Is there evidence of " Cleverness " in Nature and it's processes ?

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

I just don't think entropy is the right descriptor. For one, as the others have pointed out, entropy is first/primarily/rigorously a mathematical artifact and only second/later/subjectively a term of order. Even as a term of order, entropy is not well-applied to the scarf or the painting of the scarf because the order 'seen' in the scarf or the painting of the scarf is relative to scale. Put either down the street from you and they look like nothing more than a blot. Put a microscope to both and they look busy. That busy is different for the scarf than for the drawing and even within each the busy may 'appear' ordered in one place and not in another.

 

So what one 'sees' in the scarf or the painting of the scarf in the way of order is completely arbitrary by virtue of scale alone, whereas the prime/rigorous meaning of entropy is not at all arbitrary and not scale dependent.

 

If 'subjective' were the same as 'objective', then one of those words would be redundant. It's not and neither is.

 

PS Well drawn.

.

Ok. I accept what you say about scale and rigor.

 

I was rather hoping I could tease out mainly the order - disorder aspect of formal entropy , yet keeping it 'in principle ' scientific (namely in principle, but not particularly detailed quantitative ).

 

You indicate this is never going to be rigorous and objective enough, which I can see what you mean. I remember from carnot diagrams and calculations on systems were frightening mathematical. I was hoping to not need that approach. Too difficult for me at this stage in my life .

 

Perhaps I should abandon the connection with entropy. But then I am in danger of loosing the science connection. There must be a simplified test one can do , say by drawing a line around a chosen entity . say a person . a living human adult. The summation of all inputs, ingredients including matter and energy.

 

As inert disordered minerals summation = X . entropy value 10 [ highly disordered ]

as an ordered living conscious thinking being, would have a summation =Y entropy value 0 [ highly ordered]

 

I know the numbers are not precise therefore not rigorous. But clearly with 'entropic glasses' on would you not agree in principle. Or is that not good enough ' And then could one not agree a simple scale like they do in market research.

EG the following gets used as data to produce market research results

 

strongly agree [ 5] moderatly agree [ 4] neutral [ 3] moderatly disagree [ 2 ] strongly disagree [1]

 

 

( could I not do that with my (0-10) values of [Entropy] or [Order- disorder] survey . ? Is this, although loose and not rigorous, but still count as Scientific ?

 

mike

 

So with my picture of the scaff. with my 'Entropic glasses' on .

 

Looking at far back end it would read 7 ( partially ruffled) at the near end it would read 2 ( flattened , strait )

 

Could I not pop round my 100 observations and see what I get.

 

If the survey [ 100 cases ] across space and time could bring results of some interest.

 

Today I did a quick Gadelkin mind experiment . With looking quickly around on Mars with the ' Entropic glasses On' , Compared with looking quickly around on Earth. The results are mind blowing. !

 

mike

Edited March 5, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

.

Ok. I accept what you say about scale and rigor.

 

I was rather hoping I could tease out mainly the order - disorder aspect of formal entropy , yet keeping it quasi scientific (namely in principle, but not particularly detailed quantitative ).

 

You indicate this is never going to be rigorous and objective enough, which I can see what you mean. I remember from carnot diagrams and calculations on systems were frightening mathematical. I was hoping to not need that approach.

 

Perhaps I should abandon the connection with entropy. But then I am in danger of loosing the science connection. There must be a simplified test one can do , say by drawing a line around a chosen entity . say a person . a living human adult. The summation of all inputs, ingredients including matter and energy.

 

As inert disordered minerals summation = X . entropy value 10 [ highly disordered ]

as an ordered living conscious thinking being, would have a summation =Y entropy value 0 [ highly ordered]

 

I know the numbers are not precise therefore not rigorous. But clearly with 'entropic glasses' on would you not agree in principle. Or is that not good enough ' And then could one not agree a simple scale like they do in market research.

EG the following gets used as data to produce market research results

 

strongly agree [ 5] moderatly agree [ 4] neutral [ 3] moderatly disagree [ 2 ] strongly disagree [1]

 

 

( could I not do that with my (0-10) values of [Entropy] or [Order- disorder] survey . ? Is this, although loose and not rigorous, but still count as Scientific ?

