Entropy, Rebellion, and Thought

[Greylorn Ell]

No, entropy would be the ultimate 'order.' It is stagnation, or even distribution throughout. Life is a different kind of order, contrary to 'even distribution throughout'; almost the opposite of it in fact, which is the paradox.

Perhaps you could say it is both order and disorder, but I wouldn't see this as a paradox.

Why not grow some mental equivalent of balls and learn to make distinctions?

[surreptitious57]

From Stephen Hawking : His Life And Work By Kitty Ferguson [ Chapter Fourteen / Page Three Hundred And One ]

What then is the answer to the question why do we observe the thermodynamic psychological and cosmological arrows pointing in the same direction ? Because even though we would not find ourselves youthening we could not survive in the universe when it is collapsing when the cosmological arrow of time has reversed. At that distance in the future the universe will be in a state of nearly total disorder all the stars burned out the protons and neutrons in them decayed into light particles and radiation. There will no longer be a a strong thermo dynamic
arrow of time at all. We couldn t survive the death of our sun but even if we could we also require a strong thermodynamic arrow of time
in order to exist. For one thing human beings have to eat. Food is a relatively ordered form of energy. The The heat into which our bodies
convert food is more disordered. Hawking had concluded that the psychological and thermodynamic arrows of time are for all intents and purposes thesame arrow and if one fizzles out so does the other. In the contracting phase of the universe there could be no intelligent life
The answer to the question of why we observe the thermodynamic psychological and cosmological arrows pointing in the same direction is because if things were different there would be no one around to ask those questions. If that sounds familiar it is none other than the the
anthropic principle. As time time [ in all three senses ] passed Hawking was thinking less and less of the anthropic principle as a cop out a
negation of all our hopes of understanding the underlying order of the universe and increasingly regarding it as a powerful principle indeed

[HexHammer]

Hex,

Although this was not directed to me, I'm inclined to wonder, in light of your general input on this forum, exactly what "scientific understanding" do you know of, and from what sources is it derived. University degree, or television documentaries?

Science articles around the internet. TV documentaries, newspaper articles, etc.

[Wyman]

From Stephen Hawking : His Life And Work By Kitty Ferguson [ Chapter Fourteen / Page Three Hundred And One ]

What then is the answer to the question why do we observe the thermodynamic psychological and cosmological arrows pointing in the same direction ? Because even
though we would not find ourselves youthening we could not survive in the universe when it is collapsing when the cosmological arrow of time has reversed. At that
distance in the future the universe will be in a state of nearly total disorder all the stars burned out the protons and neutrons in them decayed into light particles
and radiation. There will no longer be a strong thermodynamic arrow of time at all. We couldn t survive the death of our sun but even if we could we also require
a strong thermodynamic arrow of time in order to exist. For one thing human beings have to eat. Food is a relatively ordered form of energy. The heat into which
our bodies convert food is more disordered. Hawking had concluded that the psychological and thermodynamic arrows of time are for all intents and purposes the
same arrow and if one fizzles out so does the other. In the contracting phase of the universe there could be no intelligent life. The answer to the question of
why we observe the thermodynamic psychological and cosmological arrows pointing in the same direction is : because if things were different there would be
no one around to ask those questions. If that sounds familiar it is none other than the anthropic principle. As time [ in all three senses ] passed Hawking was
thinking less and less of the anthropic principle as a cop out a negation of all our hopes of understanding the underlying order of the universe and increasingly
regarding it as a powerful principle indeed

I have gotten a large part of what I know about these topics from Hawking's books.

[Wyman]

Wyman,
I love your "aside," thinking that it is not so far aside as you might suppose. I'd prefer to comment on that, favorably from at least my perspective, after calling your hand. You wrote, "Of course, I can predict the gist of your response, but would like to hear the details.."

Before generating a response, I'd love to obtain your prediction of the gist of it.

That is because I doubt that you can predict the gist, or core, of my response. If you can, this suggests that you and I are kindred spirits who should exchange personal phone numbers.

