A former 40 year Atheist analyzes Atheism, without resorting to theism, deism, or fantasy. *** If You Don't Value Truth, Then What DO You Value? *** If we say that the sane can be coaxed and persuaded to rationality, and we say that rationality presupposes logic, then what can we say of those who actively reject logic? *** Atheists have an obligation to give reasons in the form of logic and evidence for rejecting Theist theories.
In addition, this new formulation of the second law contains a very large amount of information, dramatically constraining the probability and size of fluctuations of work and heat and, tells us that the particular fluctuations that break the second law only occur with exponentially low probability.
Our present understanding of thermodynamics is fundamentally incorrect if applied to small systems and needs to be modified, according to new research from University College London (UCL) and the University of Gdańsk. The work establishes new laws in the rapidly emerging field of quantum thermodynamics.
The findings, published today in Nature Communications, have wide applications in small systems, from nanoscale engines and quantum technologies, to biological motors and systems found in the body.
The laws of thermodynamics govern much of the world around us – they tell us that a hot cup of tea in a cold room will cool down rather than heat up; they tell us that unless we are vigilant, our houses will become untidy rather than spontaneously tidy; they tell us how efficient the best heat engines can be.
The current laws of thermodynamics only apply to large objects, when many particles are involved. The laws of thermodynamics for smaller systems are not well understood but will have implications for the construction of molecular motors and quantum computers, and might even determine how efficient energy extracting processes such as photosynthesis can be.
In this study researchers used results from quantum information theory to adapt the laws of thermodynamics for small systems, such as microscopic motors, nanoscale devices and quantum technologies.
Small systems behave very differently to large systems composed of many particles. And when systems are very small, then quantum effects come into play. The researchers found a set of laws which determine what happens to such microscopic systems when we heat them up or cool them down. An important consequence of their laws is that there is more fundamental irreversibility in small systems, and this means that microscopic heat engines can not be as efficient as their larger counterparts.
"We see that nature imposes fundamental limitations to extracting energy from microscopic systems and heat engines. A quantum heat engine is not as efficient as a macroscopic one, and will sometimes fail," said Professor Oppenheim, a Royal Society University Research Fellow at UCL's Department of Physics and Astronomy and one of the authors of the research. "The limitations are due to both finite size effects, and to quantum effects."
The researchers investigated the efficiency of microscopic heat engines and found that one of the basic quantities in thermodynamics, the free energy, does not determine what can happen in small systems, and especially in quantum mechanical systems. Instead, several new free energies govern the behaviour of these microscopic systems.
In large systems, if you put pure energy into a system, then you can recover all this energy back to use to power an engine which can perform work (such as lifting a heavy weight). But the researchers found that this was not the case for microscopic systems. If you put work into a quantum system you generally cannot get it all back.
Professor Michal Horodecki of the University of Gdansk, and co-author of the paper, said: "Thermodynamics at the microscopic scale is fundamentally irreversible. This is dramatically different to larger systems where all thermodynamic processes can be made reversible if we change systems slowly enough."
Sean Carroll and the Argument From Quantum Field Theory against life after death; although he refers briefly to QFF, much of the speech is otherwise. I suggest that the reader view the speech and analyze it fully before reading my own analysis, below; that would be great exercise for the cranial logic machine. We could then compare our analyses. But it is quite an investment in time. I don't like having to work from video, because I can't use a search tool to find some point I remember being somewhere in the middle, and also because I have to type up his words in order to present his argument here. The advantage of video, though, is that it does allow the speaker's attitude to shine through. Scientists are supposed to hold their opinions conditionally, with skepticism. You are encouraged to judge for yourself.
We have here a physicist making a physical case; so we should look for sophisticated empirical solutions in the approved format for producing the objective knowledge which supports his claim: falsifiable hypotheses, experimental design and implementation, open data and data analysis, history of replication and falsifying/supporting results.
We should understand that this is not a forum for rigorous detail; still, when analyzed, the arguments should be grounded in either disciplined empirical content, or deductive premises grounded in First Principles; otherwise they should not be accepted.
1. First Argument:
p1. The mind is the brain;
P2. The brain is atoms;
P3. We know how atoms work;
(He cites quantum field theory and shows a complex equation containing “all” of the possible influences on the atoms in the brain. They are, he says, completely known, and no other influence is possible, or they (physicists) would know about it. Since they know all that, they also know that, after death, there is no possibility for the information contained in brain atoms to continue to exist.)
