bombus

Just the plain old 2nd Law of Thermodynamics doin' its stuff:

Please see below:

by SCOTT SAMPSON

Chief Curator, Utah Museum of Natural History; Associate Professor Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah;

The truly dangerous ideas in science tend to be those that threaten the collective ego of humanity and knock us further off our pedestal of centrality. The Copernican Revolution abruptly dislodged humans from the center of the universe. The Darwinian Revolution yanked Homo sapiens from the pinnacle of life. Today another menacing revolution sits at the horizon of knowledge, patiently awaiting broad realization by the same egotistical species.

The dangerous idea is this: the purpose of life is to disperse energy.

Many of us are at least somewhat familiar with the second law of thermodynamics, the unwavering propensity of energy to disperse and, in doing so, transition from high quality to low quality forms. More generally, as stated by ecologist Eric Schneider, "nature abhors a gradient," where a gradient is simply a difference over a distance — for example, in temperature or pressure. Open physical systems — including those of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere — all embody this law, being driven by the dispersal of energy, particularly the flow of heat, continually attempting to achieve equilibrium. Phenomena as diverse as lithospheric plate motions, the northward flow of the Gulf Stream, and occurrence of deadly hurricanes are all examples of second law manifestations.

There is growing evidence that life, the biosphere, is no different. It has often been said the life's complexity contravenes the second law, indicating the work either of a deity or some unknown natural process, depending on one's bias. Yet the evolution of life and the dynamics of ecosystems obey the second law mandate, functioning in large part to dissipate energy. They do so not by burning brightly and disappearing, like a fire torching a forest, but through stable metabolic cycles that store chemical energy and continually reduce the solar gradient. Photosynthetic plants, bacteria, and algae capture energy from the sun and form the core of all food webs.

Virtually all organisms, including humans, are, in a real sense, sunlight transmogrified, temporary waypoints in the flow of energy. Ecological succession, viewed from a thermodynamic perspective, is a process that maximizes the capture and degradation of energy. Similarly, the tendency for life to become more complex over the past 3.5 billion years (as well as the overall increase in biomass and organismal diversity through time) is not due simply to natural selection, as most evolutionists still argue, but also to nature's "efforts" to grab more and more of the sun's flow. The slow burn that characterizes life enables ecological systems to persist over deep time, changing in response to external and internal perturbations.

Ecology has been summarized by the pithy statement, "energy flows, matter cycles. " Yet this maxim applies equally to complex systems in the non-living world; indeed it literally unites the biosphere with the physical realm. More and more, it appears that complex, cycling, swirling systems of matter have a natural tendency to emerge in the face of energy gradients. This recurrent phenomenon may even have been the driving force behind life's origins.

This idea is not new, and is certainly not mine. Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger was one of the first to articulate the hypothesis, as part of his famous "What is Life" lectures in Dublin in 1943. More recently, Jeffrey Wicken, Harold Morowitz, Eric Schneider and others have taken this concept considerably further, buoyed by results from a range of studies, particularly within ecology. Schneider and Dorian Sagan provide an excellent summary of this hypothesis in their recent book, "Into the Cool".

The concept of life as energy flow, once fully digested, is profound. Just as Darwin fundamentally connected humans to the non-human world, a thermodynamic perspective connects life inextricably to the non-living world. This dangerous idea, once broadly distributed and understood, is likely to provoke reaction from many sectors, including religion and science. The wondrous diversity and complexity of life through time, far from being the product of intelligent design, is a natural phenomenon intimately linked to the physical realm of energy flow.

Moreover, evolution is not driven by the machinations of selfish genes propagating themselves through countless millennia. Rather, ecology and evolution together operate as a highly successful, extremely persistent means of reducing the gradient generated by our nearest star. In my view, evolutionary theory (the process, not the fact of evolution!) and biology generally are headed for a major overhaul once investigators fully comprehend the notion that the complex systems of earth, air, water, and life are not only interconnected, but interdependent, cycling matter in order to maintain the flow of energy.

Although this statement addresses only naturalistic function and is mute with regard to spiritual meaning, it is likely to have deep effects outside of science. In particular, broad understanding of life's role in dispersing energy has great potential to help humans reconnect both to nature and to planet's physical systems at a key moment in our species' history.

