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Old 1st September 2007, 07:59 AM   #1
wogoga
Critical Thinker
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 334
Entropy, order and life

Originally Posted by wogoga View Post
Neodarwinism however seems to me a rather absurd creation theory, because it assumes that the universe was hyper-designed and super-created by a big bang in such a complex way that blind downhill processes (increasing entropy) can design and create whole ecosystems.
Originally Posted by Normal Dude View Post
I suggest you look up the difference between a closed and open system.

Which of the following statements are wrong within the materialist reductionist framework?
  1. The obvious increase in order resp. complexity (of galaxies, planetary systems, ecosystems, civilizations) is caused by blind downhill processes (transforming less probable states into more probable states).
  2. All downhill processes increase entropy and decrease order of the interacting systems as a whole.
  3. The universe is a closed system, i.e. it does not interact with other systems.
  4. The entropy of the universe is continuously increasing and its order continuously decreasing.
  5. The order of the universe was highest (and its entropy lowest) just after its creation by a big explosion.
  6. The increase in order on earth is only possible because it is compensated by a decrease in order on the sun.

Originally Posted by wogoga View Post
BTW, do you know that from a logical viewpoint reductionism implies, that a just hatched chick is less ordered (complex) than the just fertilized egg, because only processes which increase entropy are possible? (The open/closed-system confusion is pointless in this context.)

We can put the just fertilized egg together with enough atmosphere of the right temperature in a big enough box and consider the whole box as a closed system. The composition of the air in the box will change during the development of the chick, but to consider this change as a decrease in order seems quite absurd to me. Because the box with the just hatched chick is considered a state resulting only from blind downhill processes affecting previous higher-order states, we must conclude:

The box with the just hatched chick is less ordered than the box with the just fertilized egg.

Cheers, Wolfgang
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