DR PSHUPTI IS V GOOD DR- GBUAF

 More intelligent people are at a lower risk of suicide, research finds.

In fact, intelligence emerges as a generally protective factor against health problems.

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Tara Brach, Vivian Koch - Loving Kindness

Alan Watts ~ See The Beauty In Everyone

BHT LOGOUT CMPTR PRBLMS

 DTR CRSS- KRMA OR  GXE COURSE OF NATURE  ie GXE CON 

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Curiosity is a powerful way to motivate people, research finds.

It can even help people make healthier choices.

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"Don't let people pull you into their storm. Pull them into your peace."

-- Kimberly Jones

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PSY Early life stress has this worrying effect on the brain.

Stress in childhood can put you at greater risk of depression later on, research finds.

Early life stress can affect how DNA is expressed and make an organism more susceptible to stress in adult life.

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“Be kind to past versions of yourself that didn’t know the things you know now.” ~Unknown

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TRANSCENDING SUFFRNG

 ust ten minutes of mindfulness each day is effective against repetitive anxious thoughts, research reveals.

The practice can also help stop your mind from wandering.

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"You know, the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there's no such thing as the unknown -- only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood."

-- Captain James T. Kirk

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783 million people around the world are forced to survive on less than $1.90 a day

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Ring chromosome 14 syndrome, or r(14), is a rare genetic disorder. Only about 80 cases have been described since it was first reported in 1971. 

R(14) is characterized by: 

• Early onset refractory epilepsy, a seizure disorder that can be hard to control 
• Intellectual disability 
• Autism spectrum disorder 
• Characteristic facial features 
• Other health issues, including feeding difficulties 

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FILU FACE ?

 The right long saphenous vein is preferable to the left as the latter is more commonly associated with malposition in the left ascending lumbar vein leading to a risk of extravasation of PN into CSF

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SN CNMA TIGER RISING2022 X PERMISSN TO DTH AJHN B

PORTRAIT- LOOKING DOWN WITH BENEVOLENCE

 If you know what somebody wants, you know what he is like.

–W. H. Aude

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DOGERLAND 6200 BCE

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When the eyes narrow it signals that someone is discriminating, research finds.

This could mean they are angry, suspicious, aggressive or contemptuous.

#BASANTA PANCHAMI TO DOL-HOLI IS ARIVAL OF SPRING X DAFFS X ST PATRICKS DAY 

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ENTROPY MAYA IMPERMANENT- EMI 

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Live your lifeand forget your age.~ Norman Vincent Peale

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HBD MTHR 84 X COOL TATA

 

Hi Richard, I have recently become aware that my family of origin has been victimizing me my whole life in an extremely cruel, even demonic way. Even though I am an older adult now, it is still ongoing, but I am taking steps to stop the abuse, and to get on with my life. My question is this: is this the life I signed up for, or could this be payback for an evil past lifetime of my own, and how do I find out what my true purpose is for this lifetime on my own, since I do not have the financial means to consult a hypnotist or medium?

I’m sorry that’s been your experience.

I’ve been filming people accessing their life planning process for over a decade. Examples are in the film Flipside: A Journey Into the Afterlife and Hacking the Afterlife - where people can see others speaking on camera about their own life selection process.

I understand the desire to understand how or why one has chosen a difficult path and journey. I can report that based on the research, the ones who choose the more difficult path or journey are often “wiser, older” individuals who sign up for lifetimes because they know they can handle them.

When everyone is sitting around the auditorium working out the details (rough sketches) of one’s journey, someone might say “I can play that role of creepy Aunt Betty or Uncle Pete” and we agree. “Yeah, you’d be great in that role. Because if someone else played that role I might miss the lessons.”

It’s very hard to imagine someone who is abusive, difficult or problematic as someone we’ve cast in that role. I can only report that’s what people claim - through hypnotherapy, mediumship or meditation - that they chose the players in the play, and everyone is doing pretty much what they agreed to do.

However, that doesn’t mean someone has to put up with behavior - sometimes that specific behavior is so a person can “move away” or find another path. And when they find the path they’re supposed to be on (helping others, healing others) they realize that the abuser was part of the reason they left that environment to find a different path.

There’s a meditation the Tibetans use - med means measure in Latin, so measuring one’s thoughts is useful - that one imagines that everyone was their mother in a previous lifetime. It’s a bit hard to do - but as a concept it is in the research. That everyone that is consequential in our lifetime has likely been part of previous ones.

