testing the rules, a halting problem?

is there a way for us to determine whether the laws of nature ever changed? i know there are (thought) experiments that are meant to determine the general shape of the universe. (something which i would have thought was difficult, if not impossible, to do from within the universe) Perhaps within the rules of nature, there is also some way to determine if there is any curvature or change in these rules. could constants have had some other constant value at some point? maybe, probably.

is this kind of problem fundamentally different from the halting problem, or is it sort of similar? the question being: how do we tell if we've deviated from what we were doing before, or if we are still doing the same thing?

(once again i fail to break free of a post modernist mindset -- all this post really does is question whether there are absolutes and if those absolutes are absolutely absolute :) )

[of side note is an amusing thought about QM: essentially quantum mechanics is about applying science, which is founded in the idea of repeatability, to determine that particles predictably act in an unpredictable fashion. then we try to confine this unpredictability to the smallest predictable unpredictability. sounds a lot like insurance, and life in general. all of this still points to a deeper truth just like keppler and the epicycles (no, it's not a band) -- aha! finally something beyond postmodern, maybe postretro. i will go google postretro now.]

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