I wonder if there is a way for me to post my response somewhere where you cannot find it, and I cannot modify it to make myself look good? Would this not be an interesting experiment?

One notion that comes to mind is this: I could send my response to one of the people with whom I share email correspondences. Or several. I could obtain their permission to share their address with you. My response, sent to him/her would be dated and time stamped in his/her email box, waiting to be forwarded to you AFTER you have explicitly expressed your prediction.

We ought to be able to work this out. Perhaps R. Lewis or our other moderator would be willing to hold my reply and make it available after you manifest your prediction. This should be fun. Let's find a way to make it work.

Greylorn

Well, we can go on the honor system. Here first is my understanding of the issue.
- If one has a stake in explaining why a great improbability has come about, there is an easy way to do it. If the math says that the chance of our existence in a universe such as ours is 1 in 1000 (to use manageable numbers), then why not say that we are 1 of 1000 universes? Then, the probabilities work out nicely. However, even dopes like me can see that this is disingenuous, unscientific reasoning. Science is supposed to go where the evidence leads, not create speculative theories to explain somewhat less speculative theories.
But if you are a physicist with great credentials, then the armchair physicists will likely buy what you feed them. However, even armchair physicists can see that the multiverse theory suffers from another objection (besides being speculative). It does not explain where the multiverses come from originally - like Arising's objection to Greylorn's theory above. No need to worry, Leonard Krauss has the answer in his book A Universe From Nothing. The multiverses come from quantum fluctuations, whereby quantum particles pop in and out of existence. This idea (quantum particles popping up) apparently has some mainstream support in physics. According to Krauss, this proves that, despite what philosophers may say, 'something' may indeed arise from nothing.
The next step is getting from something arising from nothing, to that something being the beginning of a universe. How he gets from quantum fluctuations to a series of inflationary 'big bangs' where entire universes spontaneously arise, creating space where there was no space, physical laws where there were none, matter or antimatter where there was none, etc. is somewhat murky to me (probably intentionally so; see my example of explaining the coin flips below). At any rate, tying this theory to actual observation and evidence is, to put it mildly, a long way off.
What Kruass and Hawking (Hawking is more honest, as he doesn't claim that the theory is anything but speculation) have done is to pave the road for the possibility of chance as explaining, literally, everything - i.e. teleology is banished.
Now, the above is my ham-handed, cutting corners, rough, non-physicist description of how I see the issue. Remember, I have never claimed to have any expertise in the area.

In my example of the improbable coin flipping - suppose that tails came up, not nine times in a row, but a thousand. Then we would be talking supernatural causes, miracles, etc.. Suppose that a well credentialed physicist comes along with a huge stake in explaining what happened without appeal to teleological principles (maybe he makes millions off of his publications). Well, he says, it is consistent with current scientific theory that, for instance, from one event to another, there are a billion possible 'histories' or paths that are possible. In the quantum world, or some parallel universe, that coin was flipped a billion times, making the apparent improbability not so improbable after all. This not being very convincing, maybe he'll tie it in somehow with Feynman's 'sum over histories' model of quantum mechanics where particles take every possible path from point a to b (Hawking talks of this extensively). He'll do it in such a way that it is nearly impossible for a non-physicist to know what he is talking about - but only nearly so, or it wouldn't sell. And he'll depend on the appeal to logical consistency - he'll craft it so that his speculations do not contradict current, evidence based theories. But consistency is not the only or even primary criterion for accepting scientific hypotheses. Mostly, however, he will depend on his reputation as a physicist - the same appeal to authority, rather than evidence, that religions have used from ancient history.

That was my original thought as to the 'gist' of your position. However, I've had second thoughts since your last post, for psychological reasons. Since it would be unsportsmanlike to hedge (although I guess I just did) I'll stick with it and see if I'm in the right ballpark.

[Greylorn Ell]

... And how could a universe undergoing entropy produce systems (life) which run counter to it?

