DYNAMIC MODAL-STRUCTURAL REALISM: NOMIC NECESSITY AS A CONDITION FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF DETERMINATE DYNAMICS
E.V. Zimina
Independent researcher, Moscow, Russia
Keywords: laws of nature, nomic necessity, structural realism, dynamics, counterfactuals, invariants, renormalization group, conservation laws, symmetry, physical theories
Abstract
The paper defends the thesis that nomic necessity cannot be adequately interpreted either as a regularity of fact distribution, or a primitive metaphysical fact, or a derivative of dispositional entities. A dynamic reconstruction of structural realism is proposed, in which the fundamental structure is the ordered pair 〈S, T 〉 where S is the set of ontological states, and T is the geometrically organized structure of admissible transitions between them. It is argued that the very determinacy of physical dynamics logically presupposes the existence of such a structure. The laws of nature are interpreted as expressions of the invariance of T , and nomic necessity as an internal property of its geometry. It is shown that without recognizing the accessibility structure, it is impossible to explain the counterfactual force of laws, the stability of symmetries, and the scale universality of physical theories. The proposed position formulates a modal-dynamic version of ontic structural realism and offers an alternative to Humean and primitivist theories of the laws of nature. The issues of ontological identity of objects, emergence, and the arrow of time will be addressed in a separate paper.
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