So think of that concept of motherhood - the benevolent kind. That idea that someone has been a mother, taken care of a person selflessly - and nurtured them. (I know that’s not true of everyone, but it’s a meditation, not an intervention.) Then try to generate a “field of unconditional love” with regard to that person. The idea being, even if they’re filled with anger or hate, but generating this “field of love” and aiming it at them - like a target - one can deflect the kinds of negativity towards themselves.

And doing that meditation, “the Jewel Tree of Tibet” meditation - one can let go of anger towards others. We cannot control how others behave, but we can control how we react to them. And generating a field of “unconditional love” towards someone - even pretending to - helps us, as it helps the amygdala to function better, which is the regulator of emotions.

(That’s science - has been proven in MRI studies by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin. The meditation he used was a modified version of Tonglen - a meditation on compassion and healing - but it’s the same effect. One can “cure or alleviate symptoms of depression” when doing meditation.)

So the answer is; learn to meditate.

Start by counting one’s breath to 1000 every day. In the time it takes to count to 1000, we can’t think about how others have affected us, or our reaction to them. We can only think of counting. Learn to let go of anger and fear, allow that to be a game one uses to let go of fear and anger towards others. Try some of the meditations above “Jewel Tree of Tibet” is taught by Robert Thurman, “Tonglen” is taught by Pema Chodron online for free.

We are all just walking each other home. Including Uncle Pete and Aunt Betty.

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ALL TMPA QRRL ANXTY TO BHKTI X DIL CHHOTA NA KAR DCNK X AHAM BRAHMASMI

 ALL TMPA QRRL ANXTY TO BHKTI X DIL CHHOTA NA KAR DCNK  X AHAM BRAHMASMI 

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People with unstable emotions tend to get lower scores on IQ tests, studies find.

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Being unable to understand sarcasm is an early warning sign of dementia, research finds.

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Wearing more clothing makes you look more competent, a study finds.

Something as simple as taking off a sweater is enough to make you look less competent, the researchers found.

“Ocean '' and “sea” are terms often used interchangeably, but geographers define a sea as a portion of the ocean that is partially surrounded by land. Size does not define a sea.an '' and “sea” are terms often used interchangeably, but geographers define a sea as a portion of the ocean that is partially surrounded by land. Size does not define a sea.

 

It is all a question of weeding out what you yourself like best to do, so that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number of disagreeable surprises.

–M.F.K. FISHER

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TYF- transcend your fck #######

BNKI RBBT X LV GRF INTO BHKTI TO SHIVA KRSNA X LGTB

BINKI RBBT SOFIA RIP X ONS X IN MMRY 10 GBP TO DNKY SANCTRY

Navras with lyrics

Blueberries post each meal

 Blueberries post each meal 

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BHOOMI KARMA

Parents Karma!

by Gnyana Sangha | Mar 10, 2022 | Consciousness, Expectations, Feverishness, Flow with Life, God, Karma, Karmaphalam, Land/Bhoomi, Let go, Misery, Parents, Suffering, Universe, Vedic

Question:

My parents are old and they live alone in their country and I live here in the US. I want them to come here but they do not like to live here. They are really suffering as they are old and I cannot leave my family here and go there to take care of them. How do I deal with the suffering and misery my parents are going through in this old age? At the same time, my siblings/relatives in India do not take care of them much. Please help.

 

Answer:

Everybody has their own karma that they must experience. One such karma is called Bhoomi Karma. Bhoomi means the land. You have some karma exchange with the land of USA. That is why even though you want to, you are unable to get out of here because of family and other personal responsibilities/issues.

Similarly, your parents have Bhoomi Karma to be in the country of their origin. They are unable to find peace when they come here, therefore the distance between you and them.

From your side, do your best to take care of them and visit them as much as you can. But always remember that there are certain aspects of karma that are beyond your control and you must not be feverish about being in control. Let go of ‘wanting to control’ everything in life because life does not take orders from anyone!

It is easy to let go! Spread your arms out, open your fist and let the wind of life blow at you! Leave it up to God/Universe/Consciousness and surrender your worry! Enjoy being worry free! Life has it’s own flow. Be with the flow of life rather than resisting it. By resisting, the flow is not going to go away, neither is the flow going to stop. By you resisting, you only increase your own suffering, stress and pain.

