DNAunion: Part 2 of 2
>>>David Bowman: Although I hesitate to do so, I will risk using a
gravitational analogy (initially used earlier by DNAunion to illustrate his
idea of the 2nd law being "overcome"). Consider any solid object that I drop
out of my hand to the floor, or consider any object significantly more dense
than 1 kg/L being dropped into a swimming pool. Because of the interaction
of the mass of the body, the mass of the surrounding air or water, and the
gravitational field of the earth, as the object falls, the fluid (air or
water) surrounding it is displaced out of the way to make room for the body,
since the fluid and the object it is immersed in do not occupy the same space
at the same time. As there is a net displacement of the object downward,
there is a net associated motion *upward* of the displaced fluid. If we
focussed our attention on the displaced fluid we would see its gravitational
potential energy *increase*. If we focussed our attention on the the body we
would see its potential energy decrease. The sum of the potential energies of
the surrounding fluid and the object decreases. Gravity is *not* overcome by
this process of rising fluid.
******************
DNAunion: I would not have said otherwise. But this example does not
correlate well with any of mine as far as I can tell. All of mine involved
objects moving in a direction opposite what one would expect considering
gravity (heavier than air objects rising from Earth). Yours here involves an
object actually falling towards the Earth, so why would I claim that gravity
was overcome?
******************
>>>David Bowman: If, OTOH, the body was released at the bottom of the
swimming pool, and it had a density less than that of the water, or if a
helium balloon was released from my hand in air, then the object would rise
and the displaced surrounding fluid would fall. In this case gravity is
*not* overcome *either*.
****************
DNAunion: Considering the helium balloon, I disagree. In that case, there
are two separate tendencies: the balloon's tendency to move down towards the
ground (being heavier than air) and the helium's tendency to rise from the
ground (being lighter than air). With enough helium provided, its tendency
to rise would overcome that of the balloon's tendency to fall and the object
would rise from the Earth. Considering the balloon itself, since it started
out being heavier than air and remained so throughout, it should be moving
towards the Earth because of gravity, but it is not: the tendency gravity
imposed on the balloon has been "overcome"- it has not been violated, defied,
broken, or done away with - just one natural tendency outweighed another
(goodness grief, will I now have to spend hours defending my use of the word
"outweighed" to Paul and Richard).
****************
>>>David Bowman: It's just that in this latter case, the increase in the
gravitational potential energy of the object (balloon in the air or block of
wood in the pool) is less than the decrease in the gravitational potential
energy of the surrounding fluid medium. In *both* cases the total
gravitational potential energy of the object and the displaced fluid
decreases as the object either sinks or rises--as the case may be.
So it is with the 2nd law. *Any* thermodynamic process will involve some
subsystems whose entropy decreases, and others, whose entropy increases.
When we include the sum of the entropy changes of all the
parts which are interacting as part of the process, we find that the net
total entropy change is positive with time.
******************
DNAunion: Yes, as I myself have stated. However, if my personal experience
is anything to go on, if one simply states something like "total entropy
always increases", then he or she is liable to be called a Creationist
(people miss the qualifying terms and turn that person's words around to
saying that "entropy can never decrease"). That is why I always try to
remember to qualify my statements (what David originally called my
"concessions"), making sure to include the fact that entropy can decrease
locally if compensated for by an equal or greater increase in entropy
elsewhere.
******************
>>>David Bowman: In *no* such case is the 2nd law ever "overcome" or
violated.
**********************
DNAunion: Well, at least not violated :-)
**********************
>>>Richard Wein: I think that, if we strip away the misleading talk of
"code-driven energy-conversion systems" and processes "overcoming" the Second
Law, what the objectors are really asking is this: what is the process by
which energy (e.g. from the Sun) drives a decrease in entropy in pre-biotic
structures?
>>>David Bowman: I certainly don't pretend to know in detail how biogenesis
came about. But if it was via some fully natural abiogenetic process, it
will be found that the 2nd law was *not* overcome nor violated [I'll let this
one go :-)] in that process. If the entropy of some pre-biotic structures
happened to have decreased, then the entropy of some other relevant
subsystems of the process increased by a greater amount. This is not
conceptually any different than any other naturally occurring process
regarding issues of the 2nd law.
It *is* an open question, I believe, as to whether or not a fully
naturalistic scenario for the development of life exists or not. But the
issue will be decided on other grounds than on appeals to the 2nd law.
I personally, can't imagine how life could have gotten started via a fully
naturalistic scenario. But this might just be a lack of imagination on my
part. I'm undecided about such a question of abiogenesis. But I am
confident that if it abiogenesis occurred in a fully natural manner, there is
nothing of the 2nd law for it to have "overcome". Not every process that is
found to be effectively impossible (because the probability of its occurance
is much too low to ever have happened anywhere in the causally connected
region of our universe) is necessarily related in any way to an *overcoming*
of the 2nd law. It can be probabilistically impossible for other reasons
(e.g. reasons pertaining to missing detailed dynamical pathways, low
tunneling probabilities, etc.). Since no one yet has a convincing detailed
account of abiogenesis, the jury is still out on whether it could have
happened in a fully naturalistic manner. It is *quite* premature to be
making impossibility verdicts based on bogus 2nd law arguments.