 

mike

Our still dead but dear friend Mr. Twain said there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. But yes, there is such a thing as a scientific poll, but the categories you want to seed such a poll with are still subjective. Then too what makes a scientific poll scientific is not only well formed categoreies/data-points but selecting a proper/representative group of respondents.

 

As to a circled human, even if you declare a subjective/appearance definition of entropy, such measures are constantly in flux. You might look like hell on rising in the morning, be all dapper a couple hours later, and buckled over from work by evening. All the while you are eating, sweating, pooping, drinking coffee, etcetera and so there is never any sort of constant energy balance either.

 

It's that kind of uncertainty that I had in mind for you to paint. Not paint some 'thing' and describe the entropy/cleverness/what-ever-term, but rather start from your subjective impressions of entropy/cleverness/what-have-you, combine that with the uncertainty you have now learned about here, and paint what that looks like. Well, what you think that looks like, because it is after all subjective. If you want to convey something of numbers, paint some in. Paint in some words too if you like. Think Basquiat-esque. Don't try to explain the painting to people other than perhaps titling it; let the viewers decide what they subjectively think of it for themselves.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basquiat

Basquiat painting from Wikipedia

 

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Our still dead but dear friend Mr. Twain said there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basquiat

Basquiat painting from Wikipedia

 

 

My Goodness, Is this what you think I look like ! No wonder you think I should rest from my labours ?

 

Mike

Edited March 6, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

My Goodness, Is this what you think I look like ! No wonder you think I should rest from my labours ?

 

Mike

Nah. That just happened to be the Basquiat work given in the Wiki bio and I used it to show a painting that used words/lettering to further the message. In some manner of serendidioopious coinkydinkyeousness however, it rather resembles what I often feel like. :0

[tar]

Acme,

 

As order and disorder seem to exchange based on the scale one is considering, and as every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and as energy can be neither created or destroyed and any closed system you consider will increase in entropy I often wonder if it not OK to consider that the universe is not a closed system.

 

What I am suggesting here, is that there might be something to Mike's bell curve, with the ordered energy lost by the scale below is gained by the scale above, and the ordered energy lost by the scale above is gained by that below. The ability to do work that is lost by a considered system, is "tied up" in the atomic structure. The system is being considered closed, but it is isolation from only the scale above that is being considered, and no isolation from the scale below. This might work out mathematically to mean that entropy will increase, but what if you take the lid off, and consider the effects of the system on the scale above as well.

 

In Mike's bell curve most of the samples he expects to find, his prediction is that stuff will have both order and disorder characteristics, when viewed from any particular scale and will be in both a state of gaining order and the ability to do work, and losing that ability, as work is done. Some of the exchange with the systems below, and some of the exchange with the systems above, but most items will fall toward the 5 neutral point. I don't think this is a bad prediction.

 

I do think it is not required though to say the universe is heading toward order. This would be contrary the prediction made by the bell curve. Although the prediction does suggest the universe is not heading toward disorder either. The prediction is that the universe is inbetween, as most items are predicted to have order when taken on some scale, and disorder when taken on another.

 

I like the hexagons in the heated fluid. Order achieved on one scale, as the entropy increases.

 

Not scientific, but that is why I say life "grabbed" pattern and order from a universe otherwise heading toward entropy.

 

On our human scale there is order. Some pumped into us from the Sun, some built outward from the mitachondria and the dna and carbon bonds within.

 

As to cleverness, it has been dismissed as a possibility as a characteristic of the universe in terms of a God with a brain and intentions and knowledge and responsponsibility, and other human characteristics. But there is still cleverness and intention, consciousness and ideas in the universe, with many examples of it, on this very board, so it is something the universe can do, that is, it can be clever.

 

I metabolise all the time. I know how to do it. Very clever of me, even though I never have to think about it. And there is, after all, flowers and trees and stars above, there is something smart about the place. Perhaps such things happen when disorder and order intersect at the middle of Mike's bell curve, and the outliers, toward 10 and toward 0 are something special.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited March 6, 2014 by tar

[Ophiolite]

Mike,

your perception of science and the scientific method do not align with reality.

 

You clearly have artistic tendencies and talents. Among these, I think, is a tendency to to take a holistic view of phenomena; to seek out an understanding of the gestalt. Such a viewpoint has a place within science, but it lies at the end of the path to enlightenment, not at the beginning.