Even if the relatives do not take care of your parents, it is just the way the dynamics of karma are playing for your family. Beyond a certain point, you cannot do much! So until that point, be an impeccable son/daughter to your parents; take care of them, love them, and respect them! Do your best! After that you must learn to drop expectations that relatives, friends, and other people must also follow the same. Because your expectation is only the root cause of your suffering. Your relatives might not think like you. Let them have their freedom of thought and action.

One must practice incessantly to ‘drop this raaga for parents and the dvesha for their discomfort’. Everyone is born with his/her karma and must go through it. There is no short-cut to get yourself or anyone else out of their karmaphalam.

So you choose, whether you want to keep worrying for the rest of your life or you want to do your best and surrender to the universe?

In any case, develop the art of dropping the feverishness of being in control and finding the peace within yourself because that’s the only place it is in! Sukhi Bhava!

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K The Real Cause Of War--Cruelty To Animals--& The Solution!

When a man becomes too proud of his material position, he tries to enjoy his senses in an unrestricted way, being influenced by the modes of passion and ignorance. He is thus described as asuric, or demoniac. When people are demoniac in spirit, they are not merciful toward the poor animals. Consequently, they maintain various animal slaughterhouses. This is technically called suna, or himsa, which means the killing of living beings. In Kali-yuga, due to the increase of the modes of passion and ignorance, almost all men are asuric, or demoniac; therefore they are very much fond of eating flesh, and for this end they maintain various kinds of animal slaughterhouses. In this Age of Kali the propensity for mercy is almost nil. Consequently there is always fighting and wars between men and nations. Men do not understand that because they unrestrictedly kill so many animals, they also must be slaughtered like animals in big wars. This is very much evident in the Western countries. In the West, slaughterhouses are maintained without restriction, and therefore every fifth or tenth year there is a big war in which countless people are slaughtered even more cruelly than the animals. Sometimes during war, soldiers keep their enemies in concentration camps and kill them in very cruel ways. These are reactions brought about by unrestricted animal-killing in the slaughterhouse and by hunters in the forest. Proud, demoniac persons do not know the laws of nature, or the laws of God. Consequently, they unrestrictedly kill poor animals, not caring for them at all. In the Krsna consciousness movement, animal-killing is completely prohibited. One is not accepted as a bona fide student in this movement unless he promises to follow the four regulative principles: no animal-killing, no intoxication, no illicit sex and no gambling. This Krsna consciousness movement is the only means by which the sinful activities of men in this Kali-yuga can be counteracted.

- Srila Prabhupada’s purport to SB 4.26.5

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"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change." Stephen Hawking

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gubloc

 The Soul is Your Actual Self

 

The soul is your actual self, the one who asked this question. The body is not the real self. It is simply an aging garment that you are wearing right now until it wears out and you have to get a new one.

 

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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 Vijnana Bhairava Tantra says: “One, who is adept in listening to the unstruck sound in Anahata, (which is) uninterrupted like a rushing river, attains the supreme state of Brahman by mastery of shabdabrahman, the form of brahman as sound

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k 

let’s consider four meanings of the word ‘karma’:

1. Action: In this sense, karma refers generically to action and is contrasted with inaction, which refers to not doing anything at all. E.g. “No one can live without doing karma” (Gita 03.05).
2. The system of cosmic accountability that links actions with their results: In this sense, karma is often said to be an infallible form of universal justice that gives everyone the due results of their various actions. E.g. “No one can escape the law of karma; those who sow evil will reap evil.” 
3. Reaction: In this sense, karma refers to the results that come upon us due to our past actions. E.g. “I don’t know what karma I might have done to deserve such suffering.” 
4. Destiny: In this somewhat contemporary usage, karma connotes some situations that we encounter or even some dispositions that are innate to us. E.g. “I think coming to spiritual India was in my karma.” 

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psy Positivity is one of the best personality traits for a partner, research finds.

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GOOD CARB BLUEBERRIES

 PSY People report feeling happier when they are with their friends than their family, research finds.

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What happens to the brain at the moment of death?

We have all heard stories of moving towards a tunnel of bright light or our lives flashing before our eyes just before we die, though is there any credence in that? Is it due to hypoxia of occipital neurons surviving a little longer than other cells, an effect of CO2 narcosis, or a matter of belief or faith?

Recently US neurologists accidentally recorded a patient’s dying brain, which revealed brain waves related to dreaming, as published in a case report [1].

