What if the natural universe works the way it does because of a set of programmed... Yeah... My brain's getting into a fuckfest, all right. I believe in the the laws of physics, I just want to say that, before someone labels me as a purist ID-er. I'm just not really sure how the way X reacts with Y for Z to happen originally came to be. How did the universe settle upon this bundle of constants as its backbone for operating? How did such order come from possible chaos? Were the Laws of Physics around before the universe was?
I really shouldn't be asking all this. I bet it's making me sound like a RR blowhard or something.
No, not at all. As Deimos (and you) said, it actually can be a pretty big mind-fuck. But sometimes, we as humans try to make things seem harder than they really are. I'm no physicist, and I certainly couldn't begin to understand the equations that physicists work with. However, I do understand, or least think I do, that the term "Laws of Physics" is very much misunderstood.
We tend to think of laws as something that we are made to do, such as speed limits, laws against breaking and entering, etc. We connect laws as something that can be broken and that the laws, no matter how much sense they make or how much they need to be followed, are still man-made constructs. And as we've seen through-out history, some laws become obsolete or need to be changed due to changes in societal acceptance.
The laws of physics, on the other hand, are simply our observations of how objects and forces do act in relation to themselves and each other. A simple way to think of it is this: why does mixing blue and yellow make green? No matter how you mix it, those two base colors will always make some shade of green. You will never get another color unless a third color is introduced. So why do they produce green? The simplest answer, while not scientific is, they just do. Of course there is a scientific reason behind it, but when it is all boiled down, it gets back to the fact that blue and yellow has to make green. It is an observation that has been proven and repeats itself every time it is attempted. Painters and artists rely on it. Did God make those two colors produce green? Well, that's a possibility I suppose, but that possibility isn't necessary when viewed from the aspect of it being a naturally occurring phenomenon. Unlike human laws (or even God's "laws", for that matter) that can be broken and changed, the "laws" of physics are inflexible and unchangeable, and as hard as some may try, have so far been unbreakable.
You also asked if the laws of physics was around before the universe began. Well, that's the real brain-fuck. Cosmologists and physicists have theorized that it is possible that multiple universes exist concurrently, that the laws of physics could be different in each one, and that those physical laws were created at the moment each universe sprang into existence. Just think about that one for a moment.
But as for
this universe, no "decision" was made as to what the laws of physics would be. The events occurred and objects interacted the way they did because physics were set shortly after the big bang during the early expansion of the universe. As blue and yellow make green, X reacting with Y causing Z to happen simply has to be. Their physical properties demand it.