C. Therefore, there is no way for “you” to persist after death.
Carroll asserts that the premises are all agreed on, therefore the argument is scientifically true.
Premise P1:
With a little rhetorical prestidigitation Carroll has gotten the audience (100% Atheist) to consent to premise 1 as if it were axiomatically self-evident, a necessary Truth of the Universe and beyond. With the consent that premise 1 is axiomatically a First Principle with no actual empirical proof necessary, Carroll is not tasked with dealing with it, nor with the logical consequences of a Reductio Ad Absurdum performed on it. And without premise 1 as axiomatically True, the entire argument collapses into rubble. Premise 1 will need a Reductio, at minimum.
So let’s look at premise P1 and its necessary consequences, one of which is determinism. The entire argument hinges on the reductive physicalist notion that the mind is purely physical, is driven by purely physical phenomena (the four physical forces), and produces purely physical effects. Thus the principle of initial conditions comes into play, meaning that the outcome of any change is a result of forces acting upon initial conditions and states. That produces a completely determinable outcome with complete physical predictability, and is thus subject to physical measurement for confirmation.
So if the mind is the brain and Philosophical Materialism/Naturalism is valid, and the universe is comprehensible by scientific analysis, then every mental change or neural transaction is predetermined by its initial atomic and subatomic state and the known physical forces (irreducible forces are: electromagnetic, strong, weak, gravity). The premise, being a physical claim, should be fully testable experimentally.
Both the initial state and the influence of any force are fully predetermined in a causal chain going back to a time just after the Big Bang. This means that the mind, being merely the brain, produces nothing that cannot be attributed to this full causality, and therefore the mind is fully deterministic as well.
But, as many philosophers of mind have pointed out, and Carroll is not such a being, the effects of the mind are observably not causal, not deterministic and therefore are not the products of the brain initial states and physical forces alone. This has been called the “Hard Problem” of mind theory, an appellation most recently attributed to philosopher David Chalmers, but actually going back at least a century before. Bertrand Russell acknowledged it with the thought that a “different kind of substance” must exist which is causally involved in consciousness, agency and qualia, in his “Nine Lectures on Mind”.
The Hard Problem, aka “the mind-body problem”, has not, contra Carroll, been resolved in favor of Quantum Field Theory. And Carroll has not claimed that it has been resolved; he merely presupposes that when he asserts the validity of Premise 1.
Premise P1 cannot be accepted without being grounded in either empirical data or universal First Principles. Further, it is most likely false, due to the Hard Problem which presents the internal non-coherence which inheres.
Ideological Dependency:
Further, Carroll’s argument presumes that a specific ideology is incorrigibly True: Philosophical Materialism. However, PM fails for a very obvious reason. It cannot prove what it claims under its own provisos. In other words, it cannot be proven – physically, empirically – that its central tenet (which that there is no non-physical existence) is a true concept. So it cannot be a known, objectively provable, empirically replicable sentence of objective knowledge that PM is true. The claim is a Category Error due to attempting to make a metaphysical claim using only physical resources, and the ideology itself cannot be shown to be logically true under the First Principles. Thus the use of Philosophical Materialism as a premise, even (especially) an unstated, presupposed premise, nullifies the truth value of the argument.
Methodological Opaqueness:
The next problem with Carroll’s argument is that the entire argument, being a Materialist argument made by a scientist, should lead to testable hypotheses which result in affirming or negating data under the disciplined rules of empirical testing. But the argument cannot be tested, because it requires testing a state which is totally inaccessible to physical sensors. (Category Error, as shown above). This also fails Popper's demarcation criterion of falsifiability.
That physically inaccessible state is the specific claim being made: the existence of non-physical mind, untethered to physical constraints – including the constraints of the initial conditions of atomic and sub-atomic states in the brain, the four forces of physics, the presupposed need for physical neural hosting. Any claim made for or against that specific state cannot be either validated or falsified using physical instrumentation. Therefore, any counter-claim to have falsified it materially cannot be either true or valid. And that leaves any claims made by physicists for their physics as valid premises for non-physical claims, out in the cold, even and especially from a rigorous empirical standpoint.
Conclusion regarding Carroll’s syllogism:
What Carroll actually has is just this: rhetoric which he uses with flourishes to cover for the numerous reasons that his own premises are not valid, either empirically or logically. It amounts to a shell game posing as a logic argument, even including ridicule.
2. The False Dichotomy.
He progresses to this False Dichotomy, which he presents as much as ridicule as an argument:
”What to make of the evidence for an afterlife?