The brain appears to remain active and coordinated, even as death approaches, according to doctors who analysed electroencephalography (EEG) recordings to detect and treat seizures in an 87-year-old man who had had a myocardial infarct (heart attack) during the procedure.

The rhythmic brain wave patterns recorded during the man's death were similar to those occurring during dreaming, memory recall and meditation, they said.

Furthermore, the neural oscillations recorded in the dying brain suggested the person was seeing their life flash before their eyes.

According to lead author and neurosurgeon Dr Ajmal Zemmar, of the University of Louisville, Kentucky, the findings suggested the brains may remain active and coordinated during, and even after, the transition to death.

Dr Zemmar and fellow authors set a specific focus to investigate what happened in the 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating.

“We saw changes in a specific band of neural oscillations, so-called gamma oscillations, but also in others such as delta, theta, alpha, and beta oscillations,” said Dr Zemmar.

“Given that cross-coupling between alpha and gamma activity is involved in cognitive processes and memory recall in healthy subjects, it is intriguing to speculate that such activity could support a last ‘recall of life’ that may take place in the near-death state,” the authors wrote.

“Unlike previous reports, our study is the first to use full EEG placement, which allows a more complete neurophysiological analysis in a larger dimension.”

“These findings challenge our understanding of when exactly life ends and generate important subsequent questions, such as those related to the timing of organ donation.”

It raises the possibility that the recent dead are still present and may hear what is being said after being declared dead until the “soul passes from the body”. Should organ harvesting wait 15-30 minutes in case there is any sensation of pain? Is this just spooky and be left alone or worthy of further study?

What do you think?

Reference

1. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2022.813531/full

What is a law of nature?

Laws of nature are impossible to break, and nearly as difficult to define. Just what kind of necessity do they possess?

Photo by OsakaWayne Studios

Marc Lange

is the Theda Perdue Distinguished Professor in Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His books include Laws and Lawmakers: Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of Nature (2009) and Because Without Cause: Non-Causal Explanations in Science and Mathematics (2016).

Edited bySam Dresser

4,200 words

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In the original Star Trek, with the Starship Enterprise hurtling rapidly downward into the outer atmosphere of a star, Captain James T Kirk orders Lt Commander Montgomery Scott to restart the engines immediately and get the ship to safety. Scotty replies that he can’t do it. It’s not that he refuses to obey the Captain’s order or that he doesn’t happen to know how to restart the engines so quickly. It’s that he knows that doing so is impossible. ‘I can’t change the laws of physics,’ he explains.

We all understand Scotty’s point (although the Enterprise does somehow manage to escape). He cannot break the laws of nature. Nothing can. The natural laws limit what can happen. They are stronger than the laws of any country because it is impossible to violate them. If it is a law of nature that, for example, no object can be accelerated from rest to beyond the speed of light, then it is not merely that such accelerations never occur. They cannot occur.

There are many things that never actually happen but could have happened in that their occurrence would violate no law of nature. For instance, to borrow an example from the philosopher Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953), perhaps in the entire history of the Universe there never was nor ever will be a gold cube larger than one mile on each side. Such a large gold cube is not impossible. It just turns out never to exist. It’s like a sequence of moves that is permitted by the rules of chess but never takes place in the entire history of chess-playing. By contrast, if it is a law of nature that energy is never created or destroyed, then it is impossible for the total energy in the Universe to change. The laws of nature govern the world like the rules of chess determine what is permitted and what is forbidden during a game of chess, in an analogy drawn by the biologist T H Huxley (1825-95).

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In our science classes, we all learned some examples of what scientists currently believe (or once believed) to be laws of nature. Some of these putative laws are named after famous scientists (such as Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton). Some are generally called ‘laws’ (such as the laws of motion and gravity), while others are typically called ‘principles’ (such as Archimedes’ principle and Bernoulli’s principle), ‘rules’ (such as Born’s rule and Hund’s rule), ‘axioms’ (such as the axioms of quantum mechanics), or ‘equations’ (such as Maxwell’s equations).

Laws of nature differ from one another in many respects. Some laws concern the general structure of spacetime, while others concern some specific inhabitant of spacetime (such as the law that gold doesn’t rust). Some laws relate causes to their effects (as Coulomb’s law relates electric charges to the electric forces they cause). But other laws (such as the law of energy conservation or the spacetime symmetry principles) do not specify the effects of any particular sort of cause. Some laws involve probabilities (such as the law specifying the half-life of some radioactive isotope). And some laws are currently undiscovered – though I can’t give you an example of one of those! (By ‘laws of nature’, I will mean the genuine laws of nature that science aims to discover, not whatever scientists currently believe to be laws of nature.)

