foodchain Posted April 25, 2009 Posted April 25, 2009 Sorry, have an idea eating away at my head and have to post it. So if thermodynamics, or energy flows from states of high to low or what not, does this count down on the quantum scale? I know I have posted this question here before but I am still not in an academic position to work on such yet. So with that in hand bear with me. Ok, so energy or what not flows from high to low, and in-between for it to exist, or satisfy conservation laws, would that not in its own right give probability for some kind of order and time? This is where einselection and decoherence bugger me so much, more so in regards to chemical systems. For instance the earth is in a process of geological differentiation constantly, its because of energy right, or free energy and the earth trying to like a chemical system find some stable equilibrium I would think. So could stable pointer states simply be quantum systems upholding conservation laws? I don't want to take a consistent histories outlook on anything here, but if A goes to B, the next einselecting event would be from B to whatever right, yet in that would not the prior existence of a pointer state have something to do with any outcome of physical measurement or observation? Like with energy equals mass stuff from Einstein, or the fact that an electron can be broken down into photons, which have no mass, yet in this the one property that does not go away is energy, its somehow conserved in all of this mess. I think this conservation helps give rise to thermodynamics and motion right? Yet then I wonder what is the arrow of time. So basically in short, could an evolving series of pointer states leading into one another over decoherence time really explain anything, or do pointer states have to always stay orthogonal from each other, which would to me make chemical reactions seem to be impossible. To me I think it would help explain periodic behavior, as such in the giving environment that was the stable route of pointer states that could exist, satisfying conservation laws. I just wonder because if this is true, the movement from high to low having to take form, more so in a discontinuous or aggregated amount of pointer states I think easily could give rise to most any form of complexity in some probability of things over decoherence time. In that life for instance, in a trophic sense could have come about as nothing more then another angle for energy to lower itself or find equilibrium, as with metabolic activity, its that lowering of energy that allows for buildup in another way, or catabolism/anabolism.
brain-in-a-vat Posted April 25, 2009 Posted April 25, 2009 In regard to chemistry, all chemical reactions are measured on the atomic scale. Each atom has its own energy at rest in accord with the atomic table, and can be excited to higher energy levels by adding photons or electrons and can be lowered by emitting photons or shedding electrons. Electrons can be added to atoms or removed from atoms to make ions. These changes are the causes and the results of chemical reactions but I am oversimplifying it and I bet you could go into much more detail so I don't want to sound like I am being intelligent (that would be a real stretch for me ). But my point is that the entropy involved with chemical reactions is still entropy, i.e. energy is used and it cannot be replaced unless you can go outside the closed system. The result of the use of chemical energy is measurable, predictable, observable, all that. Entropy is different in the quantum realm where the atomic particles themselves display characteristics of the fundamental particles and forces beneath the atomic level. They experience entropy that is unrelated to the atomic structure operating in chemical reactions, and yet every interaction between fundamental particles would seem to use energy and contribute to entropy. It is just that except in nuclear reactions, the source of the energy used and the disposition of the energy after it is used is not detectable in the quantum realm and is only accounted for within the bounds of the uncertainty principle. There is entropy, we know that the amount of useful energy is diminished by quantum mechanics, but we cannot see into the depths of those interactions. The best we can do at present is refer to the wave function and say that we are not necessarily observing entropy but might be observing two states of the same energy, i.e. wave/particle duality. But in the long run, even without any chemical activity (not that that is possible), entropy would still occur as a result of quantum activity and will eventually lead to the heat death of the universe, sometimes referred to as the Big Rip. Unless of course there is some way in nature that reverses entropy. I just toss this out for you to comment on because I know that it is hard to get anyone to engage with in the pseudoscience and speculation forum. Maybe you can refute what I say of maybe someone else will jump on me for the simplicity of my post.
foodchain Posted April 26, 2009 Author Posted April 26, 2009 Well enzymes are what allow any cell basically to survive, and in that enzymes operate as to lower activation energies to make reactions possible that would not be without such. I also think that all of that goes back to a thermodynamic description on why it works. I am just thinking along the lines of entropy, if in the process of going from A to B, what exists in the middle of all that, or how does any natural process get there? If by chance einselection can for instance help describe how thermodynamics functions on a quantum scale, then maybe such can be used to gain insight on the chemical evolution of life is all from a thermodynamic perspective.
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