 

Science requires detail. Detailed observations; detailed hypotheses; detailed experiments; detailed validation. When the detail has been observed, postulated and tested, then - and only then - can it be subsumed into an overarching synthesis.

 

You are attempting the synthesis ahead of the analysis. That does not work. That is why you are encountering hostility and contradiction.

 

Take a step back; take a deep breath; and re-evaluate.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Mike,

your perception of science and the scientific method do not align with reality.

 

You clearly have artistic tendencies and talents. Among these, I think, is a tendency to to take a holistic view of phenomena; to seek out an understanding of the gestalt. Such a viewpoint has a place within science, but it lies at the end of the path to enlightenment, not at the beginning.

 

Science requires detail. Detailed observations; detailed hypotheses; detailed experiments; detailed validation. When the detail has been observed, postulated and tested, then - and only then - can it be subsumed into an overarching synthesis.

 

You are attempting the synthesis ahead of the analysis. That does not work. That is why you are encountering hostility and contradiction.

 

Take a step back; take a deep breath; and re-evaluate.

That is a very perceptive and valid comment. You have hit the nail right on the head. I was one of those, you mentioned , that loved nothing better than sit for many a long hour , making measurements , trying to improve performance, propose solutions . re-test evaluate and move incrementally forward.

 

I am now too long in the tooth, too conscious of my limitations as regards to energy, tenacity, patience, time , and a host of other qualities found in those further back in years. In fact I did make a conscious decision a few years ago, that much as I would love to join in trying to understand quantum mechanics and all the surrounding investigation of atomic investigations, that I was too well along to get very far. So I decided that I would study and read and investigate from a ' gestalt ' point of view [ although unaware of the word] .

 

One of my first glimpses of a suprize was that the 'answer' [big answers] was not all in the very small.

 

There was both a Top Down and a Bottom up mechanism afoot in the Universe or Cosmos, and that if one were to look only at quantum mechanics for the whole answer one would be disappointed. So, yes it is possibly no surprise I keep flitting from the detail [ or rather lack of access to detail ] to an attempt at the 'Big Picture'.

 

I have been somewhat surprised nobody has coined another quality of nature, the opposite to formal entropy. Or if they have its not in common useage,. If there were a discipline or word , somebody would have already thrown it back at me saying " what you are talking about , has already been done its called " ugyvyn" I have asked about a bit ? This is a little strange, that the concentration has been on the downward path of entropy , rather than considering, or in addition , an upward path of " ugyvyn" . It's present there in ' natural selection in biology,' and is only just being spoken about at a cosmological scale.. After all Entopy is a movement toward Disorder It seems to me it would be nice if there were a Universal discipline and a description , at least by Word , going in the opposite direction ( reducing entropy is just not good enough . ) It seems to me we are leaving it a bit late in not having already made an investigation into the very subject that I was proposing, looking at the state of the 'antithesis of entropy' [ not yet even giving it a name ] . All this when we are so close to wrecking our planet. {what with endangered specise, pollution, starvation, depleting resources, and goodness knows what }. So my two pennyworth is talking about that opposite direction to ENtropy called " ugyvyn " across the whole universe , starting with the Earth.

 

How about ---------- " Generation " as being the opposite to " Entropy "

...............................................|.........................................................|

 

 

mike

Edited March 6, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Ophiolite]

Purchase everything written by Stuart Kauffman. Read it. Understand it.

[swansont]

 

I have been somewhat surprised nobody has coined another quality of nature, the opposite to formal entropy.

 

What would be the opposite of entropy?

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

What would be the opposite of entropy?

 

I will have to think and word that very carefully !

 

By all means give me your thoughts .

 

Mike

Edited March 6, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

Acme,

 

As order and disorder seem to exchange based on the scale one is considering, and as every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and as energy can be neither created or destroyed and any closed system you consider will increase in entropy I often wonder if it not OK to consider that the universe is not a closed system.

 

What I am suggesting here, is that there might be something to Mike's bell curve, with the ordered energy lost by the scale below is gained by the scale above, and the ordered energy lost by the scale above is gained by that below. The ability to do work that is lost by a considered system, is "tied up" in the atomic structure. The system is being considered closed, but it is isolation from only the scale above that is being considered, and no isolation from the scale below. This might work out mathematically to mean that entropy will increase, but what if you take the lid off, and consider the effects of the system on the scale above as well.

 

...