Alien life could be extremely rare, and may not exist anywhere else in the universe. This could be it, the only island of life in all the black immensity of space...

For life of our kind to occur on earth the following was required:

1. A sun of the right size and type

2 A planet of the right distance from that sun

3. A planet of the right size

4. A planet that had been hit by a similar sized object at just the right point in its formation causing it to melt and allowing the core, mantle and crust layers to precipitate out (this is a really, really, really rare thing you know!)

5. A planet that has a single moon of the right size orbiting at the right speed and at the right distance.

6. A planet that spins at the right speed.

7. A planet that wobbles slightly on its axis.

8. A planet that has a slightly tilted axis.

9. A planet that has a magnetic field strong enough to deflect harmful solar radiation.

10. Volcanic activity and moving plates.

11. Liquid water.

All these things enabled life to exist (alledgedly). Venus and Mars are both almost OK for life, but are missing some of the above and so appear to be lifeless (but maybe we'll get a nice surprise someday?).

As for aliens visiting us - any society capable of interstellar travel would have probably destroyed itself long before by wasting all its resouces on cars, televisions, mobile phones, fashionable clothes, cleaning products, singing plastic wall mountable fish, and all the rest - and finished off by destroying their planet's life sustaining environment!

Hey, I got one - is reality just a relativistic effect?

You know when you are a sim when you look at the laws of physics closely enough' date=' and find the architects fudged it and used random number generators to populate quantum data.

 

 

Edit: Oh, and when you can't pick up an ET radio transmission for the life of you: sorry, its only a sim of one world and many generalized stars.[/quote']

 

 

Sorry, missed this one! I think you get my point!

I read a suggestion by a phisisist-philosopher that one way to tell would be to look for dissapearing glitches or changing constants -- if' date=' for example, the speed of light were to suddenly change and, at the same time, the phenomena whereby x happens under certain conditions (espesially where x is pretty dam paradoxical or just plain wierd) were to stop occouring, it could represent the maintainers of the system 'patching' the universe after finding a bug.

 

Sort of like:

 

[b']Bug QP1522458[/b]

Effected systems Universe simulator v5.2.*

Symptoms -- matter dissapears when equidistant from two identically-luminecent pulsars

Cause -- two identically strong light waves coming from exactly opposite directions will, under certain conditions, have a combined $velocity of 0, an unexpected situation causing their wavelengths to stack in an infinite loop resulting in a buffer overflow that over-rights any local $matter variables, effectively setting the value to 0 and causing the matter to cease to exist.

Resolution -- patch F54215454687654324658 slightly lowers c to prevent this situation occourning.

Hah! The thing is, maybe those 'glitches' and 'anomalous behaviours' are already known but just ignored! Take Quantum Physics for example - it's absolute nonsense, but it is correct (else we woudn't be typing this on a computer which relies on quantum mechanical engineering).

The reason I mentioned the double slit experiment, the fundamental problems with conciousness (and whether free will is just an illusion etc), dark matter, even relativity is because all these observed phenomena just don't seem to make any sense! The double slit experiment defies all logic! The planck constant is described by some as the grainyness of the universe - should that read the pixel resolution of the universe? In a computer simulation who needs logic!?

I think particle physicists, scientists analysing conciousness, neurologists, computer scientists and scientists investigating psi should start talking to each other a lot more.

I would even venture that the next major step in science (the grand unifying theory and all that) will NOT come from the fields of particle physics, but from

psychology, or a related area.

Oh, and when we die do we then see the Blue Screen Of Death? Maybe we just go to the next level...

I have read quite a bit about quantum physics, conciousness (including quantum conciousness), relativity, the double slit experiment, schrodingers cat, the planck constant, dark matter etc etc etc

You must have heard about the idea that we could be living in a computer simulation, (see the paper by Nick Bostrum)..

Is there a way a sim could prove that s/he is indeed a sim and not 'real'?

Is the planck constant the pixel size of our host computer's capability?

Ok' date=' I misunderstood you about the feet comparison. Although I see them adapted mostly for walking and I belive walking upright is an energy conservation issue.

 

Here's some recent news on upright stance.

 

ape-like people

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/060221_unertanfrm.htm

 

 

 

I don't have that channel so I will have to wait.

