On seeing the laws of nature as a recipe or a news report
Why Read This
What Makes This Article Worth Your Time
Summary
What This Article Is About
Philosopher Mario Hubert examines three competing metaphysical models for how laws of nature work. The layer-cake model, descended from Descartes and Newton, treats laws as primitive entities that produce the future from the present—you take the universe’s current state, apply the laws, and determine what comes next. However, challenges from Einstein’s general relativity, Lagrangian formulation, and retrocausal quantum mechanics suggest nature doesn’t always follow this recipe-like structure.
The newspaper model (Humeanism), championed by David Lewis, rejects the production metaphor entirely: laws merely describe regularities that happen to occur, like newspaper reports rather than recipes. This metaphysically thin approach avoids mysterious connections but requires accepting as brute fact that nature displays uniform behavior. The straitjacket model, proposed by Chen, Goldstein, and Adlam, offers a middle path: laws are primitive but only constrain possibilities rather than producing futures. Hubert argues each faces profound difficulties—the layer-cake and straitjacket models can’t explain how abstract laws influence physical objects, while the newspaper model makes regularities seem coincidental—ultimately defending a modified layer-cake approach tailored to specific situations.
Key Points
Main Takeaways
Layer-Cake Model Dominance
The Cartesian-Newtonian view treats laws as primitive entities that produce future states from present ones—a recipe determining what comes next.
Counterexamples Challenge Tradition
Einstein’s general relativity, Lagrangian formulation, and retrocausal quantum models don’t fit the layer-cake structure where past produces future.
Newspaper Model Rejects Production
Humean approach treats laws as descriptive summaries of regularities, like news reports—metaphysically thin but requiring unexplained uniformity of nature.
Straitjacket Model as Compromise
Laws are primitive but merely constrain possibilities rather than producing outcomes—combining generality with metaphysical grounding but still facing influence problems.
Abstract Laws and Physical Objects
Central puzzle: how can laws as abstract entities influence concrete physical objects without being located in space and time themselves?
Modified Layer-Cake Preferred
Hubert advocates keeping the layer-cake model where it works and developing tailored accounts for exceptional cases like retrocausality.
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Article Analysis
Breaking Down the Elements
Main Idea
Metaphysical Models Face Trade-offs
The article’s central thesis is that no existing metaphysical model adequately explains how laws of nature work: the layer-cake model provides intuitive explanatory power but can’t account for how abstract laws influence physical reality or accommodate retrocausality; the newspaper model avoids metaphysical mysteries but makes regularities seem coincidental; the straitjacket model offers generality but inherits the layer-cake’s influence problem. This matters because the question isn’t merely academic—our understanding of fundamental physics depends on clarifying whether laws produce, describe, or constrain reality.
Purpose
Evaluative Survey with Advocacy
Hubert aims to make accessible three sophisticated philosophical positions on laws of nature, explain why modern physics creates problems for the dominant layer-cake view, critically evaluate each model’s strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately advocate for a pragmatic approach: retaining the layer-cake model where applicable while developing separate accounts for exceptional cases. The piece functions as both philosophical introduction and argument for methodological pluralism rather than seeking a single overarching metaphysical framework.
Structure
Intuition → Layer-Cake → Challenges → Alternatives → Comparative Evaluation
The essay opens with everyday intuitions about natural regularities, introduces the layer-cake model as the default view inherited from Descartes and Newton, presents challenges from general relativity and retrocausality, explains the newspaper model’s Humean alternative and straitjacket model’s compromise position, and concludes with comparative evaluation arguing each faces fundamental difficulties. The structure moves from familiar phenomena to increasingly abstract metaphysical analysis before returning to practical implications for physics.
Tone
Accessible, Analytical & Cautiously Opinionated
Hubert adopts an accessible explanatory tone when introducing concepts through everyday examples (boiling water, billiard balls), becomes analytically rigorous when parsing metaphysical distinctions between production and constraint, maintains fairness when presenting alternatives to his preferred view, and shifts to cautiously opinionated when advocating for the modified layer-cake approach. The piece balances philosophical precision with readability, using vivid metaphors (recipe, newspaper, straitjacket) to make abstract positions concrete without oversimplifying their complexities.
Key Terms
Vocabulary from the Article
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Tough Words
Challenging Vocabulary
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Makes something clear or easy to understand by explaining it in detail; clarifies or illuminates.