Regards, TAR

TAR,

Whether or not the Universe is closed is an open question. While math may give indications of what to look for, only the looking can settle the question. I don't see a Bell curve as offering any useful insight to that end.

 

To what use would you put a definitive answer were you to have it?

 

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. ~ Albert Einstein

[davidivad]

mike;

 

your bell curve... are you asking the question of is there something that works against your version of entropy?

 

the answer is a resounding yes.

 

if you place life itself into context with your graph, then it would resemble your bell curve.

 

life is a complex chemical reaction which sustains itself at the expense of the overall order of a system. it is so good at doing this that it can find new systems or resources to consume. while everything must give way to chaos eventually, life has found a way to defeat the trend to disorder by reproducing. note that life does not win completely and must give way to evolution. this evolution, however, ensures its survival.in an abstract way it is clever indeed.

Edited March 7, 2014 by davidivad

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

As you probably Know :-

 

I am attempting to find or coin a Scientific phenomena, which is the opposite, antithesis, or reversal , of ENTROPY. Mainly as a formal version as opposed to a thermo dynamic version. However, because Entropy seems to have been originally coined in the context of steam engines, and later internal combustion engines , I might have to borrow some of the principles from thermodynamics.

 

So far I have got the Idea of ;GENERATION, REGENERATIVE, but this is not fixed.. The ingredients for this are drawn by taking the feature of ENTROPY and listing the opposite characteristic. eg

 

Disorder becomes Order;

Unuseable Energy becomes useable Energy but I need more descriptors of ENTROPY in order to specify the opposite.

 

Some of you have kindly furnished me with some ideas , Like ' if anything bad can happen , it will ' Murphies law . I like it I suppose the opposite is obvious ' If anything good can happen ,it will, ' [ bring it on !

 

Someone mentioned Life as opposed to deterioration and decay . I like . .....

 

There is this idea of heading for temperature equilibrium Entropy ,.... so I suppose the opposite is ....causing temperature or energy differential, ........potential energy ?? ....mountain Building ? ......Star Birth ?

 

 

mike

Edited March 7, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[swansont]

Lowering entropy is not the opposite of entropy. Low entropy is still entropy.

 

This is like acknowledging that there is hot and there is cold, which are at opposite ends of the temperature scale. You aren't doing the equivalent of asking for the opposite of hot, you're doing the equivalent of asking for the opposite of temperature.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Lowering entropy is not the opposite of entropy. Low entropy is still entropy.

 

This is like acknowledging that there is hot and there is cold, which are at opposite ends of the temperature scale. You aren't doing the equivalent of asking for the opposite of hot, you're doing the equivalent of asking for the opposite of temperature.

 

Yes , I understand that . So just decreasing entropy , is what I realized I need to move away from . Its getting the characteristic and not making less of that ingredient , but an opposite characteristic. Some of these thread contributors have helped with starting suggestions . But i need to build it up a bit, Its very 'wooly' at the moment . But I am quite excited at the idea.

 

I like this one of Living things. Bacteria, plants ,animals , humans . A friend of mine has also asked me to consider Human Conciousness information, knowledge, learning , brain , consiousness [ needless to say he is an Educational Phsycologist ]. When I thought about the difference between Mars and Earth , this is very apparent.

 

 

Things brought to my attension and thoughts ?

 

* Then it has been brought to my attention TEMPERATURE ....ENERGY ......EFFICIENCY . obviously this is all very Thermodynamics in import but there are issues here.

 

* Temperature across the universe from beginning high to now . Energy ? Efficiency ?

 

* Interesting Early life low temperature increasing up through cold water, warm water, land animals dynasaurs, mammals , human .( is our brain the hottest ?)

 

 

mike

Edited March 7, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

Acme,

 

I wouldn't throw out the bell curve just yet.

 

I have not purchased read and understood any of the Author that Ophiolite gave us, but the Wiki article on him provides us with this.

 

"In 1971, Kauffman proposed the self-organized emergence of collectively autocatalytic sets of polymers, specifically peptides, for the origin of molecular reproduction.[1][2] Reproducing peptide, DNA, and RNA collectively autocatalytic sets have now been made experimentally.[3][4] He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as well as for applying models of Boolean networks to simplified genetic circuits. His hypotheses stating that cell types are attractors of such networks, and that genetic regulatory networks are "critical", have found experimental support."