 

What I think is certain is that as we evolved we were able to live further and further away from water and by the way I think we evolved through a diversity of surroundings I will grant you it's not farfetched to think that some of our traits came from a water environment. It is however hard to pinpoint the exact traits because the reasons for some of the traits would come from multiple factors all working together.

 

All and all I belive we evolved from a predominant land creature.[/quote']

 

Planet Earth is David Attenborough's new programme on the BBC. I'd agree that we evolved from a predominantly land-based creature. The semi-aquatic period could explain why we went on a different path to chimps. We've only been separate species for around 5 million years (so they say!).

Elephants have extremely thick skin which negates the need for hair.

Elephants had a semi-aquatic ancestor, which is perhaps why they have little hair today. Rhinos also have a semi-aquatic ancestor, and Hippos are still semi-aquatic.

In fact, the case of elephants and these other pachyderms is very interesting and may have parallels with humans. They were land dwelling, then spent a period of time closely associated with water (semi-aquatic) and then came back on to the land 9for the most part). They still retain many of the watery traits though, and the elephants trunk may be one of them. They also still love spending time in water!

Maybe humans went through a similar process !

Yes water is essential to us. However I don't think we evolved from an semi-aquatic animal so _late_ in our evolutionary history if you mean an animal specially adapted to water like having big flipper-like feet.

 

The reason I don't belive this is our well developed brain. Since we are great at solving problems our environment would have to be diverse and challenging and one driving force is that of finding water. Since this would directly influence the ability to pass on one's genes and become dominant. I belive this was in the documentary also' date=' that the people were able to find water in many unlikely places.[/quote']

 

When I say big flipper-like feet I mean the feet we (humans) actually have. My feet are certainly big and flipper like and I bet yours are too compared to chimps! And to further back up the aquatic ape theory (semi-aquatic I should say), did you see those swimming/diving monkeys on Planet Earth last week? Give them half a million years and betcha they lose their hair, grow big flipper-like feet (not flippers though!), develop subcutaneous fat, a dive response, an upright stance etc etc etc...!

We can create computers that perform calculations trillions of billions times faster than we do but we will never ve able to create intellegent[/b'] computer until we fully understand how our brain works. And I think that would be much more important event than creating super fast computer

Oh can we now! I think that rather depends on what you consider to be a calculation. Robots, even those connected to supercomputers, have major difficulties performing what we consider to be simple tasks such as walking, or bending down to pick up an object without falling over let alone anything truly athletic. Surely the calculations brains perform to enable us to do these tasks would outstrip any computer? I think there is a football match planned for 2050 pitching robots against humans. I think the humans will win!

Well, I will search around for references, but three I have 'seen' were where volunteers sit in front of a computer which generates dots every second or so which form a line that eventually runs from one side of the screen to the other. Also on the screen is a straight line. If the computer generates a +1 the line being drawn rises and if it generates -1 the line falls. The straight line gives a 'baseline' so if the computer generates an equal number of +1s and -1s the drawn line will follow the baseline. Volunteers use their willpower to 'make' the line go up (or down). The study concluded that the rate at which volunteers were able to influence the line could not be accounted for by chance alone.

Another one (which actually made the national news) involved pets running to the door to wait at the exact moment when their owners decided to come home from destinations miles away. This was randomised and, well, just couldn't be explained by conventional science.

Most recently (again it made the news) was an experiment where someone had to guess who out of four people was phoning them before they picked up the phone. They got it right way over what chance would predict.

These studies were not done by cranks, but by established British Universities. I'd love to find the references myself. If I can find them I'll post them up.

As a first try I would see if loss of hair consists with conservation and gaining of energy of the whole system.

 

I don't know if this is true or not but a friend of mine told me yesterday about a documentary he saw where bushman as he called them hunted for pray using only primitive tools like spears. Now the interesting part was the way the hunted down the animal. I first thought they sneaked up on the animal but he said they chased the creature for hours in terrible heat so at the end the animal would just stand still. Here I assume it was because of heat exhaustion. This hunting method clearly needs rapid cooling so less hair is preferable.

Yeh, I saw that. It was a real eye opener. In fact the 'bushmen' didn't need to use any tools or weapons at all. They did chuck a spear into the animal (an elan I think) at the very end, but it was more of a token gesture, it was exhaustion that killed it.