“We assume that science not only provides these laws but also elucidates their structure and metaphysical status.”
To agree with, match, or be compatible with something; to accord or conform.
“They specifically search for solutions to the Einstein field equations that comport with the layer-cake model.”
In science, features or results that are products of the method or model used rather than genuine aspects of reality.
“They rule out solutions that do not comport with the model as ‘unphysical’—as artefacts of the mathematics.”
To make less severe, serious, or painful; to lessen the force or intensity of something harmful.
“In order to mitigate this problem of how electrons are able to obey the laws, another conception of laws was proposed.”
A recollection or memory; something that serves to bring to mind or suggest something similar.
“This has been dubbed Humeanism about laws, in reminiscence of David Hume.”
A condition, requirement, or specification that is demanded or insisted upon; something laid down as a necessary condition.
“Maudlin adds a third feature: the stipulation of a primitive flow of time independent from the laws.”
Reading Comprehension
Test Your Understanding
5 questions covering different RC question types
1According to the article, the Lagrangian formulation of classical mechanics is considered metaphysically accurate by most scientists.
2What is the primary metaphysical problem facing the layer-cake model?
3Which sentence best captures the newspaper model’s approach to explaining natural regularities?
4Evaluate the following statements about the straitjacket model:
The straitjacket model was developed to accommodate retrocausal laws and special relativity that don’t fit the layer-cake structure.
The straitjacket model successfully explains how laws constrain physical objects, solving the metaphysical problems of the layer-cake model.
The straitjacket model combines advantages from both the newspaper and layer-cake models by providing generality and a reason for stable behavior.
Select True or False for all three statements, then click “Check Answers”
5What can be inferred about Hubert’s ultimate position on metaphysical models of laws?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Hume argued that when billiard ball A hits billiard ball B, we cannot directly observe the causal connection that binds A’s motion to B’s response—we only observe constant conjunction, not the binding itself. This epistemic conclusion (we can’t observe causation) became ontological in Lewis’s hands: laws don’t produce anything, they merely describe regularities. The newspaper model thus treats Hume’s limitation on what we can know as a truth about what exists. However, this creates the challenge of explaining why regularities persist without any causal glue holding them together, requiring acceptance of nature’s uniformity as brute fact.
Most solutions to Einstein field equations yield spacetime structures incompatible with the layer-cake model’s assumption that present states produce future ones. When faced with this challenge, physicists specifically search for solutions that do comport with the layer-cake model and dismiss non-conforming solutions as mathematical artifacts rather than genuine descriptions of reality. Hubert notes ‘there are good reasons for doing this’ in general relativity’s case, but this practice reveals scientists’ deep commitment to the layer-cake framework—they prefer solutions matching their metaphysical preconceptions rather than letting the mathematics itself determine physical interpretation.
Epistemic claims concern what we can know or observe, while ontological claims concern what actually exists. This distinction is crucial for understanding the newspaper model’s development. Hume’s original position was epistemic: we cannot observe causal binding between events. Lewis transformed this into an ontological claim: causal binding doesn’t exist—laws merely describe regularities. This move from ‘we can’t know about X’ to ‘X doesn’t exist’ represents a significant philosophical step, trading one kind of mystery (how we know about causation) for a different one (why regularities persist without causal connections).
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This article is rated as Advanced level. It requires facility with abstract philosophical reasoning, ability to track three competing metaphysical frameworks while understanding their respective strengths and weaknesses, comfort navigating between everyday examples and technical philosophical vocabulary, and capacity to grasp how mathematical formulations relate to metaphysical commitments. Readers must synthesize concepts from philosophy of science, fundamental physics, and metaphysics while following extended arguments about causation, determinism, and the nature of abstract versus concrete entities. The piece demands tolerance for unresolved questions—Hubert presents each model’s problems without claiming any provides fully satisfactory answers.
The layer-cake model requires a ‘primitive flow of time’ where present states produce future ones, which depends on an absolute notion of simultaneity—a universal ‘now’ across space. Special relativity undermines this by showing that simultaneity is relative to reference frames: events simultaneous in one frame occur at different times in another. Without absolute simultaneity, the layer-cake’s picture of a universal present state producing a universal future state breaks down. This is why Hubert notes special relativity laws ‘do not fit the layer-cake model’—they’re fundamentally incompatible with the temporal structure the model requires.
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