Evolution and the 2nd Law

Saith said:
In the "W" sense of complexity, could something that we consider complex not be as complex as something we consider simple. Like, could a campfire be considered more complex than a microprocessor or possibly something else that has more order?
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Yes. The W notion of 'complexity' has a lot to do with temperature, since high temperature matter will have many more possible microstates than low temperature matter. A campfire would almost certainly be considered more 'complex' from a thermodynamic standpoint than a microprocessor that contained an equivalent amount of matter.

This is a perfect example of why 'complexity' and 'disorder' in thermodynamics don't necessarily correspond well to our everyday, common-sense notions of complexity and disorder.
 
Evolution does not violate the second law!!!

The second law of thermodynamic proclaims that energy is always being lost at the global, universal level. Basically disorder is a free ride, no energy needed, to reverse disorder energy is needed and the extraction of energy is causing disorder. So for example for a organism to live it needed energy, if not it dies and decays, entropy wins, when the organism gets energy its at the cost of something else paying its tax to entropy, again entropy wins, so no matter what entropy gets its way and the second law is followed. Life can cause a great amount of organization in the local system seeming to violate the second law, but its at the cost of much energy somewhere else: for most life its at the cost of mass in the sun as sun light feeds most life on earth, so the sun is paying and providing the energy for life to counter entropy, so the global system (the sun and the universe) is increasing in entropy greatly, second law say alright with the local system losing entropy as long as the universe in general is gaining it. If there was no energy input all life would die. If life could live without any energy input that would be breaking the second law.
 
Nasor said:
Yes. The W notion of 'complexity' has a lot to do with temperature, since high temperature matter will have many more possible microstates than low temperature matter. A campfire would almost certainly be considered more 'complex' from a thermodynamic standpoint than a microprocessor that contained an equivalent amount of matter.

This is a perfect example of why 'complexity' and 'disorder' in thermodynamics don't necessarily correspond well to our everyday, common-sense notions of complexity and disorder.
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Im not sure many textbooks say that about entropy do they Nasor? I don't think they talk about 'absolute order and disorder'. What they do is give simple examples of things which, when they are getting more disordered, they are increasing in entropy. The most important thing of course is giving these examples to show that entropy always increases (your room will never tidy itself!)
 
John Connellan said:
Im not sure many textbooks say that about entropy do they Nasor? I don't think they talk about 'absolute order and disorder'. What they do is give simple examples of things which, when they are getting more disordered, they are increasing in entropy. The most important thing of course is giving these examples to show that entropy always increases (your room will never tidy itself!)
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A campfire would almost certainly have to have a higher entropy than a microprocessor, if for no other reason than that it's very hot and contains a lot of gas. Hot gases usually have much higher entropy than solids.

Personally I think that the examples of entropy that are usually given in low-level textbooks are very poor and more likely to confuse someone than help them understand entropy. Take the messy room, for example...the entropy of the room isn't necessarily any higher when it's messy vs. when you've cleaned diligently. Those sorts of bad examples are partially responsible for creationists being able to pass off lies on people, like BlackJackal was trying to do.

Where is ol' BlackJackal, anyway? Think he's out diligently studying thermodynamics?
 
I do believe that its not a complete description when u are studying advanced thermodynamics and u really want to know what entropy is all about but a better example (than the messy room because there's human input there) is the broken vase. The 2nd law says that through time, total entropy must increase whenever there is an exchange of energy (i.e. whenever there is an event). Everyone agrees the vase made by the manufacturer is highly ordered. When there is a change of energy (dropping off the table) then the entropy increases and the vase is broken

I doubt he IS studying thermodynamics! I'd say he has just given up. He's had enough :D
 
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IMO, survival is the antithesis of entropy.

It makes me think that entropy might be a phenomenon which results as a consequence of dimensional borders at compactificated dimensions, and survival results as a consequence of interaction at dimensional borders to which our spacetime might seem compactificated.

AND that makes me think of evolution as more like "conservation of life energy", so to speak.

HMM.... that seems like a significant epiphany to me. Doesn't do much for you?
 
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So this place is low because I say I think entropy is the antithesis of survival?

Right.
 
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Hey, you guys should crawl off BlackJackal's back. It looks to me that he was confused by semantics, and wasn't trying to sow the seeds of creationist discontent.
 
wesmorris,

I'm sorry i was not talking about you I was talking about you and everyone else in general. :D
 
Well, actually guys... evolution does break technically the second law.

But so do parts light bulbs, air conditioners, heaters, liquids, etc etc...

Nothing says that patchs of order will not develop... just that the entropy increases. This does NOT relate directly to our everyday visions of 'order' on any level besides an analogy.
 
A local system can become more organized as long as the entropy of the global system increases.
 
WellCookedFetus said:
wesmorris,

I'm sorry i was not talking about you I was talking about you and everyone else in general. :D
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LOL.

Pardon, it's just that sometimes my insane ramblings result in moments of being self-conscious.
 
Persol said:
Well, actually guys... evolution does break technically the second law.

But so do parts light bulbs, air conditioners, heaters, liquids, etc etc...

Nothing says that patchs of order will not develop... just that the entropy increases. This does NOT relate directly to our everyday visions of 'order' on any level besides an analogy.
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Nothing, so far as we know, breaks the second law. You seem to be a little confused about exactly where it applies.
 
I phrased it incorrectly. I meant that as an isolated system it does break the second law.

Luckily it's not an isolated system.
 
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