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Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
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Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#32Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#33The thing that is often missed in debates about entropy and Universe is that the classical notion on entropy is not compatible with General Relativity. Richard Tolman almost 100 years ago proposed an extension that was compatible.
One of the consequences of that extension was a possibility of a cyclic universe. On expansion one sees that classically defined entropy increases but then it will decrease on contraction.
These days that work is pretty much forgotten, but still it showed that with GR heat dearth of the universe was not the only option.
Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#34The thing that is often missed in debates about entropy and Universe is that the classical notion on entropy is not compatible with General Relativity. Richard Tolman almost 100 years ago proposed an extension that was compatible. One of the consequences of that extension was a possibility of a cyclic universe. On expansion one sees that classically defined entropy increases but then it will decrease on contraction.…
Heat death was never the only option in GR. The field equations always allowed for a big crunch or a big rip.
Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#35The thing that is often missed in debates about entropy and Universe is that the classical notion on entropy is not compatible with General Relativity. Richard Tolman almost 100 years ago proposed an extension that was compatible. One of the consequences of that extension was a possibility of a cyclic universe. On expansion one sees that classically defined entropy increases but then it will decrease on contraction.…
Heat death was never the only option in GR. The field equations always allowed for a big crunch or a big rip.
Yes, but that implies that in GR entropy or at least the value based on the classical definition can decrease.
So apparent increase in complexity can be attributed to gravity.
Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heat death was never the only option in GR. The field equations always allowed for a big crunch or a big rip.
Yes, but that implies that in GR entropy or at least the value based on the classical definition can decrease. So apparent increase in complexity can be attributed to gravity.
Sean Carroll today's go-to person for GR has been working at popularizing these ideas (for more than 10 years(!))
https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.6903
>For example, our universe lacked complex structures at the Big Bang and will also lack them after black holes evaporate and particles are dispersed.
See my comment below for link to Scott's preview.
Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where did you read this? "Purpose" is a very loaded word. If life has any purpose at all, it's to reproduce and propagate one's genes. Additional entropy just sounds like an inevitable side-effect of that.
"to reproduce and populate its genes" feels like a better fit for the purpose of an organism. If you subscribe to the big bang theory (and the idea that the purpose of a system is what it does), then the universe's purpose is to walk a path from low entropy to high entropy. Of what use is life, in such an endeavor? Well, life tends to seek out bits of stuck energy (food/fuel) and release it (metabolism/economy)--movi…
Stop it. My eyes can only roll so much.
Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#38Tried reading the paper [1]. I understand the authors are academics, which is why I'm surprised the paper reads like a layman's attempt at a contributing to a "theory of everything", or at best, an inquiry written by a 18th century European philosopher of science.
- "identification of conceptual equivalencies among disparate phenomena were foundational to developing previous laws of nature" - what exactly is a "conceptual equivalence"? You mean models? Unifying disparate observations into models is basic science. Not sure why it is highlighted here as some important insight.
- "The laws of classical physics emerged as efforts to provide comprehensive, predictive explanations of phenomena in the macroscopic world" - followed by a laymen's listing of physical laws, then goes on to claim "conspicuously absent is a law of increasing “complexity.”"
- then a jumble of examples including gravitation, stellar evolution, mineral evolution and biological evolution
- this just feels like a slight generalization of evolution: "Systems of many interacting agents display an increase in diversity, distribution, and/or patterned behavior when numerous configurations of the system are subject to selective pressure."
At this point, I gave up.
Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#39I remember reading somewhere that maybe the purpose of life is to increase entropy in the universe. If that is true and we haven't found any sound evidence of life elsewhere, I don't know.
I read somewhere that life is more efficient at dissipating energy and faster at increasing entropy than non-living physical/chemical phenomena. Citation needed.
Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where did you read this? "Purpose" is a very loaded word. If life has any purpose at all, it's to reproduce and propagate one's genes. Additional entropy just sounds like an inevitable side-effect of that.
"to reproduce and populate its genes" feels like a better fit for the purpose of an organism. If you subscribe to the big bang theory (and the idea that the purpose of a system is what it does), then the universe's purpose is to walk a path from low entropy to high entropy. Of what use is life, in such an endeavor? Well, life tends to seek out bits of stuck energy (food/fuel) and release it (metabolism/economy)--movi…
Can life evolve to slow down the process of increasing entropy? For ex: Sun is throwing energy in space. What if life tries to store it and use it only when it needs? Has the sunlight gone into space (without being captured by fossilized life), it would have thinly spread out in universe(high entropy, low energy density). But plants and humans (solar cells) capturing it to create fossil fules or create some infrastructure... Is it not life going against this theory? Or is it just intermidiate step of life which eventually (life will) blast all energy in short period of time at the end like an expontial system does?