Because life doesn't run counter to entropy. Does entropy mean disorder? I thought it just meant even energy distribution which is an ordered state. In a closed-system entropy loses no energy, it just evenly distributes it. Whether the universe is a closed or open entropic system is still an open question I guess but you'd have to ask a physicist.

AUK,
Your understanding of the nature of entropy is a strange mix, and mostly incorrect. It is propably well explained on Wikipedia.

"Entropy" is a Greek word meaning disorder. Its use comes from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics which declares that when the state of a physical system is changed, or when one form of energy is changed to another in an irreversible action, the entropy of the system is increased. This means that although no net energy is lost, the components involved in the action lose some of their ability to do something useful.

To state that "...entropy loses no energy,..." is an absurd statement, indicating zero understanding of entropy. (It is equivalent to saying, 'disorder loses no energy.')

The definition of a closed system is, a system that cannot interact with its external environment, and therefore cannot lose energy to that environment, or gain therefrom.

This has nothing to do with entropy, which is simply a measurement of a particular system's ability to do work. Simple example: Put a battery powered clock in a perfectly insulated box. Measure the temperature of the air in the box, then seal the lid. This system is at S1, or entropy level one. It is capable of doing work. The clock will tick, emitting ticking sounds that cannot be heard from outside the box. Its hands will move, denoting the passage of time. The battery will run out of stored energy, and the clock will stop, leaving the system at S2. S2 > S1.

At that point, no energy will have been lost. The temperature of the air in the box will have increased slightly, and its higher energy level will be exactly equal to the energy lost from the battery. (This follows the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.)

However, the entropy of the system (clock, battery, and air) will have increased, meaning that it won't do anything anymore. The extra energy in the air cannot recharge the battery, or form a voltage differential at the clock's motor terminals that might restart the clock.

Moreover, the 2nd Law is a free-market principle, not a communist ideal. It does not promise the even redistribution of energy. Although the air in the box will be at the same average temperature, some of the air molecules will be moving faster than others. It works like IQ measurements in a population. The average IQ is 100, but yours is higher than that. Someone else's is lower.

Back to the box. There will also be some residual energy left in the battery. It'll be at about 1.2 volts instead of its original 1.5 volts. Moreover, following the matter-energy equivalence principle, there will be some atoms within the system (e.g. copper vs. hydrogen) that contain more energy because of their greater mass.

Condensed to political terms, the universe is not a communist/socialist system, and no part of it can ever be. Should it ever reach that "ideal" state, nothing will happen. There would seem to be an economic and social lesson to be learned from physics.

[Ginkgo]

Well, we can go on the honor system. Here first is my understanding of the issue.
- If one has a stake in explaining why a great improbability has come about, there is an easy way to do it. If the math says that the chance of our existence in a universe such as ours is 1 in 1000 (to use manageable numbers), then why not say that we are 1 of 1000 universes? Then, the probabilities work out nicely. However, even dopes like me can see that this is disingenuous, unscientific reasoning. Science is supposed to go where the evidence leads, not create speculative theories to explain somewhat less speculative theories.
But if you are a physicist with great credentials, then the armchair physicists will likely buy what you feed them. However, even armchair physicists can see that the multiverse theory suffers from another objection (besides being speculative). It does not explain where the multiverses come from originally - like Arising's objection to Greylorn's theory above. No need to worry, Leonard Krauss has the answer in his book A Universe From Nothing. The multiverses come from quantum fluctuations, whereby quantum particles pop in and out of existence. This idea (quantum particles popping up) apparently has some mainstream support in physics. According to Krauss, this proves that, despite what philosophers may say, 'something' may indeed arise from nothing.
The next step is getting from something arising from nothing, to that something being the beginning of a universe. How he gets from quantum fluctuations to a series of inflationary 'big bangs' where entire universes spontaneously arise, creating space where there was no space, physical laws where there were none, matter or antimatter where there was none, etc. is somewhat murky to me (probably intentionally so; see my example of explaining the coin flips below). At any rate, tying this theory to actual observation and evidence is, to put it mildly, a long way off.
What Kruass and Hawking (Hawking is more honest, as he doesn't claim that the theory is anything but speculation) have done is to pave the road for the possibility of chance as explaining, literally, everything - i.e. teleology is banished.
Now, the above is my ham-handed, cutting corners, rough, non-physicist description of how I see the issue. Remember, I have never claimed to have any expertise in the area.