***********************
DNAunion: Please note that I am not making IMPOSSIBILITY statements based
on this or any other arguments. I limit my conclusions to highly-improbable
(unless everyone can agree that Emile Borel's 10^-50 or Demski's 10^-150
probability bounds allow one to make a claim of impossibility even when it is
not something that can be proven to be impossible: For example, the
probability of the following mathematical statements being true X = Y, X = 1,
Y = 2 is 0: it is literally impossible. However, the probability of being
dealt 10,000 royal straight flushes in a row (fair deck, thoroughly shuffled
between dealings) is not 0: can one say that it is impossible?).
Anyway, this is another misconception I get hit with a lot. "You are
claiming it is impossible for life to arise naturally". No, I am saying that
it is *highly-improbable* for life as complex as the "simplest" autonomous
cell to arise by purely-natural processes here on Earth, under the conditions
thought to have been present at the time, in the limited amount of time
available. And, therefore, it seems to me to be a better explanation that
life arrived fully-formed (probably in a dormant sporelike state) from
elsewhere: and because of other hurdles in producing a bacterium
purely-naturally, that that life could have been seeded intentionally after
being designed and created by (an) unspecified intelligent agent(s), such as
ETIs. There is a lot of speculation and no dogmatic statements in there.
***********************
>>>Richard Wein: I think the short answer to the question is "through
chemical reactions (and possibly other physical processes) which require
heat." Without heat, the chemical reactions could not take place. Of course,
this doesn't just apply to prebiotic structures. There are all sorts of
inorganic structures whose entropy decrease is driven (directly or
indirectly) by heat. Commonly cited examples are snowflakes, crystals and
tornados. But they can also simply be molecules undergoing chemical reactions
to form lower-entropy compounds.
>>>David Bowman: True.
>>>Richard Wein: If these can experience decreases in entropy without a
"code-driven energy-conversion system", then obviously pre-biotic structures
can do so too.
>>>David Bowman: I disagree here. The above is a non sequiter. It is not
obvious *at all* what is needed for the appropriate structures to form. But
it is true that *if* it should be the case that some foreignly implanted
"code-driven energy-conversion system" is necessary to form the necessary
structures, then that necessity is not imposed by the 2nd law, and any appeal
to it to argue for such a structure is invalid.
[…]
>>
attached mail follows:
DNAunion: Part 2 of 2
>>>David Bowman: Although I hesitate to do so, I will risk using a
gravitational analogy (initially used earlier by DNAunion to illustrate his
idea of the 2nd law being "overcome"). Consider any solid object that I drop
out of my hand to the floor, or consider any object significantly more dense
than 1 kg/L being dropped into a swimming pool. Because of the interaction
of the mass of the body, the mass of the surrounding air or water, and the
gravitational field of the earth, as the object falls, the fluid (air or
water) surrounding it is displaced out of the way to make room for the body,
since the fluid and the object it is immersed in do not occupy the same space
at the same time. As there is a net displacement of the object downward,
there is a net associated motion *upward* of the displaced fluid. If we
focussed our attention on the displaced fluid we would see its gravitational
potential energy *increase*. If we focussed our attention on the the body we
would see its potential energy decrease. The sum of the potential energies of
the surrounding fluid and the object decreases. Gravity is *not* overcome by
this process of rising fluid.
******************
DNAunion: I would not have said otherwise. But this example does not
correlate well with any of mine as far as I can tell. All of mine involved
objects moving in a direction opposite what one would expect considering
gravity (heavier than air objects rising from Earth). Yours here involves an
object actually falling towards the Earth, so why would I claim that gravity
was overcome?
******************
>>>David Bowman: If, OTOH, the body was released at the bottom of the
swimming pool, and it had a density less than that of the water, or if a
helium balloon was released from my hand in air, then the object would rise
and the displaced surrounding fluid would fall. In this case gravity is
*not* overcome *either*.
****************
DNAunion: Considering the helium balloon, I disagree. In that case, there
are two separate tendencies: the balloon's tendency to move down towards the
ground (being heavier than air) and the helium's tendency to rise from the
ground (being lighter than air). With enough helium provided, its tendency
to rise would overcome that of the balloon's tendency to fall and the object
would rise from the Earth. Considering the balloon itself, since it started
out being heavier than air and remained so throughout, it should be moving
towards the Earth because of gravity, but it is not: the tendency gravity
imposed on the balloon has been "overcome"- it has not been violated, defied,
broken, or done away with - just one natural tendency outweighed another
(goodness grief, will I now have to spend hours defending my use of the word
"outweighed" to Paul and Richard).
****************
>>>David Bowman: It's just that in this latter case, the increase in the
gravitational potential energy of the object (balloon in the air or block of
wood in the pool) is less than the decrease in the gravitational potential
energy of the surrounding fluid medium. In *both* cases the total
gravitational potential energy of the object and the displaced fluid
decreases as the object either sinks or rises--as the case may be.