 

autocatalytic sets are probably somewhat akin to Mike's feedback loops, and far-from-equilibrium dynamics are suggestive of something special happening out in the outlier area near 0 where life hangs out

 

just saying

 

Regards,TAR

Current score, by my reckoning: Life 0, Entropy 10.

[Acme]

Acme,

 

I wouldn't throw out the bell curve just yet.

 

I have not purchased read and understood any of the Author that Ophiolite gave us, but the Wiki article on him provides us with this.

 

"In 1971, Kauffman proposed the self-organized emergence of collectively autocatalytic sets of polymers, specifically peptides, for the origin of molecular reproduction.[1][2] Reproducing peptide, DNA, and RNA collectively autocatalytic sets have now been made experimentally.[3][4] He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as well as for applying models of Boolean networks to simplified genetic circuits. His hypotheses stating that cell types are attractors of such networks, and that genetic regulatory networks are "critical", have found experimental support."

 

autocatalytic sets are probably somewhat akin to Mike's feedback loops, and far-from-equilibrium dynamics are suggestive of something special happening out in the outlier area near 0 where life hangs out

 

just saying

 

Regards,TAR

Current score, by my reckoning: Life 0, Entropy 10.

I reckon your reckon is as yet irreconciled. Don't count your chickens before there are such things.

I'm not holding my breath on Mike's take, or anyone's posting some great insight/breakthrough on a forum to be honest. Just saying. I found something interesting in the same bio you quote though. I checked him out too:

Some biologists and physicists working in Kauffman's area reserve judgment on Kauffman's claims about self-organization and evolution. A case in point is the introduction to the 2002 book "Self Organization in Biological Systems".[12] Roger Sansom's Ingenious Genes: How Gene Regulation Networks Evolve to Control Development (MIT Press, 2011) is an extended criticism of Kauffman's models. Kauffman's recent work translates his biological findings to the mind body problem and issues in neuroscience, proposing attributes of a new "poised realm" that hovers indefinitely between quantum coherence and classicality. ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Kauffman

 

What caught my eye was his looking at mind/body, and I earlier referred to an author writing on conciousness and that I might start a thread on his take on this. Well, I'm rereading his latest book and not inclined to start that thread, but I did post on the work here a couple years back. Here's a link: >> http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/62463-self-awareness-graph/page-2#entry647694

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Although I have not quite the word yet , but it is something to do with Generation - regeneration .

In dwelling on what has happened on Earth before we went into the Industrial Age. The machines we invented to take out coal and oil from the environment . Our machines based on entropy , steam engines coal fired trains , lorries and motor cars . We have been utilising 1000's of years of the natural environment having generated all the trees , all the fish and plankton that fell the the bottom of the ocean and made oil , and we have harvested these resources.

 

Now we are well on turning a lot of this energy into an unusable form . Entropy increasing. Yet the natural environment had been Generating , these resources for millions of years. A look at a national geographic presentation of the formation of our environment since 4.5 billion years ago , shows nothing but systems generating everything we now use, . Water, oxygen, soil, algae, plankton mammals, plants man and the whole ecosystem . Then think of Mars . Desert dry inert.

 

If we ever go to the next available planet to use we would need to terraform in a similar way that earth has developed. What a project. It would no doubt take a long time but, we now know how it's done .

 

Generating a new world

 

Mike

[tar]

Acme,

 

While I will admit that it is unlikely any wonderful, unconsidered insight will arise on a talk board, I do not see any harm considering possible "solutions" to unanswered questions, or debate in areas where there is some "disagreement", as to what is required, and what is impossible or unworkable.

 

Mike and I are sort of in a similar boat on this issue. We have seen the requirement that there be an organizing "principle" to counter disorganization, or otherwise we would have by now, only disorganization and no organization, on any level to consider, or more importantly would not ourselves be here to make the consideration.

 

Mike is a man of science. I am more a layman, with only muses and opinion and a little reading here and there to go on. We are both nearer the ends of our lives than the beginnings. We were both once 18 and once 35 and every other age between 0 and our current ages. I have much respect for persons who study the place and report their findings to me. Especially those with more horsepower in the brain department, and the work under their belts, to earn my respect and admiration. Ophiolite's link was about another man of science who did work and made determinations and had evidence about some organizing principles. It makes me feel like my uncertainty about accepting natural selection, without a description of such a thing being a requirement, might have some basis in reality, as a reasonable requirement to hold.

