Entropy

[Doug Dawn]

Liz, in answer to your question, the reason "increasing entropy" is
consistent with the proliferation of life, the process of metamorphosis,
the design of wings, or anything else supposedly resulting from
evolution, might be easier to interpret considering:

(1) CLOSED SYSTEMS (Doug Y's comment)
(2) THE SUN - break down results in energy emission
(3) PLANTS - put sugars together from CO2
(4) ANIMALS - breaks down sugars into CO2 and H2O
(5) MEASUREMENT UNITS- molecules and smaller particles, as well as macro
sizes

The short answer is you eat, like all ANIMALS, some calories in the form
of sugars and equivalents, and convert them into high flying
disorganized CO2 and H20 molecules.  The calories are generally from
PLANTS which have captured energy from the Sun in sugars.  When plants
create the sugars, they release lots of O2, which is even more
disorganized and high flying.  So in the case of the plant, between the
entropy caused by burning in the Sun (production of tiny Helium atoms)
causing all the rays the plant ever receives and the accumulated O2 the
plant releases, the entropy, MEASURED by molecular organization is
increased.  That is why plants need time to grow - for each molecular
addition to plant tissue, you need time for the Sun and photosynthesis
to increase entropy (in general) of the rest of the system. Then, in the
case of ANIMALS, we eat the plants and likewise grow into larger
organisms at a rate limited by the same type of entropy constraints as
we burn their sugars into CO2 and H2O.  A caterpillar can go through
metamorphosis only after eating a lot - sure this is obvious...but just
think of all the loss of plant tissue structure and burnt plant material
into CO2 and H2O that results.
***           ***         ***          ***
So in the end living organisms are basically imperfection or
perturbations in the universe, which help the death of the universe by
increasing entropy.  Organisms are just bags of localized structure
which make more entropy than their system could without them.
Stretching this in entropy terms, natural selection involves the
interactions along the way of replicating competing perturbations.
Interestingly, making more entropy is not necessarily an advantage.
Thermodynamics doesn't have anything to do with speed of entropy
production.  It only says that in any reaction, total system entropy can
never decrease.
***          ***           ***          ***
Of course, the this requires that the Sun is not be immune to this
either:
The Sun obeys the law: it is slowly wearing out and increasing in
entropy:  When it burns 12% of its fuel it will turn into a red giant
with a helium core.  Then is won't be able to sustain that energy output
any more and will turn into a red giant and then after burning more, a
white dwarf.  Ultimately, as aging continues, the organized core white
dwarf basically collapses and spews off spent matter throughout space
like dust & nebulae - talk about a high entropy mess.   Through this
chain you can see how the entropy of caused by our existence is directly
linked to the inevitable "end" looking like the Orion Nebula.  But that
too will become scattered cosmic dust and at some point in time a
perfect universe of a type will be created:  It will be a completely
expanded uniform postmordial soup spent stuff.  That stuff won't even be
Helium, but rather degraded particles since even atoms have organization
= entropy.  The Sun ought to last approximately another
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years before 12% of the fuel
is gone.  Thank God it is a slow process, and also that entropy doesn't
necessarily explain why we find butterfly wings beautiful or why the men
who playing with cannons who developed thermodynamics won't clean out
the bird cage.  Best wishes.  Doug.
________________________
Douglas David Dawn
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4048/
Botanical Exploration, 1820's style:
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4048/Douglas/douglas.html
N.  25º 37.408'
W. 100º 22.003'
Altitude 910 meters
Sylvania Pinus-Quercus

From:  Liz Day <lday at iquest.net>
    CC: LEPS-L at lists.yale.edu

DY said:

> >By the same logic you are using to naysay evolution, you
> can naysay life itself, which is ALL anti-entropic.

MW said:

> Yep, I totally agree.  In fact, that is precisely my point.  Life
itself is
> in conflict with entropy.


I took Doug's point to be that life is NOT in conflict with the laws (?)

of entropy.  I vaguely remember learning that while the organisms
themselves become less entropic (boy is that a weird word!), they make
their environment more entropic, so it balances out.  This is
unquestionably true for my parakeet, who is terribly messy; saturniid
larvae are even worse.  (I just wish whoever wrote these thermodynamic
rules would come clean up after them, but since they were men it's
probably unlikely.  Also I think they are dead.  Men *always* have some
excuse.)

Anyway maybe someone has a website or book source that explains the
truth behind this confusion. - ?

Liz Day
LDAY at iquest.net
Indianapolis, Indiana, central USA - 40 N latitude, zone 5b.
www.iquest.net/~lday