When I was a physics graduate student in Mexico, I felt that life was impossible. I understood the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and to me, it seemed to imply that I should not be there learning physics.
I came across an article in "Physics Today" by Ilya Prigogine, where he explained that the problem was with the concept of equilibrium. I assumed that the Second Law applied to all systems, and the Law is very clear, only ISOLATED systems, have to obey the Law. Life was consistent with the Law if we consider the Earth as an open system. If we do put a barrier and no sunlight goes through, we will have a closed system and life will cease.
I accepted Prigogine's explanation and was reassured when he went on the get a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977.
During the rest of his life Prigogine developed Non Equilibrium Thermodynamics. Life is still a mystery to me, but some recent ideas from science make me believe that life is a natural phenomenon, and a very special one.
Posts
7 comments:
And the majority of those people have made very local observations that don't account for the anthropic physics including observations that they make about the goldilocks enigma.
I also mentioned Dorion Sagan's mom, Lynn Marguilis.
Lynn was the honored guest speaker at the 06 evolution conference because she made a major contribution to the field of evolutionary biology, but this is what she said!:
The problem with neo-Darwinism is that Random changes in DNA alone do not lead to speciation. It was like confessing a murder when I discovered I was not a neo-Darwinist. I am definitely a Darwinist though. I think we are missing important information about the origins of variation. I differ from the neo-Darwinian bullies on this point.
-Lynn Margulis
I can cite the paper that proves that the newest copout on causality and first principles is for biologists to appeal to the multiverse and anthropic selection effects.
Lynn has a point. They are in denial because they are ideologically motivated, rather than scientifically.
"The cosmological model of eternal inflation and the transition from chance to biological evolution in the history of life: The possibility of chance emergence of the replication and translation systems, and the protein superfolds."
http://arxiv.org/pdf/q-bio/0701023
Evolution of life on earth was governed, primarily, by natural selection, with major contribution of other evolutionary processes, such as neutral variation, exaptation, and gene duplication.
However, for biological evolution to take off, a certain minimal degree of complexity is required such that a replicating genome encodes means for its own replication with sufficient rate and fidelity. In all existing life forms, this is achieved by dedicated proteins, polymerases replicases), that are produced by the elaborate translation system. However, evolution of the coupled system of replication and translation does not appear possible without pre-existing efficient replication; hence a chicken-egg type paradox.
I argue that the many-worlds-in-one version of the cosmological model of eternal inflation implies...
WHAT!?!, you've GOT to be joking...
...that emergence of replication and translation, as well as the major protein folds, by chance alone, as opposed to biological evolution, is a realistic possibility and could provide for the onset of biological evolution.
Oh please tell me that this clown is not for real...
Lynn Margulis is an impressive scientist. I like her proposal that mitochondria co-evolved with our cells. Not all is win and kill, there is also co-operate. I guess she will get a Nobel Prize. I have some of her books. I have not read them yet.
Progogine as a physical-chemist did different work than Margulis. I just wanted to keep my ideas closer to physics.
I find the NYC tornado interesting because those don't come often. Whether or not humans and nature work together to bring the equilibrium that life needs, I do not know.
I take it that you see human intervention as less alien, and thus you are less worried about the outcome for our survival in our lifetime.
I take it that you see human intervention as less alien, and thus you are less worried about the outcome for our survival in our lifetime.
Do you see the human arrogance in your terminology?
"Alien", detatched, separated from the ecobalance from which we, ***contributing members*** arose from and ***belong to***
How can you even expect that this is possible???... I should ask you!
I cannont believe the presumptuous, arrogant nature of us, and don't worry, I'm making general statments that don't typically apply to you.
What I think is that we'd better pay attention to the signs or nature will take care of the problem for us.
This is what is known as "culling", and it is very common among herds like us, but it does not kill off the entire species, especially if that species is necessary to the system.
That's what "self-regulating" means, and this feature makes critically important statements about the projections and assumptions of the modern theory concerning the structure of the universe, itself.
What I think is that the strong anthropic principle in a single finite universe is for real, and we have no choice. We are a simple, although specialized tool among many like us throughout the galaxies that exist in the habitable zone of the observed universe.
What I think is that I have too much evidence that the strong anthropic principle in a single finite universe is for real, and I'd by lying to myself if I didn't admit what I was looking at.
~
I agree with your thoughts on Prigogine, and was only using Lynn as an example of the reactionary ideological absurdities that are occurring in the field of evolutionary biology due to the relentless pressure from extremists creationsts.
But... reactionism ain't science.
And that's what Al Gore is all about and most extreme liberals are all about.
What I don't *know* is that we're not currently fending-off a 100,000 year long ice age that occurs exactly in reverse of the runaway greenhouse effect.
Both are cumulative and both are runaway effects, so what makes Al Gore and the reactionaries think that looking at one side of an ebb and flow trend makes them god?
Hi Eduardo, you might take a look at this stuff that I once wrote about dissipative structures as they awkwardly couple to quantum a quantum oscillator...
http://evolutionarydesign.blogspot.com/2005/07/entropic-anthropic-principle-how-time.html
I read your "The Entropic-Anthropic..."
I want to go back to the beginning of our conversation. I wrote that Davies thought teleology could enter into science through the future past interaction with the present preserving causality. This is the Ph.D. thesis of Aharonov's student Jeff Tollaksen at Boston University.
Your interest is the anthropic principle, so you read my note. I took a look at your page and asked questions. Then I thought that the simple toy model of 't Hooft, could be a good context to understand your ideas. I asked you to tell me how, within that model, you could explain negative energy.
I am not clear yet of how do you introduce entropy in that world, and how any principle could explain negative energy.
The article from you I just read already postulates principles, it is not within 't Hooft's model because you did not write it for that purpose.
After reading some of your ideas recently I understand better how you think, but I ask you now to go back to 't Hooft toy model, if you find this exercise useful.
I was afraid you might say that, and I have already learned a lot from the exercise, so I will do as you say, boss, because I want you to contact 't Hooft when you think that we have something solid.
In the mean time, you should take a look at this, because this is the thermodynamics that Dawkins describes as the "anti-chance mechanism" that enables the same kind of evolutionary process that occurs in the universe when we make particles from vacuum energy in the model that I have defined.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASYMTRANS.html
Also, if you haven't been there, then you might drop by my website at www.anthropic-principle.org
Post a Comment