In my example of the improbable coin flipping - suppose that tails came up, not nine times in a row, but a thousand. Then we would be talking supernatural causes, miracles, etc.. Suppose that a well credentialed physicist comes along with a huge stake in explaining what happened without appeal to teleological principles (maybe he makes millions off of his publications). Well, he says, it is consistent with current scientific theory that, for instance, from one event to another, there are a billion possible 'histories' or paths that are possible. In the quantum world, or some parallel universe, that coin was flipped a billion times, making the apparent improbability not so improbable after all. This not being very convincing, maybe he'll tie it in somehow with Feynman's 'sum over histories' model of quantum mechanics where particles take every possible path from point a to b (Hawking talks of this extensively). He'll do it in such a way that it is nearly impossible for a non-physicist to know what he is talking about - but only nearly so, or it wouldn't sell. And he'll depend on the appeal to logical consistency - he'll craft it so that his speculations do not contradict current, evidence based theories. But consistency is not the only or even primary criterion for accepting scientific hypotheses. Mostly, however, he will depend on his reputation as a physicist - the same appeal to authority, rather than evidence, that religions have used from ancient history.

That was my original thought as to the 'gist' of your position. However, I've had second thoughts since your last post, for psychological reasons. Since it would be unsportsmanlike to hedge (although I guess I just did) I'll stick with it and see if I'm in the right ballpark.

Reflecting upon this thread and the other thread on space and time. A fly in the ointment for science is teleology. First cause has always been the bane of science. A more productive avenue of thought might be to see how it could be possible to make first causes part of physical theory. It might be possible but it would mean looking at time at the micro level as absolute time.

Just thinking out loud.

P.S. made a correction. After all there is no "back to absolute time" at the micro level.

[Greylorn Ell]

... And how could a universe undergoing entropy produce systems (life) which run counter to it?

Because life doesn't run counter to entropy. Does entropy mean disorder? I thought it just meant even energy distribution which is an ordered state. In a closed-system entropy loses no energy, it just evenly distributes it. Whether the universe is a closed or open entropic system is still an open question I guess but you'd have to ask a physicist.

No, entropy would be the ultimate 'order.' It is stagnation, or even distribution throughout. Life is a different kind of order, contrary to 'even distribution throughout'; almost the opposite of it in fact, which is the paradox.

Applying entropy to life does not seem to me to be a useful or relevant process. Life forms obtain their energy from the sun, or from thermal and chemical energy within an environment that obtains its energy from the sun. Plants burn some energy in photosynthesis and store it in molecules that they create. This energy can be converted by some critters, furthering their life cycle. The entire life-cycle system, including energy lost by the sun, results in an entropy increase.

What's interesting about biological life is its form of information storage, not its entropic properties. The translation of tRNA into proteins depends upon arbitrary codes, virtually identical to the machine-language codes employed by computer CPUs. Codes and the translation thereof require intelligence, so the microbiologists who discovered these codes have chosen to ignore their implications.

Of course, Darwinist camp-followers are completely unaware of these things. So are Creationists, perhaps because they are insufficiently intelligent or curious or both.

Greylorn

[Greylorn Ell]

No, entropy would be the ultimate 'order.' ...

My point?

It is stagnation, ...

From whose point of view?

... Life is a different kind of order, contrary to 'even distribution throughout'; almost the opposite of it in fact, which is the paradox.

Life obeys the Laws of Thermodynamics, we are open entropic systems hence we die in the end.

So we die of entropy. I can see phrasing it that way. I still think it's an open question as to whether life (consciousness, for instance) follows these rules.

A more interesting question is how the laws of thermodynamics allowed life itself to begin and thrive all these years.