The thing is, they were able to do it because they were able to carry water with them, else they would have died from dehydration before the elan. This seems to suggest that hair loss to aid sweating is a great adaptation - but only if you have evolved a brain big enough to carry water around with you.

I would suggest that perhaps a semi-naked, semi-aquatic ape, with a nice big brain (due to selection of neotenic features to aid a semi-aquatic lifestyle) was pre-adapted for life on the savannah. Once on the savannah its flipper-like feet were great for walking, its elongated body was great for an upright stance, and its big brain allowed tool use (e.g water carrying). Then it can lose almost all its hair as it's not really needed an in fact becomes an advantage..!

Mainly because we are intelligent enough that age doesn't really discriminate against (useful) knowledge. IE, a first time mother could perform like a many time mother now because we can share information at a MUCH more efficient rate.

I don't think intelligence has much to do with it - we feel it in our loins man! We are programmed that way, but other apes aren't. But even if u are correct, it's only 'cos we got bigger brains in the first place, which is (probably) a result of evolutionary neoteny. The thing that set us on that path in the first place may have been adaptation to a semi aquatic lifestyle which favoured neotenic features (i'm not listing them now!).

Because we became bipedal and the apes did not. Hence, being 'less hary' had a bigger effect on our bodies ( since they were more exposed).

Mmm... I would ask 'Why did we start to walk upright?'. The thing is, the only other savannah-living primate we know is the Baboon, and rather than becoming more human-like, it has become more dog-like. The only other truly 'upright' animal on earth (apart from man) is a penguin, and guess what, it's a semi aquatic bird! It's adaption for swimming in water has changed its body shape making it upright. Unfortunately for the penguin, it has gone for the short legs approach to swimming (like otters, seals, and ultimately cetaceans) rather than the long leg approach (like frogs) so although it walks upright, it can't exactly peg it when it needs to move fast - unlike the aquatic (nay semi-aquatic) ape!

Bluenoise is correct. Blue eyes are linked to a pale skin which is an adaptation displayed by peoples living in european northerly climates. The reason for it is because northerly latitudes have lower sunlight levels which make the production of vitamin D by the skin from sunlight more difficult. ('Eskimo' type peoples have other adaptations for living in even colder latitudes but probably retain brown eyes because they traditionally have a diet rich in vitamin D and also need dark eyes due to snow and sand glare).

The eyes of negroid peoples are not brown in exactly the same way as indo-europeans though, as it also involves pigmentation of a different part of the iris.

I don't think the Neanderthal reason is really 'needed' for an explanation, but I wouldn't discount it totally as there may be other peoples who lived in similar conditions to early europeans who never developed blue eyes...

Biologically speaking there is no reason why bigfoot could not exist - it could just be another Pongo or Homo, but as others have said, sshurely it would have been found by now.

1st climber: Have you seen the abominable snowman?

2nd climber: Not yeti!

Sorry, couldn't resist that one!

What is the lowest level of consciousness possible?

Nematodes have the lowest, according to Penrose and Hameroff. They have the minimum number of neurons to create a level of conciousness.

I know what you mean. It is' date=' in fact, a very interesting question.

 

In my opinion, the brain stem is the powerhouse for brain and whole neuron system. Therefore, the answer to your question has to wait until a better understanding about the mechanism of brain stem.

 

However, I do think the idea of "mechanical intervention" is plausible for this "neuron heart", although electrical and chemical based driving force is surely involved.[/quote']

 

I'm glad you understand the wierdness of the question! You are right that nerve impulses are carried via chemicals, but apart from synapses, this is done by the transfer of electrons from positively charged ions to negatively charged ones along nerve fibres (can't remember which chemicals are invloved - possibly potassium ions??). Conciousness would appear to be able to influence this transfer and using conventional physics, I can't see how - unless of course, as has already been suggested, free will is an illusion and we are actually totally unable to make decisions, we just think we make them after the alogorithms in the brain go through their predetermined calcualtions. Not a nice thought really is it!?

I believe sexual selection was at least partially the reason Homo Sapiens lost their hair.

 

A male who had less hair might have appeared more masculine' date=' therefore being chosen by the opposite sex. As for females, the loss of hair would have made their breasts more exposed, leading once again to sexual selection. Now it is unlikely that individuals would lose hair on one place of the body (e.g.: breasts) but a certain mutation would make the individual overall less hairy.

