Are laws of nature actually "laws"?

Quick thought ...

Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Perhaps there are no laws "of" nature. Perhaps what we call "laws" or "relations/universalities" (to use more appropriate philosophical terms) are but mere descriptions of the universe ITSELF, just like descriptions of matter and energy.

In other words, could it be that it is an ESSENTIAL property of objects (including matter/energy/dark matter/dark energy etc.) to behave this way? Could it be that "laws" or "universalities" are but mere mental constructs? If this was indeed the case, the question "Why is gravity attractive and not repulsive?" is purely scientific and not metaphysical. It would be conceivable that other universes exist whereby matter has essential properties different from our universe's. In this sense, the questions "What is matter?" and "What laws govern matter?" would be essentially equivalent.

Let us ask ourselves the question in a different way: what if the nuclear forces were any different, such that nuclei could never form. You may say that a fundamental "law of nature" has changed. Is it not true that a change in the "law of nature" resulted in a fundamentally different void of "matter"? It may be argued, therefore, that the initial change was in the fundamental properties of nature ITSELF, and not to anything external to it. The laws of nature, in this view, ARE nature. Nature is not independent of its laws; the laws are mere descriptions of nature.

This perspective may seem trivial or perhaps even useless to some. Perhaps it is. Nonetheless, the idea that "finding a new species" and "discovering a new law of nature" are both equivalent (in terms of philosophical bearing, not practical value) is –in my opinion- a profound one.

Cheers!

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