Thermodynamics did not do that. Its three laws include one, and only one force, embodied in the 2nd Law. This, I suspect, is ultimately the only natural force that is associated with energy.

We live in a cause-effect universe. Events in this universe involve a force and a counterforce. Were one to follow that analogy to questions about the beginnings, one would require a counterforce to the 2nd Law. My theory includes such a counterforce.

Long before I was born, the brilliant physicist James Clerk Maxwell was aware of this fundamental problem and developed some thoughts about it. Were you to look up "Maxwell's Demon" you'd find some of his ideas. I've incorporated them into my theories.

The First Law of Thermodynamics is an existence statement; the Third is a boundary condition.

My core theory about the beginnings proposes that the universe originated at a temperature of absolute zero (the boundary condition defined by the 3rd law), from a state of Entropy 1-- the exact opposite of Big Bang theory which declares that it began at Entropy 0. You might actually appreciate it, for it answers the questions you have been posing on this forum.

Greylorn

[Arising_uk]

AUK,
Your understanding of the nature of entropy is a strange mix, and mostly incorrect. It is propably well explained on Wikipedia. ...

Well admittedly I only did 'O' level Physics and gave up the 'A' level. Most of what I later read was due to doing a Phil of Science mode during my Philosophy course.

"Entropy" is a Greek word meaning disorder. Its use comes from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics which declares that when the state of a physical system is changed, or when one form of energy is changed to another in an irreversible action, the entropy of the system is increased. This means that although no net energy is lost, the components involved in the action lose some of their ability to do something useful.

To state that "...entropy loses no energy,..." is an absurd statement, indicating zero understanding of entropy. (It is equivalent to saying, 'disorder loses no energy.')

Not quite as whilst the Greeks meant disorder the physicists meant heat loss I thought?

The definition of a closed system is, a system that cannot interact with its external environment, and therefore cannot lose energy to that environment, or gain therefrom. ..

We agree.

This has nothing to do with entropy, which is simply a measurement of a particular system's ability to do work. ...

I thought entropy was Clausius's and later Maxwell's and Boltzmann's name for the heat lost whilst a system did the work?

Simple example: Put a battery powered clock in a perfectly insulated box. Measure the temperature of the air in the box, then seal the lid. This system is at S1, or entropy level one. It is capable of doing work. The clock will tick, emitting ticking sounds that cannot be heard from outside the box. Its hands will move, denoting the passage of time. The battery will run out of stored energy, and the clock will stop, leaving the system at S2. S2 > S1.

At that point, no energy will have been lost. The temperature of the air in the box will have increased slightly, and its higher energy level will be exactly equal to the energy lost from the battery. (This follows the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.)

However, the entropy of the system (clock, battery, and air) will have increased, meaning that it won't do anything anymore. The extra energy in the air cannot recharge the battery, or form a voltage differential at the clock's motor terminals that might restart the clock.

But the closed system considered as a whole will not have lost any energy and hence not have lost anything to entropy? As it has heat and has the capacity to do work if harnessed, just not the ability as it is a closed system?

Moreover, the 2nd Law is a free-market principle, not a communist ideal. It does not promise the even redistribution of energy. Although the air in the box will be at the same average temperature, some of the air molecules will be moving faster than others. It works like IQ measurements in a population. The average IQ is 100, but yours is higher than that. Someone else's is lower.

I understand Maxwell and Boltzmann had to use averages and probabilities to calculate but physically if some molecules are moving faster than others then work would be possible I'd assume? Given enough time would not all such movements eventually equalise and as such an even distribution would be achieved, i.e none would be moving in the end as in the end all would lose energy due to collision.

Back to the box. There will also be some residual energy left in the battery. It'll be at about 1.2 volts instead of its original 1.5 volts. Moreover, following the matter-energy equivalence principle, there will be some atoms within the system (e.g. copper vs. hydrogen) that contain more energy because of their greater mass.

If there is an energy differential then a capacity for work exists?

Condensed to political terms, the universe is not a communist/socialist system, and no part of it can ever be. Should it ever reach that "ideal" state, nothing will happen. There would seem to be an economic and social lesson to be learned from physics.

