Cosmic Entropy

[Psychonaut]

Well, try making a decent life for yourself without first addressing the economic imperative of having to work for a living to get money to basically feed, cloth and shelter yourself.

There are people who do this.

[philofra]

There are people who do this.

How? If they do your are not talking about the norm or that is feasible in the long run.

There are also people who live on the street. But does that make for a good situation or a valid society?

[i blame blame]

Ibb,

If you were responding to claims I made that were scientifically fallacious you didn't make a very go case.

Then read it up on a book on thermodynamics, or even wikipedia for that matter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You asked me, about what I said about the economy, "What makes you draw this conclusion?".
Well, try making a decent life for yourself without first addressing the economic imperative of having to work for a living to get money to basically feed, cloth and shelter yourself.

You claimed

However, when it comes to human existence everything is reducible to economics. It is what sustains the system.

How does discussing on this forum your improve your economic situation?
Besides, some people are able to first work, then maneuver themselves into a position where they will never have to work again, while others, never have to work (royalty, some rich heirs).

About entropy in how it applies to our everyday life, it is about the question of replacement and maintenance. Everyday things get used up or worn out in our lives, which is an activity of entropy. Economic activity replaces things that have been used up and repairs things that have been worn out due to entropy's effect of usage. Our economic activity combats entropy by shifting energies from a state of depletion to a state of renewal.

Economic activity increases overall entropy, to some extent with noticeable effects (global warming). All living organisms reduce their own entropy at the universe's expense during their lifetime.

[philofra]

Ibb,

I can see that you can't go beyond your narrow understanding of entropy. Just like Darwinism has been apply to the social condition so has entropy. In business both terms have been applied to emphasize a sense of vitality and viability.

Economic activity does bring about an entropy, due to the fact that it consumes and uses things up. But it also combats it by generating renewal, by producing replacement goods that have been consumed.

The second law of thermodynamics also states the energy cannot be destroyed or made up, just shifted. This is what economics does for humans, it shift energy or matter from a used-up state to a replacement state. And humans are getting better at it with things like recycling.

[Psychonaut]

Well, try making a decent life for yourself without first addressing the economic imperative of having to work for a living to get money to basically feed, cloth and shelter yourself.

There are communes where property is held in common by all members. Food is produced by agricultural activity and shelter is produced by construction activity on the part of the members.

Commonly these communes do engage in economic activity, because they can use their resources to obtain better tools &c. than they would otherwise have, and they will often give their members an allowance for their own expenditure.

However, such activities are not necessary for their decent standard of living; they are a bonus that is surplus to requirements. Should the entire economy collapse, or they be put under some sort of embargo, then they would still be doing fine 'thankya v'ry much'.

[philofra]

Pychco,

I can only smile at the simple mindedness of your argument.

The 'economic' activity you explain does not support the integrated, complex society our world is made of.

[Psychonaut]

What I said was in response to:

"Well, try making a decent life for yourself without first addressing the economic imperative of having to work for a living to get money to basically feed, cloth and shelter yourself."

I then mentioned people who make a decent life for themselves without having to work for a living to get money in order that they be fed, clothed and sheltered.

You say that people cannot live without the 'integrated, complex society that [y]our world is made of', I then mentioned that this is precisely what some people do, and your response is to dismiss it on the basis that these people do it?!

I can only assume that somewhere along the way you got confused, forgot what we were talking about, forgot your own point maybe even...

[artisticsolution]

What happens when a entire species finds out that everything it is striving for amongst it's existential being is for nothing?

What happens when a entire species finds out that everything it is striving for is pointless if not futile amongst the inevitability of cosmic infinite regression where all it's social efforts in striving is found to be a wasted effort?

Perhaps they become hedonists.

[i blame blame]

Ibb,

I can see that you can't go beyond your narrow understanding of entropy. Just like Darwinism has been apply to the social condition so has entropy. In business both terms have been applied to emphasize a sense of vitality and viability.

Economic activity does bring about an entropy, due to the fact that it consumes and uses things up. But it also combats it by generating renewal, by producing replacement goods that have been consumed.