What all of the various laws have in common, despite their diversity, is that it is necessary that everything obey them. It is impossible for them to be broken. An object must obey the laws of nature. In this respect, a law of nature differs from the fact that all gold cubes are smaller than a cubic mile, the fact that all the apples currently hanging on my apple tree are ripe, and other so-called ‘accidents’. Although this fact about gold cubes is as universal, general and exceptionless as any law, it is not necessary. It could have been false. It is not inevitable or unavoidable that all gold cubes are smaller than a cubic mile. It just turns out that way.

But although all these truisms about the laws of nature sound plausible and familiar, they are also imprecise and metaphorical. The natural laws obviously do not ‘govern’ the Universe in the way that the rules of chess govern a game of chess. Chess players know the rules and so deliberately conform to them, whereas inanimate objects do not know the laws of nature and have no intentions.

For 4 to be a prime number would require more than merely a violation of the laws of nature

Furthermore, there are lots of things that we would describe appropriately (in a given conversational context) as ‘impossible’ but that do not violate the laws of nature. It is impossible for me to wish you ‘Good morning’ in Finnish because I do not speak Finnish, to borrow an example from the philosopher David Lewis (1941-2001). But my doing so would not violate a law of nature: I could learn Finnish. My car cannot accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in less than 5 seconds, but that impossibility is not the same as the kind of impossibility involved in my car accelerating from 0 to beyond the speed of light. Now we are using the laws of nature to help us understand the kind of impossibility that is supposed to distinguish the laws of nature. We have gone around in a tight circle rather than put our finger on what makes a fact qualify as a law rather than an accident.

Moreover, although accidents lack the kind of necessity that laws of nature possess, there are other facts that possess the kind of necessity that laws possess but are not laws – or, more accurately, they are not merely laws. While accidents are too weak to be laws because it would have been too easy to make them false, certain other facts are too strong to be merely laws because they are harder to break than even the laws themselves. For instance, the fact that all objects either contain some gold or do not contain any gold is a fact that has even more necessity than a law of nature does. It is still a fact even in the Star Trek universe, where the laws of nature are different (since starships routinely accelerate beyond the speed of light). For 4 to be a prime number is likewise impossible even in the Star Trek universe. It would require more than merely a violation of the laws of nature.

The laws of nature, then, fall somewhere between the accidental facts (which lack the laws’ necessity) and the facts that possess a stronger variety of necessity than the laws do. The laws are distinguished by having the variety of necessity that distinguishes the laws. But we must do better than that if we are to understand what a law of nature is.

Philosophers do not aim to discover the laws of nature. That’s a job for scientists. What philosophers aim to do is to figure out what sort of thing scientists are discovering when they discover the laws of nature. The philosopher’s aim is not to help scientists do their job. Instead, the philosopher’s aim is to better understand the job that scientists are doing. For instance, when scientists explain why something happens by appealing to a law of nature that they have discovered, what makes a law able to answer such a ‘Why?’ question? To understand scientific understanding is a job for the philosophy of science.

Of course, it can be difficult to reach this philosophical understanding, and I will ask you to bear with me as I guide you – step by step – towards understanding what a law of nature is. I hope that as a useful byproduct, you will also enjoy seeing how a philosopher utilises a few bits of logic (paging Mr Spock!) to grapple with the question ‘What is a law of nature?’ Hold on: I hope you will find the final result to be elegant and illuminating.

To begin understanding the variety of necessity that distinguishes the natural laws (which, for simplicity, I will call ‘natural necessity’), let’s unpack the laws’ necessity in terms of the fact that the laws not only are true, but also would still have been true under various hypothetical circumstances. For instance, since it is a law that no object is accelerated from rest to beyond the speed of light, this cosmic speed limit would still have been unbroken even if the Stanford Linear Accelerator had now been cranked up to full power. On the other hand, since it is merely an accident that every apple currently on my tree is ripe, this pattern would have been broken if (for instance) the weather this past spring had been much cooler.

I have just compared two ‘conditionals’ (that is, two if-then statements) that state facts about what would have happened under various circumstances that did not actually occur – that is, two ‘counterfactual’ conditionals. We often assert counterfactual conditionals, as in ‘If I had gone to the market today, then I would have bought a quart of milk.’ (That I went to the market today – the falsehood in the ‘if’ position of the conditional – is the ‘counterfactual antecedent’.) The laws, having natural necessity, would still have been true even if other things had been different, whereas an accident is less resilient under counterfactual antecedents.