 

There could have been a mutation in the either sex that favored hairless partners. The gene would be successful because the offspring would be more equipped to deal with bipedalism (Sweat theory as mentioned before in the post) and therefore pass the gene for "preferring hairlessness" down the generations.

 

One of the theories is that the reason we became bipedal in the first place is because our penises were more exposed to the opposite sex once we are standing up.[/quote']

 

I think sexual selection is the answer, and it is neotenic features that were (and still are) being selected. It's not just hairlessness, its also small jaws, big brains, head articulation etc. Hairlessness is just another example of a general trend. The question is why were/are humans the only apes that select for neotenic features? We generally favour young mates whereas other apes generally favour more mature mates Ipresumably as they tend to make better mothers).

Hair provides so much needed protection from the elements. It only became redundant after humans started wearing clothing.

 

 

 

Considering you're contradicting Richard Dawkins here' date=' I'm going to go ahead and assume you're wrong.

 

Mokele? Care to chime in on that?[/quote']

 

Richard Dawkins was wrong and I am right. Just had to clear that one up.

yeah i mean muscles in thinking would be like sticking a spanner(read: asking for a spinning hard drive platter) in a processor.

 

Processors don't have moving parts now do they?

Same way' date=' while thinking we don't need muscles or anything. Just like 10001010101011101001010.....keep streaming through the processor back and forth, the same way the energy impulses keep going past the brain's processing unit back and forth to make us "think".

Although I "think"(get it?) that when one thinks of a certain problem mentally, a lot of complex and trial & error simulation is done in the brain. That's thinking I suppose.[/quote']

 

Good analogy, but the point is, micro processors are just a set of logic switches and computers cannot excercise free will. However, it would seem that many people believe that neither do we!

 

However, for those that don't like the idea of us being in life just for the ride with no ability to excercise free will, try this web page:

 

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/

No they are ignored by the scientific community because they are not reproducible' date=' even if they were these tests have not been framed as tests of QC, thus they cannot be said to explain anything about this theory.

 

 

 

Well if it the effect cannot be detected, or denied by by observation, then the issue is moot since then no useful predictions can be made. Ether way the theory dies[/quote']

 

Actually, they are reproducible - and HAVE been reproduced - even 'on demand' but they are still ignored.

 

Superstring theory is unproveable, but is still one of the leading hypotheses around at the moment.

 

Anyway, all I will say is that we will await the results of current QC experiments - I'm sure if they prove something we will hear about it!

All these answers are very interesting, but none seem to answer the basic question. I can control my thoughts to a relatively high degree - I can choose what to think about. This is surely not already pre-determined by the firing of neurons at a previous state. That would mean I have no ability to control my thoughts, because my thoughts would all be based on what I was previously thinking! This I hope is not the case as it would mean that 'free will' is actually an illusion and we cannot control our thoughts at all.

I mentioned muscles just as an example because we lack any 'mechanical' way of controlling thoughts - so how am I able to control the flow of electrons in my brain? How is this possible without 'mechanical, intervention? It would seem that conciousness is able to affect the flow of electrons without ANY 'mechanical' intervention. Surely this is just not possible?

Great site, great ideas, particularly Scott Sampson (whoa!) and Lee Smolin (as far as I got)...

Lee Smolin says "The basic method of science after Einstein seems to be: identify something in your theory that is playing the role of an absolute background, that is needed to define the laws that govern objects in your theory, and understand it more deeply as a contingent property, which itself evolves subject to law."

I would argue that with all science (all everything), the background is consciousness, but that's a different thread (Neurology/Quantum Consciousness) well worth visiting.

At this time no proof of QC exists, however unlike some, I am not willing to dismiss it outright. However I do recognise that there may be other mechanisms that are at work, like thermal randomness, to provide the necessary non-deterministic input to the system.

Thermal randomness does not explain why human willpower alone can affect the production of random numbers by a computer. There have been numerous experiments which show this, but the results have largely been ignored by the scientific community as they can't be explained by traditional scientific explanations. QC would explain this.

Well that's the crux of the discussion we were having.

 

Agreed' date=' and a big crux it is too! The biggest I suppose.

 

No, it will 'boil down' to proof via some yet to be determined quantifiable, reproducible, experiment testing a falsifiable hypothesis.

 

What if it cannot be proven because the act of observation affects the results?