The second law of thermodynamics also states the energy cannot be destroyed or made up, just shifted. This is what economics does for humans, it shift energy or matter from a used-up state to a replacement state. And humans are getting better at it with things like recycling.

Listen, I'd love to elaborately reply to this, but I am currently engaged in an intriguing discussion with my wall.

[Kane47]

First off, the "heat death" is theoretical. Secondly, my understanding is that if it proves accurate as a truly final state for the universe, we will not know for some one hundred trillion years yet. After, say, 95 trillion years, I expect that I may drum my fingers nervously on my desk now and then in fearful anticipation. Whether it comes to pass or not, I have a hard time believing that even "nothing" can last forever, and in any case I am not so sure that this universe is not a kind of proving ground where the point is more to do our best with what we have. I am going to be perhaps a bit naughty if I am allowed to get away with it and post here the introduction to my new short book, Could a "Heat Death" be Necessary for Life? The thrust of this whole theory which may seem extremely odd has a great deal to do with what was pointed out by the late Dr. Carl Sagan that "We are star stuff." In addition to the central essay the book has a smattering of poems, including one called Planck's Angels that appeared in issue number 44 of Philosophy Now Magazine, under my pen name of Kane S. Latranz. =^)

Apples and Oranges

What began with a (Big) Bang, may end with a whimper of sorts. We are told that in the far flung future the cosmos will run down in a condition of maximum entropy, a state of equilibrium, the more or less even distribution of energy that previously existed in concentrated forms. This includes such condensed energy forms as the sun, the earth, and each of us, (All of which will have been long gone by then anyway.), along with all the galaxies and star clusters and any other life that may be out there somewhere, a sad echo of the once spectacular universe dissipating in the cold dark of space.
Biblical Creationists apparently make the claim that the second law of thermodynamics disproves evolution. If nature progresses toward disorder, they say, such complexity as life could not possibly come into being unless it was put into motion deliberately, against the flow of entropy. I accept evolution and do so without any pangs of personal insignificance as a result. Yet I am not entirely unsympathetic toward the Creationist view that life seems more than a purely random occurrence, but there are standard rebuttals to the argument they make regarding the second law. One is that entropy is a statistical law, something that is usually but not always applicable, life then being, presumably, an exception. Another point is that when an ordered “open” system comes into being that requires energy input, the surrounding entropy increases so that order and disorder then become a kind of shell game. In a world overrun with energy hungry combustion engines, for example, the air quality will be compromised and the sunsets tinged with smog. Then, too, there will be the constant need for producing and securing fuel for all those automobiles.
It seems apparent to me that an even stronger argument for evolution in relation to the second law of thermodynamics would be that, if evolution may seem to be be an exception to entropy, at the same time, life could not exist if we did not occupy a universe that is characterized by processes defined as entropy, and one that may eventually be headed for a heat death. One interpretation of this is that nature seems even that much more agreeable to the eventuality of life.
As I have only recently learned, having initially written this concept out some years ago, there is a growing trend not to define entropy as disorder anymore in textbooks. It is now being summed up instead as a process of energy dispersal. The original statement of the second law of thermodynamics does not actually conflict with a definition of energy dispersal, as “in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." A duality is revealed in the nature of it all. Energy forms are transient while the energy from which they arise appears to be, literally, eternal. Any energy form will age and die and that is disorder for that form, but may only be the beginning for the energy of which the form was composed.
When I put forth the idea that the second law of thermodynamics appears to be a factor in the facilitation of life on a science message board, I had a person in England argue against me tooth and nail. Somewhere along the line I somehow intuited that this furious philosopher was a teacher. As he proudly confirmed, he was, and perhaps still is, a high school science teacher. At some point he did an abrupt about face and said that, yes, it seemed I was correct in my seemingly counter-intuitive observation about the second law and evolution. Yet in acknowledging my observation he had lost none of his ferocity toward me. He changed his approach from saying that I was wrong to saying, so what?! What's your point? So entropy facilitates evolution and life! He then went on to ask how I could have any pudding if I don't eat my meat? No. Not really on that pudding business. In any case it was heart warming to be met with such open minded curiosity, from an “educator,” no less..
Another person online who professed to be a science writer assumed at first that I was making the Creationist argument that entropy disproves evolution. Once he realized what I was actually saying he decided that I was correct. I had others make strange leaps of assumption, such as that I do not believe in limited resources and perhaps that I must not believe in entropy, itself, when nothing could be farther from the truth. I had many people tell me, often quite angrily, that I was wrong, but I have yet to have anyone argue against my observation logically. It now appears that much of this confusion is a result of many popular science writers such as, one major example in the case of my own independent study, Stephen Hawking, erroneously likening entropy to disorder in an over simplistic across the board sense.
As for those who have leaped to the often rather infuriated conclusion that I am a Biblical Creationist, I feel that a genuine understanding of science leaves plenty of room for awe and wonder, and that it does so with no actual requirement of atheism, while my spiritual beliefs do not effect the issue at hand one way or the other. While I have nothing against Christianity, necessarily, and even some number of things for positive spiritual belief generally, (Especially when it does not include people condemning me to the flames of Hell.), I do not identify as Christian, let alone as a fundamentalist. I view science and religion as apples and oranges and have no issue with them as things that can work in tandem, but then I have a nasty tendency of thinking for myself.
I am a writer and an artist and a rogue intellectual. I am not schooled in science in any official capacity but it certainly runs in my family. My father, rest his soul, was a self taught electrical engineer, and an older brother, a professor of computer engineering, wrestled with computer vision. He has attended international conferences and made teacher of the year at a university in the 1990s. I've had pronounced interests in fossils, dinosaurs, fish, and ornithology, and in the behavioral evolution of canids. When fractal geometry, the most visual aspect of chaos theory, made the rounds of popular culture in the early 2000s, I was consumed by a need to know the scientific picture of our existence, from the Big Bang seed to the formation of stars and the solar system and Earth and life. I read books by James Gleick and Stephen Hawking and Roger S. Jones, among others, and had conversations both on and offline. Keeping all that in mind, then. Nothing up my sleeves... https://www.createspace.com/4324969