An accident is invariant (that is, would still have been true) under some counterfactual antecedents. For instance, all of the apples on my tree would still have been ripe even if I had been wearing a red shirt this morning. But an accident seems to have less invariance in some respect than a law. After all, we use the laws to figure out what would happen if we were to pursue various possible courses of action – for instance, what would happen to an object’s acceleration if we doubled the object’s mass or doubled the force on the object. We can rely on the laws to tell us what would have happened under various hypothetical circumstances because the laws are invariant (that is, would have remained true) under those circumstances.

No matter what, the laws would still have held. (As Scotty says, nothing can break the laws of physics)

Of course, we can find some counterfactual antecedents under which the laws are not invariant. Obviously, the laws would not still have remained true under counterfactual antecedents with which the laws are logically inconsistent (that is, under antecedents contradicting the laws). For example, the laws would have been different if an object had been accelerated from rest to beyond the speed of light. But presumably, the laws would still have held under any counterfactual antecedent that is logically consistent with all of the laws. No matter what circumstances permitted by the laws may come about, the laws would still have held. (As Scotty says, nothing can break the laws of physics.) By contrast, for any accident, there is some hypothetical circumstance that is permitted by the laws and under which that accident would not still have held. After all, if it is an accident that p, then not-p (ie, that p is false) is a circumstance that is permitted by the laws and under which p would not still have held.

I’ll use lower-case letters for statements that make no reference to lawhood, necessity, counterfactual conditionals, and so forth – what I will call ‘sub-nomic’ claims. (For instance, p could be the claim that all emeralds are green, but p could not stand for ‘It is a law that all emeralds are green.’) We have arrived at the following proposal for distinguishing laws from accidents: m is a law if and only if m would still have been true if p had been true, for any p that is logically consistent with all the facts n (taken together) where n is a law.

Let’s step back and take a look at what this means. This proposal captures an important difference between laws and accidents in their resilience – that is, in their range of invariance under counterfactual antecedents. However, this proposal cannot tell us much. That is because the laws appear in it on both sides of the ‘if and only if’. The proposal picks out the laws by their invariance under a certain range of counterfactual antecedents p, but this range of antecedents, in turn, is picked out by the laws. (It consists of the antecedents that are logically consistent with the laws.) Therefore, this proposal fails to tell us what it is that makes m a law.

This proposal also fails to tell us what makes the laws so important. The laws’ invariance under the particular range of counterfactual antecedents that the proposal mentions makes the laws special only if there is already something special about having this particular range of invariance. But the laws are what pick out this range. So if there is no prior, independent reason why this particular range of counterfactual antecedents is special, then the laws’ invariance under these antecedents fails to make the laws special. They merely have a certain range of invariance (just as a given accident has some range of invariance).

In short, we have not yet managed to avoid the circularity that hobbled our initial thoughts about the laws’ particular brand of necessity. But we have made progress: now we can see precisely what problem we have to overcome!

There is a way to overcome this problem. Our proposal was roughly that the laws form a set of truths that would still have held under every antecedent with which the set is logically consistent. In contrast, take the set containing exactly the logical consequences of the accident that all gold cubes are smaller than a cubic mile. This set’s members are not all invariant under every antecedent that is logically consistent with this set’s members. For instance, if a very rich person had wanted to have constructed a gold cube exceeding a cubic mile, then such a cube might well have existed, and so not all gold cubes would have been smaller than a cubic mile. Yet the antecedent p that a very rich person wants such a cube constructed is logically consistent with (that is, does not contradict) all gold cubes being smaller than a cubic mile.

Let’s capture this idea by defining what it would be for a set of facts to qualify as ‘stable’. Suppose we are talking about a (non-empty) set 𝚪 (gamma) of sub-nomic truths that is ‘closed’ under logical implication. (In other words, the set contains every sub-nomic logical consequence of its members.) 𝚪 is ‘stable’ if and only if for each member m of 𝚪 and for any p that is logically consistent with 𝚪’s members, m would still have held if p had held. In short, a set of truths is ‘stable’ exactly when its members would all still have held under any counterfactual antecedent with which they are all logically consistent.