 

Besides, the "insight" does not have to appear here, it has to be had by somebody with credentials and influence in the scientific community, and such a person might just be on the board, and be able to discern the same need and requirement for an "opposite" to entropy, as Mike is proposing. Mike has not put his finger on the exact nature of the requirement, he is just proposing that the requirement seems required.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited March 10, 2014 by tar

[Acme]

Acme,

 

While I will admit that it is unlikely any wonderful, unconsidered insight will arise on a talk board, I do not see any harm considering possible "solutions" to unanswered questions, or debate in areas where there is some "disagreement", as to what is required, and what is impossible or unworkable.

I'm not sure I would call it harm in general, but it sure strikes me as a monumental waste of time. So while it's not necessarily so, that wasted time may have been applied to something useful.

 

Mike and I are sort of in a similar boat on this issue. We have seen the requirement that there be an organizing "principle" to counter disorganization, or otherwise we would have by now, only disorganization and no organization, on any level to consider, or more importantly would not ourselves be here to make the consideration.

There is no requirement of an organizing principle. You just think so because you are here.

 

Mike is a man of science.

I'd say Mike is a man who talks about science. This is as opposed to a person who does science.

 

I am more a layman, with only muses and opinion and a little reading here and there to go on. We are both nearer the ends of our lives than the beginnings. We were both once 18 and once 35 and every other age between 0 and our current ages.

On the age thing, I don't buy into the old-justifies desperation, wild speculation, etcetera. I'm no Spring chicken myself.

 

I have much respect for persons who study the place and report their findings to me. Especially those with more horsepower in the brain department, and the work under their belts, to earn my respect and admiration. Ophiolite's link was about another man of science who did work and made determinations and had evidence about some organizing principles.

I enjoy reading about research as well. However, Ophiolite's guy is a theorist and hasn't tested any of his theories if that's even possible.

 

It makes me feel like my uncertainty about accepting natural selection, without a description of such a thing being a requirement, might have some basis in reality, as a reasonable requirement to hold.

What difference does it make what you accept? What difference will it make if you 'know'?

 

Besides, the "insight" does not have to appear here, it has to be had by somebody with credentials and influence in the scientific community, and such a person might just be on the board, and be able to discern the same need and requirement for an "opposite" to entropy, as Mike is proposing. Mike has not put his finger on the exact nature of the requirement, he is just proposing that the requirement seems required.

 

Regards, TAR

Mike appears to me to be just waving his hands; not putting a finger on anything. To each their own.

 

By-the-by. Did you look into strange loops? Just theory too but at least it has a rigorous mathematical basis.

[tar]

Acme,

 

Well its not just because I am here but because you are too, and the Sun and flowers.

 

There are many examples of things that have a pattern, the ability to reproduce the pattern, and call it its own.

 

I sat with balls of clay, making triangles on them and experimenting until I came up with a dense packing system...that it turns out has been known about for hundreds of years, if not thousands. Still me doing science and discovering something about how the world has to fit together. Love the fact that twelve balls equal in size to a center ball, can all touch it, and fit around it exactly.

 

Often have considered how many attributes of life the Sun has. Often have considered the patterns of the world, thought about objectivity and subjectivity, and the way one type of order is lost, while another is gained, in pyhsics, in cosmology, in politics, business and thought and emotion. It is not, for me, such a waste of time notion as you make it out to be.

 

It fits with many areas of human endeavor and science, and the world. If there were NOT self catylizing systems, systems would not self generate, Suns would not form, snowflakes would not form, the crystals in Mike's pillars of stone would not form, Lucy's forebearers would not have formed. Not if the universe was only headed toward entropy. If it was a one direction thing, it would have started with one completely organized thing that has been unorganizing itself since. This is contrary to 2 and three generations of stars, buiding more and more complex atoms in their furnaces, giving us Carbon with which to work. If we started as hydrogen atoms and are now Acmes and planets and Suns with heliopauses and such, a one way street toward entropy, does not work. Just plain, does not work.

 

Regards, TAR

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Acme,

 

While I will admit that it is unlikely any wonderful, unconsidered insight will arise on a talk board, I do not see any harm considering possible "solutions" to unanswered questions, or debate in areas where there is some "disagreement", as to what is required, and what is impossible or unworkable.

