Jason Kay (University of Pittsburgh)
Humeans in metaphysics have two main desiderata for a theory of laws of nature. They want the laws to be a function of facts about the distribution of fundamental physical properties. They also want the laws to be epistemically accessible to science unaided by metaphysical theorizing. The most sophisticated attempt to realize this vision is the Best Systems Account (BSA), which claims that the laws are the generalizations which conjointly summarize the world as simply and exhaustively as possible. But the BSA faces the threat of so-called 'trivial systems' which, while simple and strong, intuitively are not the sort of thing which can be laws. Imagine a system that introduces an extremely informative predicate which contains all the facts about nature. Call the predicate 'F.' This gerrymandered predicate allows us to create a system containing the single sentence 'everything is F,' which describes the universe both exhaustively and extremely simply.
Lewis rules out predicates like 'F' by arguing that only predicates expressing natural properties are fit to feature in the laws of nature. However, many Humeans since Lewis have rejected the existence of natural properties for their epistemic inaccessibility and ontological profligacy. In this paper I examine two recent attempts to address the Trivial Systems objection without natural properties and argue that they face serious difficulties. Cohen & Callendar concede that trivial systems will win the competition for in some cases, yet since they won't be the best system relative to the kinds we care about, this is not a problem. In essence, we are justified in preferring non-trivial systems because they organize the world into kinds that matter to us. I argue that this response fails for two reasons. First, if laws are the generalizations which best systematize the stuff we care about, this makes the laws of nature unacceptably interest relative. And second, doesn't the trivial system F also tell us about the stuff we care about? It also tells us about much, much more, but can it be faulted for this?
Eddon & Meacham introduce the notion of 'salience' and claim that a system's overall quality should be determined by its salience along with its simplicity and strength. Since a system is salient to the extent that it is unified, useful, and explanatory, trivial systems score very low in this regard and thus will be judged poorly. I argue that it's not clear exactly how salience is supposed to do the work Eddon & Meacham require of it. I try to implement salience considerations in three different ways and conclude that each way fails to prevent trivial systems from being the Best under some circumstances. If I am right about this, versions of the BSA which reject natural properties continue to struggle against the trivial systems objection.