In contrast to our previous proposal, stability does not use the laws to pick out the relevant range of counterfactual antecedents. Stability avoids privileging the range of counterfactual antecedents that is logically consistent with the laws. Rather, each set of truths picks out for itself the range of counterfactual antecedents under which it must be invariant in order for it to qualify as stable. The fact that the laws form a stable set is therefore an achievement that the laws can ‘brag about’ without presupposing that there is already something special about being a law.

Had the price of steel been different, the engine might have been different. This ripple effect propagates endlessly

In contrast to the set containing all and only the laws, consider the set containing all and only the fact that all gold cubes are smaller than a cubic mile (together with its logical consequences). That set is unstable: its members are all logically consistent with some very rich person wanting a gold cube larger than a cubic mile, and yet (as we saw earlier) the set’s members are not all invariant under this counterfactual antecedent.

Let us look at another example. Take the accident g (for ‘gas’) that whenever a certain car is on a dry flat road, its acceleration is given by a certain function of how far its gas pedal is being pressed down. Had the gas pedal on a certain occasion been depressed a bit farther, then g would still have held. Can a stable set include g? Such a set must also include the fact that the car has a four-cylinder engine, since had the engine used six cylinders, g might not still have held. (Once the set includes the fact that the car has a four-cylinder engine, the counterfactual antecedent that the engine has six cylinders is logically inconsistent with the set, so the set does not have to be invariant under that antecedent in order to be stable.) But since the set includes a description of the car’s engine, its stability also requires that it include a description of the engine factory, since had that factory been different, the engine might have been different. Had the price of steel been different, the engine might have been different. And so on.

This ripple effect propagates endlessly. Take the following antecedent (which, perhaps, only a philosopher would mention!): had either g been false or there been a gold cube larger than a cubic mile. Under this antecedent, is g preserved? Not in every conversational context. This counterfactual antecedent pits g’s invariance against the invariance of the fact about gold cubes. It is not the case that g is always more resilient. Therefore, to be stable, a set that includes g must also include the fact that all gold cubes are smaller than a cubic mile (making the set logically inconsistent with the antecedent I mentioned, and so the set does not have to be invariant under that antecedent in order to be stable). A stable set that includes g must also include even a fact as remote from g as the fact about gold cubes. The only set containing g that might be stable is the set of all sub-nomic truths. (Let’s call it the ‘maximal’ set.)

Every non-maximal set of sub-nomic truths containing an accident is unstable. We have now found a way to understand what makes a truth qualify as a law rather than an accident: a law belongs to a non-maximal stable set. No set containing an accident is stable (except, perhaps, for the maximal set, considering that the range of antecedents under which it must be invariant in order to be stable does not include any false antecedents, since no falsehood is logically consistent with all of this set’s members).

We saw earlier that the sub-nomic facts that are laws should be distinguished from two other sorts of sub-nomic facts. On the one hand, accidents are easier to break than laws. Unlike the accidents, laws possess natural necessity. On the other hand, some facts are even more necessary (harder to break) than the laws, such as the fact that all objects either contain some gold or do not contain any gold. Such a fact possesses an even stronger variety of necessity than natural necessity. (Let’s call it ‘broadly logical’ necessity.) By thinking of natural laws in terms of stability, we can understand how the laws differ from both the accidents and the broadly logical necessities.

Let’s investigate whether there are any other non-maximal stable sets besides the set of laws. Consider the set of all and only the sub-nomic truths possessing broadly logical necessity. It includes the truths of mathematics and logic. This set is stable since its members would all still have held under any broadly logical possibility. For instance, 2 plus 3 would still have been equal to 5 even if there had been a gold cube larger than a cubic mile – and even if there had been a means of accelerating an object from rest to beyond the speed of light.

There is a nice little argument demonstrating that, for any two stable sets, one of them must entirely contain the other. The stable sets, however many there are, must fit one inside the other like a series of matryoshka dolls. The argument’s strategy is to consider a counterfactual antecedent like the one involving g (concerning the gas pedal) and the fact about gold cubes – namely, an antecedent pitting the invariance of the two sets against each other. Here’s how the argument goes.

