physics-dont-actually-exist/

Dr. Sarma writes about physical laws of this Universe and theoretically for string theory’s virtual infinite number of Universes called a Multiverse being different for each. The Schrodinger equation explains quantum collapse into three-dimensional space. High Everett’s alternative explanation has an infinite number of Universes existing so waveform collapse equation isn’t required. Laws rather than being universal explanations for quantum mechanics or mass-energy behavior are local to particular, given regions functioning in a given way consistently. If differing regions surrounding a physical ontology interact with it one would think there would be some sort of differential engine or integral engine translating the interaction of the various, different areas of physical laws in some way. Alternatively grand chaos clashes of inconsistent systems of universal laws would be ongoing events.

I believe Dr. Sarma may mean that there isn't one set of universal physical laws that govern every possible universe. That does not mean however than the physical laws or consistent behaviors don't exist in the Universe humanity presently lives in. The laws of the Universe do not exist just in one's mind; they exist throughout the region we regard as universe 1 (our human universe even if shared by aliens somewhere).

 I would think that Einstein’s relativity theories opened the door to a plethora of Everettian quantum field Universe theoretical structures via inspiration. If infinity is found in the  number of physical universes of a Metaverse, the universes with similar physical laws may be infinite too rather than all being equal. There could be an infinite number of universes that are similar and different in a grand example of Cantor’s trans-finite numbers and sets actualized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FH-q0I1fJY

Laws though are language paradigms. If no language besides that of God is ultimately immutable that is what one might expect of laws of physics too. One might not expect that the laws implicitly operating within a universe should continue before or after the existence of a universe any more than one should expect the combination to a safe to exist before or after it existed (one could be a Platonic realist and believe the combination lasts forever even after the safe itself no longer exists).

Physical laws though cannot be made ‘absolute’; they work while they work. Physical laws are recurrent behavior of things like the structure of quanta and how they can form valid, stable orbits with an implicit, consistent logic to those structures. That is, some forms are permissible for quanta and others not; that could be said to be a physical law. Perhaps logic could be said to be a ‘law’ that could outlast a universe and be universal or Metaverse yet logical systems exist in numerous forms too instead of in just one like Aristotelian logic.

I am not at all persuaded that an infinite number of universes in a Multiverse could not have mathematically describable structures that are consistent for the entire Metaverse. Abridged mathematical descriptions of the structures of a Metaverse and permutations of universe laws progressively seems possible and some day may be generated by human or other intelligence.