[i blame blame]

Yet I am not entirely unsympathetic toward the Creationist view that life seems more than a purely random occurrence, but there are standard rebuttals to the argument they make regarding the second law. One is that entropy is a statistical law, something that is usually but not always true, life then being, presumably, an exception.

This is an incorrect rebuttal. The laws of thermodynamics are always true, as far s we can tell and life is no exception.

Another point is that when an ordered “open” system comes into being that requires energy input, the surrounding entropy increases so that order and disorder then become a kind of shell game.

This is a correct rebuttal. Life receives energy from the Sun, which allows it to remain at a state of low entropy at the expense of the rest of the universe.

[Kane47]

Entropy is a statistical law which is given as a reason for the existence of complexity although I agree that it is hard to imagine any exceptions. Neither argument is my point anyway. My book concerns how nature barters with entropy and how the second law facilitates life.

[Kane47]

I can see where I should say that it is usually but not always applicable rather than usually but not always "true." Thank you.

[Kane47]

"Life receives energy from the Sun, which allows it to remain at a state of low entropy at the expense of the rest of the universe."
As for life receiving energy from the sun which is of course true, my focus involves where the stuff of earth and life originated in the first place. Entropy factors into the existence of earth and life. A quote from the book. Organic cells form, reproduce, and die within complex organisms that are born, reproduce, and die, within species and civilizations that adapt to result in new species and civilizations or simply carry on until they become extinct. All because stars are born, die, and are replaced, some former and current stars facilitating habitable planets and life. As the late Dr. Carl Sagan famously said: “We are star stuff.”

[i blame blame]

Entropy is a statistical law which is given as a reason for the existence of complexity although I agree that it is hard to imagine any exceptions1.

Indeed, but the fact that it's statistical doesn't mean that it's not always true.

Neither argument is my point anyway. My book concerns how nature barters with entropy and how the second law facilitates life.

Intriguing.