 

Mike and I are sort of in a similar boat on this issue. We have seen the requirement that there be an organizing "principle" to counter disorganization, or otherwise we would have by now, only disorganization and no organization, on any level to consider, or more importantly would not ourselves be here to make the consideration.

 

Mike is a man of science. I am more a layman, with only muses and opinion and a little reading here and there to go on. We are both nearer the ends of our lives than the beginnings. We were both once 18 and once 35 and every other age between 0 and our current ages. I have much respect for persons who study the place and report their findings to me. Especially those with more horsepower in the brain department, and the work under their belts, to earn my respect and admiration. Ophiolite's link was about another man of science who did work and made determinations and had evidence about some organizing principles. It makes me feel like my uncertainty about accepting natural selection, without a description of such a thing being a requirement, might have some basis in reality, as a reasonable requirement to hold.

 

Besides, the "insight" does not have to appear here, it has to be had by somebody with credentials and influence in the scientific community, and such a person might just be on the board, and be able to discern the same need and requirement for an "opposite" to entropy, as Mike is proposing. Mike has not put his finger on the exact nature of the requirement, he is just proposing that the requirement seems required.

 

Regards, TAR

I am still a bit off ,firming up on the name descriptor, however things are becoming a little clearer.

As the life aspect definitely has a supportive slice of evidence toward the concept of something moving in the opposite direction to entropy, I do feel it needs to go further.

 

There is another 2 to 3 ,000,000,000 years of activity on earth without life, preceding life which also has some characteristics of a slower yet similar movement toward order , an access ability to energy, and other features opposite to entropy. This was all contained in the core, mantle, crust, erosion-sediment , volcanic , freezing , continent building, and general activity at a mineral , liquid and gas level.

 

Whether we can call this overall process TERRAFORMING, I am not sure, but when it includes life , the whole picture seems a very valid candidate for a process that can be considered working in an opposite direction to entropy.

 

ACME, MAY REQUIRE SOME SMELLING SALTS BY NOW You better go and revive him!

 

Mike

Edited March 10, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

We cross posted. I don't think I aided in the smelling salt department.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

We cross posted. I don't think I aided in the smelling salt department.

Today , I went to the coast to make some observations of the rock strata.

 

There were two examples 1. Of entropy causing disorder 2. Order in the making by molding many fragments of stone into a niche . Should it remain Undisturbed .

 

1. The boat smashed to bits in the recent storms .

 

2. The niche holding fragments maybe permanently in time , because of its mould like position.

 

The dog could not care an iota ( neutral .control data )

 

Mike

Edited March 11, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

Yes I'm here along with the flowers and y'all, and no I don't need the salts. Just because I see no evidence -or need to look for- your wholy graily does not mean I have no appreciation for nature's patterns. Nor does it mean I don't investigate said patterns. Maybe I just have more knowledge/experience of/for what is and is not a windmill and what does and does not justify a good tilting.

 

I don't suppose either of you in your fervors have bothered to look into the strange loops I have mentioned. Well, I'll try & lead you thirsty gents to some water one more time. Drink or not as you please.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop

Definitions[edit]

 

A strange loop is a hierarchy of levels, each of which is linked to at least one other by some type of relationship. A strange loop hierarchy, however, is "tangled" (Hofstadter refers to this as a "heterarchy"), in that there is no well defined highest or lowest level; moving through the levels, one eventually returns to the starting point, i.e., the original level. Examples of strange loops that Hofstadter offers include: many of the works of M. C. Escher, the information flow network between DNA and enzymes through protein synthesis and DNA replication, and self-referential Gödelian statements in formal systems.

 

In I Am a Strange Loop, Hofstadter defines strange loops as follows:

 

And yet when I say "strange loop", I have something else in mind a less concrete, more elusive notion. What I mean by "strange loop" is here goes a first stab, anyway not a physical circuit but an abstract loop in which, in the series of stages that constitute the cycling-around, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in a hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive "upward" shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one's sense of departing ever further from one's origin, one winds up, to one's shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop. (pp. 101-102)

Now if you actually visit the link, that would be but a sip and there is no rehydrating save for getting the book and reading it all. I admit I don't care for a lot of Dougy's sentimentalities any more than yours, but as I said earlier he is at least on solid mathematical grounds. To arms!!