So it is with the 2nd law. *Any* thermodynamic process will involve some
subsystems whose entropy decreases, and others, whose entropy increases.
When we include the sum of the entropy changes of all the
parts which are interacting as part of the process, we find that the net
total entropy change is positive with time.
******************
DNAunion: Yes, as I myself have stated. However, if my personal experience
is anything to go on, if one simply states something like "total entropy
always increases", then he or she is liable to be called a Creationist
(people miss the qualifying terms and turn that person's words around to
saying that "entropy can never decrease"). That is why I always try to
remember to qualify my statements (what David originally called my
"concessions"), making sure to include the fact that entropy can decrease
locally if compensated for by an equal or greater increase in entropy
elsewhere.
******************
>>>David Bowman: In *no* such case is the 2nd law ever "overcome" or
violated.
**********************
DNAunion: Well, at least not violated :-)
**********************
>>>Richard Wein: I think that, if we strip away the misleading talk of
"code-driven energy-conversion systems" and processes "overcoming" the Second
Law, what the objectors are really asking is this: what is the process by
which energy (e.g. from the Sun) drives a decrease in entropy in pre-biotic
structures?
>>>David Bowman: I certainly don't pretend to know in detail how biogenesis
came about. But if it was via some fully natural abiogenetic process, it
will be found that the 2nd law was *not* overcome nor violated [I'll let this
one go :-)] in that process. If the entropy of some pre-biotic structures
happened to have decreased, then the entropy of some other relevant
subsystems of the process increased by a greater amount. This is not
conceptually any different than any other naturally occurring process
regarding issues of the 2nd law.
It *is* an open question, I believe, as to whether or not a fully
naturalistic scenario for the development of life exists or not. But the
issue will be decided on other grounds than on appeals to the 2nd law.
I personally, can't imagine how life could have gotten started via a fully
naturalistic scenario. But this might just be a lack of imagination on my
part. I'm undecided about such a question of abiogenesis. But I am
confident that if it abiogenesis occurred in a fully natural manner, there is
nothing of the 2nd law for it to have "overcome". Not every process that is
found to be effectively impossible (because the probability of its occurance
is much too low to ever have happened anywhere in the causally connected
region of our universe) is necessarily related in any way to an *overcoming*
of the 2nd law. It can be probabilistically impossible for other reasons
(e.g. reasons pertaining to missing detailed dynamical pathways, low
tunneling probabilities, etc.). Since no one yet has a convincing detailed
account of abiogenesis, the jury is still out on whether it could have
happened in a fully naturalistic manner. It is *quite* premature to be
making impossibility verdicts based on bogus 2nd law arguments.
***********************
DNAunion: Please note that I am not making IMPOSSIBILITY statements based on
this or any other arguments. I limit my conclusions to highly-improbable
(unless everyone can agree that Emile Borel's 10^-50 or Demski's 10^-150
probability bounds allow one to make a claim of impossibility even when it is
not something that can be proven to be impossible: For example, the
probability of the following mathematical statements being true X = Y, X = 1,
Y = 2 is 0: it is literally impossible. However, the probability of being
dealt 10,000 royal straight flushes in a row (fair deck, thoroughly shuffled
between dealings) is not 0: can one say that it is impossible?).
Anyway, this is another misconception I get hit with a lot. "You are
claiming it is impossible for life to arise naturally". No, I am saying that
it is *highly-improbable* for life as complex as the "simplest" autonomous
cell to arise by purely-natural processes here on Earth, under the conditions
thought to have been present at the time, in the limited amount of time
available. And, therefore, it seems to me to be a better explanation that
life arrived fully-formed (probably in a dormant sporelike state) from
elsewhere: and because of other hurdles in producing a bacterium
purely-naturally, that that life could have been seeded intentionally after
being designed and created by (an) unspecified intelligent agent(s), such as
ETIs. There is a lot of speculation and no dogmatic statements in there.
***********************
>>>Richard Wein: I think the short answer to the question is "through
chemical reactions (and possibly other physical processes) which require
heat." Without heat, the chemical reactions could not take place. Of course,
this doesn't just apply to prebiotic structures. There are all sorts of
inorganic structures whose entropy decrease is driven (directly or
indirectly) by heat. Commonly cited examples are snowflakes, crystals and
tornados. But they can also simply be molecules undergoing chemical reactions
to form lower-entropy compounds.
>>>David Bowman: True.
>>>Richard Wein: If these can experience decreases in entropy without a
"code-driven energy-conversion system", then obviously pre-biotic structures
can do so too.
>>>David Bowman: I disagree here. The above is a non sequiter. It is not
obvious *at all* what is needed for the appropriate structures to form. But
it is true that *if* it should be the case that some foreignly implanted
"code-driven energy-conversion system" is necessary to form the necessary
structures, then that necessity is not imposed by the 2nd law, and any appeal
to it to argue for such a structure is invalid.
[…]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Nov 12 2000 - 01:57:24 EST