First, assume that there are two stable sets, 𝚪 and 𝚺 (sigma), where neither set fits completely inside the other. In particular, suppose that t is a member of 𝚪 but not of 𝚺, and s is a member of 𝚺 but not of 𝚪. Now we can show that this assumption must be false because it leads to a contradiction. (Ready? Here we go…)

Let’s start with 𝚪. Since s is not a member of 𝚪, the counterfactual antecedent not-s is logically consistent with 𝚪, and hence so is the counterfactual antecedent (not-s or not-t). Therefore, since 𝚪 is stable, as we have assumed, every member of 𝚪 would still have been true, if (not-s or not-t) had been true. In particular, t would still have been true, if (not-s or not-t) had been true. So t and (not-s or not-t) would both have been true, if (not-s or not-t) had been true. Hence, if (not-s or not-t) had been true, then not-s would have been true; s would have been false.

Laws of nature can explain why something failed to happen by revealing that it cannot happen

Now we can make the analogous argument regarding 𝚺. Since t is not a member of 𝚺, the counterfactual antecedent not-t is logically consistent with 𝚺, and hence so is the counterfactual antecedent (not-s or not-t). Therefore, since 𝚺 is stable, as we have assumed, no member of 𝚺 would have been false, if (not-s or not-t) had been true. In particular, it is not the case that s would have been false, if (not-s or not-t) had been true. But now we have arrived at a contradiction with the result reached at the end of the previous paragraph. So we have proved that the initial assumption is impossible: there cannot be two stable sets, 𝚪 and 𝚺, where neither fits completely inside the other.

What we have just demonstrated is that the stable sets must form a nested hierarchy. There are at least three members of this hierarchy: the truths with broadly logical necessity (the smallest of the three), the set of laws (which also contains all the broadly logical necessities), and the maximal set (which contains all the sub-nomic truths). There are no stable sets larger than the set of laws but smaller than the maximal set, since any such set would have to contain accidents, but we have already seen that no set containing accidents (except for the maximal set) is stable.

We can now understand what makes the natural laws necessary and how their variety of necessity differs from broadly logical necessity. By the definition of ‘stability’, the members of a stable set would all still have held under any sub-nomic counterfactual antecedent with which they are all logically consistent. That is, a stable set’s members would all still have held under any sub-nomic counterfactual antecedent under which they could (ie, without contradiction) all still have held. In other words, a stable set’s members are collectively as resilient under sub-nomic counterfactual antecedents as they could collectively be. They are maximally resilient. That is what makes them necessary.

There is a one-to-one correspondence between non-maximal stable sets and varieties of necessity. A smaller stable set is associated with a stronger variety of necessity because the range of antecedents under which a smaller stable set’s members are invariant, in connection with that set’s stability, is wider than the range of antecedents under which a larger stable set’s members are invariant, in connection with that set’s stability. Stability associated with greater invariance corresponds to a stronger variety of necessity – that is, greater unavoidableness.

Scientists discover laws of nature by acquiring evidence that some apparent regularity is not only never violated but also could never have been violated. For instance, when every ingenious effort to create a perpetual-motion machine turned out to fail, scientists concluded that such a machine was impossible – that energy conservation is a natural law, a rule of nature’s game rather than an accident. In drawing this conclusion, scientists adopted various counterfactual conditionals, such as that, even if they had tried a different scheme, they would have failed to create a perpetual-motion machine. That it is impossible to create such a machine (because energy conservation is a law of nature) explains why scientists failed every time they tried to create one.

Laws of nature are important scientific discoveries. Their counterfactual resilience enables them to tell us about what would have happened under a wide range of hypothetical circumstances. Their necessity means that they impose limits on what is possible. Laws of nature can explain why something failed to happen by revealing that it cannot happen – that it is impossible.

We began with several vague ideas that seem implicit in scientific reasoning: that the laws of nature are important to discover, that they help us to explain why things happen, and that they are impossible to break. Now we can look back and see that we have made these vague ideas more precise and rigorous. In doing so, we found that these ideas are not only vindicated, but also deeply interconnected. We now understand better what laws of nature are and why they are able to play the roles that science calls upon them to play.

At the moment of death:

21%

Hypoxic-ischaemic changes cause a perception of moving towards a bright circle of light29/137

15%

Neurophysiological changes cause our lives to ‘flash in from of our lives’21/137

7%

The ‘soul’/consciousness has not departed for 15 minutes so organ harvesting should be delayed9/137

13%

People can still hear what is being said around them (similar to being in a coma)18/137

19%

Something inexplicable/metaphysical and beyond our understanding occurs (eg faith/spiritual beliefs)26/137

18%

We need to study what happens further by conducting more EEG recordings25/137

7%

We should leave it well alone9/137

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