Do Physical Laws Make Things Happen?

This is one of the most thought provoking  and intractable questions I've encountered. All of my attempted solutions seem to involve magical or phenomenal  thinking. Which only seem to be an indictment  of my ability to qualify  the parameters  of the question.
Or  the properties are in fact best viewed as magical from my current  perspective.
In either case thank you for  bringing  this to my attention.

I don't think magic is involved (depending on how magic is defined), but it does leave us with at least two conclusions:

- There has to be more to reality than usually assumed under physicalism to explain the regularities of the universe.

- Any appeal to the "laws" of physics to exclude phenomenon is erroneous.

Objectively material things, no, if that is to mean that the things in physical reality are 'real'. They are not, they are props in our physical reality play where we are the authors, writers, producers, actors...and ticket takers. 

The experiences are absolutely 'real' and it is the experiences we seek and learn from. 

As to atom assemblage and other such things, try this explanation. On The Solidity Of Matter

Yes, others are doing the exact same thing as you and I by agreement, by their co-creative capabilities. We have collective agreements that allow us to go about manifesting and experiencing physical reality for instance we agree that gravity exists. Keeps us from having to worrying about flying off the planet, yes? Oxygen (breathing), walking without having to think and ponder about it, etc. etc. etc. 

Without these collective agreements, we would spend all our time screwing around with being catapulted around the universe out of control, or recording every breath, or, well, you get the picture.

OK. That fits with the understanding that I have reached through my own work. And I especially agree that the core validity of our reality is actually the experience of it. 

To explain-
When I tell people that our reality isn't actually "real", they mistakenly take my meaning as: nothing we are seeing or doing has any meaning or any importance. This is absolutely NOT true. The importance of everything is in the experience of it. 

In other words: although everything we see is NOT comprised of matter, is NOT objectively "real", the experience we are having couldn't be more real, and it has great importance. 

And even further-
The stuff we experience makes us who we are, and these experiences will be with us forever, will have formed who we are, and are the critical factor in our accumulation of knowledge and wisdom, and drive the progression of our growth-path forward to whatever it is that we will eventually become. So we should not belittle these experiences we live through by seeing them as diminished by the fact that they are not "objectively real" and/or solid. We should revere them as the boards and nails with which we build the structure of our eternal selves.

Natural laws are evidence that the physical universe is like a simulation running ... not in a physical computer but  ... in consciousness (which some call God).

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/occasionall...se_sim_god

The physical universe is like a simulation running in the mind of God.

The Physical World as a Virtual Reality by Brian Whitworth identifies many characteristics of the physical universe that seem to indicate the universe is a simulation. These characteristics include the big bang where space and time were created from nothing when the simulation was started. Quantum minima represent the smallest allowable values for computational purposes. The speed of light is limited because there is a maximum rate of processing. Non-local effects such as wave function collapse and entanglement can be explained if they are the result of calculations processed outside the simulation. Curvature of space by mass and time dilation from acceleration can be explained as processing load effects. The laws of conservation of mass, energy, charge, and spin result from the requirement of a stable simulation to conserve information. Simple mathematical natural laws, like gravity and electromagnetism, are a result of the algorithmic nature of the simulation. Quantum randomness can be simulated with a random number generator. All elementary particles are identical just as if they were defined by data structures in a computer program.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf

The youtube video Digital Physics Argument for God's Existence explains that the best explanation for the simulator is that it is a mind. Quantum phenomena show that a mind is required for matter to exist. But a mind does not require matter for its existence so only mind can exist outside the simulation. The mind in which our universe exists would be God by definition. The video also points out that like a computer simulation, quantum mechanics indicates that the parts of the universe that are observed are the only parts that are actually instantiated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Xsp4FRgas

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Xsp4FRgas [/video]

The Simulation Hypothesis is another video on this subject:
https://vimeo.com/126833477

I think the physical laws are no more than our brains trying to put borders and boundaries onto an infinite blur of information.  I find it interesting that most people who believe that the universe is essentially chaotic and was produced randomly also believe it is governed by laws.

Its not governed by laws. Laws are descriptions of how the universe is observed to function.

I think the physical laws are no more than our brains trying to put borders and boundaries onto an infinite blur of information.  I find it interesting that most people who believe that the universe is essentially chaotic and was produced randomly also believe it is governed by laws.

I agree it's an interesting conundrum as the assumption the laws were not fixed or even just different at the starting point of the universe leads us to wonder "Why don't the Laws change now?"

What holds these particular mere regularities - for that is what they truly are - in place?

Pssst Wrote: [url=http://psiencequest.net/forums/post-2985.html#pid2985][/url]We have collective agreements that allow us to go about manifesting and experiencing physical reality for instance we agree that gravity exists. Keeps us from having to worrying about flying off the planet, yes?

Gravity is a lot more interesting than that.

Ultimately, gravity is an exchange of information.

I don't know gravity is. I was just stating that it was more interesting than some agreement which keeps us from worrying about flying off the planet.

Try this on.

All That Is, whatever you wish to call It, has its own signature vibration, the frequency that represents the oneness of All That Is,
all things together. And we might wish to label that, for the purposes of this illustration, as the Prime Resonance.

Gravity can be understood as the tendency of all things to match the frequency of the Prime Resonance, to gravitate toward that frequency, to gravitate toward the idea of becoming one with All That Is, to be attracted to the Oneness, to join together, to integrate, to merge as closely as is possible for discrete objects. For each object has its own vibration, its own signature frequency by which you can recognize it, its own vibration and resonance that defines every object. But the tendency of every object is to gravitate towards the Prime frequency, and thus, this is represented or illustrated or demonstrated by the gravitic attraction toward all things.

In understanding this you can also know that movement, all movement whether it be the idea of the movement you consider to be normal, moving from place to place, or levitation or teleportation, the instantaneous apparent movement of one place to another without intervening travel, all these are the product of manipulations of the vibrations of discrete objects, so that they are made to be more or less in their tendency to gravitate toward or away from the Prime Resonance of All That Is. In getting them to move away from that frequency, you will get them to move away from anything that represents that attraction, such as mass, a planet, a star, what have you. By increasing that frequency toward the Prime Resonance it will move toward that mass, the planet, the star, what have you.

Fundamentally this is All That Is increasing its harmonic resonance with the Prime Resonance of the Infinite, of the Creation, of the One.