No idea what all the waffle about communism or socialism is about, other than being your personal bug-bear.

[Arising_uk]

...
Somehow I thought that a degree in physics ...

Can you clarify this please as previously you've stated that you did not complete your Physics degree?

[Greylorn Ell]

No, entropy would be the ultimate 'order.' It is stagnation, or even distribution throughout. Life is a different kind of order, contrary to 'even distribution throughout'; almost the opposite of it in fact, which is the paradox.

Perhaps you could say it is both order and disorder, but I wouldn't see this as a paradox.

I think seeing it as a paradox is my point, which I am not expressing well, perhaps because I am wrong. Was the singularity (supposing there was one) prior to the big bang the ultimate ordered state, or would a completely cold, expanded universe, with single hydrogen atoms evenly distributed over incomprehensibly large distances the ultimate ordered state? I could see an argument for each. If the universe ran back in time from expansion to singularity, which I have read some physicists speculate about, then things would tend to congregate, and entropy would be the exception. I think of life in our universe as perplexing as would be a life form in a contracting universe which survived by reversing course and resisting synthesis - perhaps a gaseous, sublimating life form?

Wyman,

You are not isolated in confusions, which are the result of trying to figure out reality based upon a shitty theory that begins with an unreal hypothesis-- that a physical singularity actually existed, and somehow magically exploded.

The conventional religious explanation of the beginnings is identical to Big Bang theory, except that the components are renamed. And yes, since it came first, it would be correct to state that Big Bang theory is derived from and functionally identical to the Almighty God belief. Neither are scientific, in that neither can be experimentally verified.

You're running into paradoxes, confusions, etc. because you are trying to make sense of theories that are utter bullshit. To your credit, you seem to be one of the few who sees the problems in the currently popular belief systems.

Greylorn

[Wyman]

In reading my original post and some of the replies, I realize I have an embarrassingly inadequate idea of what 'entropy'means and shouldn't have used an actual technical term taken from physics to express the idea I was trying to express. I did say somewhere in here that my post was just a result of some late afternoon reverie, which can often lead to me speaking too much before thinking things through. At least it did lead to some interesting discussion and a slight increase in my understanding of what 'entropy' means.

[Greylorn Ell]

In reading my original post and some of the replies, I realize I have an embarrassingly inadequate idea of what 'entropy' means and shouldn't have used an actual technical term taken from physics to express the idea I was trying to express. I did say somewhere in here that my post was just a result of some late afternoon reverie, which can often lead to me speaking too much before thinking things through. At least it did lead to some interesting discussion and a slight increase in my understanding of what 'entropy' means.

Wyman!
Put the wet noodles back in their pan. You did just fine with this. That you learned more than you knew when you started is proof of that.

You used "entropy" correctly throughout this thread. AUK did not. I recommend more afternoon personal seances, followed by sharing whatever ideas appear. That is how ideas develop.

If you had to choose between being generally right or at least politically correct, or interesting, which would you choose?
Greylorn

[Greylorn Ell]

...
Somehow I thought that a degree in physics ...

Can you clarify this please as previously you've stated that you did not complete your Physics degree?

AUK,
I wonder what makes you think that I wrote such a thing? Perhaps you'd have a quote available?

Although old, I've not gone senile yet. I graduated without any particular honors in 1965 with a B.S. degree in Applied Mathematics and Engineering Physics, a heavily loaded technical program that included 32 physics credits, and about 30 each in EE and math. I followed this with 15 years in astronomy, co-starting a corporation with an EE drinking buddy that now provides the electronic detectors for widgets like the Hubble Space Telescope and remote imaging devices. In between, wrote a philosophy book (fiction) that became a best seller in Brazil and Holland, put in two years of biochemistry, started the business that keeps me in beans and beer, spent a lot of money trying to get laid, and eventually wrote a definitive book that explains the beginnings of the universe and human consciousness. Regrettably, along the way I neglected to learn marketing or social skills.

G