Options:
Some ill-defined metaphysical substance, not subject to the known laws of physics, interacts with the atoms of our brains in ways that thus far eluded every controlled experiment in the history of science,
OR
People hallucinate when they are nearly dead.”
The first horn of this dilemma presents some false statements regarding an actual metaphysical theory:
a. The use of the term “substance” is prejudicial and incorrect. Substance strongly implies a physical existence, even when modified by use of the term "metaphysical". No physical substance would be involved. It’s use is a leading bias toward the physicalization of metaphysics, and thus the empirical testability of metaphysical entities. That bias is false, (Category Error) and prejudices the remainder of the statement.
b. The expectation that “every controlled experiment in the history of science” is the repository for all possible knowledge is ideological (again Philosophically Materialist and Scientismist). That expectation is used, however, as a faux grounding for the first horn, giving it an aura of respectability by its Appeal To Authority.
c. The appeal to hallucination is absurd, because Carroll has no material evidence to support that claim.
Despite the blatant imagery of the authority of Scientism and Philosophical Materialism, Carroll ignores all of the issues raised above – universal determinism vs. non-deterministic life; Category Error of underlying ideologies; lack of falsifiability or testability of either horn; and in addition, the Equivocation Error in the false use of the term “substance” (the same logic error made by Russell a century earlier).
Thus the Carroll dichotomy is ungrounded, with prejudiced language attempting to bias toward Scientism, is untestable and unfalsifiable empirically, and is meaningless as either objective knowledge or a truth statement.
3. The Circular Definition.
Next he makes the classic logic error of circularity within the very question he asks:
”We can ask, OK, given that we are made of atoms, we understand what the atoms are doing, what is LIFE, what is this complex, non-fundamental phenomenon that arises out of the motions and interactions of the fundamental particles of which we are made.”
12:46
He has poisoned the well by asking for a definition, but then making a constraining definition himself which is purely Materialist/Physicalist; that prevents others from providing their own definition as he asked. By placing the desired answer inside the question he has reduced the issue to a circular tautology, defined only by himself (but with supreme confidence), without opportunity to challenge his presuppositions.
Further, he has no evidence, material or otherwise, to support the claims upon which the “definition” is declared. The definition is presented as tautological necessity, a new First Principle, a Truth statement upon which he will continue his non-empirical arguments. There are many definitions of life that precede and supercede his definition.
4. Invoking Schroedinger and negentropy.
Carroll moves on to Erwin Schroedinger and his theory of “negentropy”, as he presented in his book, “What Is Life”. Negentropy is the concept that open systems can receive extra energy from external sources, and that extra energy overcomes the lossy-ness of the system thus providing for the possibility of anentropic emergence rather than degradation. That principle is controversial among physicists, and requires some background and analysis.
Entropy is a descriptive observational law of the effect of loss in physical systems (open or closed); it is not a prescriptive causal law. Thus negentropy is not a prescriptive causal law, either. Especially since it is a terminology ploy which does not even exist physically or logically, as will be discussed below.
Says Carroll: the Sun is “low entropy energy”.
Sunshine is modulated energy, with a seasonally variable duty cycle. The type of receiving systems determine whether it is high energy or averaged energy, depending upon the duty cycle of the receiving system vs the duty cycle of the sunshine.
Entropy is defined by the excess energy transfer from the "hot reservoir" to the "cold reservoir". Energy in photonic form is the currency of entropy and the photon is not a system which incurs entropy. The entropy of energy is a meaningless concept, because entropy applies to processes and systems, not raw energy.
For sunshine energy and earth systems, entropy in our context applies to the receiving systems here on Earth. There are three possibilities for those open systems on Earth:
(a) those which require more energy still in order to avoid rundown due to internal system energy loss being greater than the input energy;
(b) those which receive exactly sufficient energy for maintaining operation indefinitely, because input energy equals energy loss in the system; or,
(c) those which must either shed the excess energy received, or face destruction due to receiving more energy input than system energy loss can shed.
Adding excess energy to an open system on Earth does not produce a negative version of entropy which might be interpreted as increasing orderliness. It cannot happen. All that happens is that excess energy must be shed in order to avoid destruction. The ideal case, where input energy equals energy loss produces a maintenance condition, not new information. Other types of loss in the system (friction, oxidation, etc.) still will lead ultimately to system disorder, randomness, and non-reducibility to algorithmic information.
Note that the discussion centers on energy loss, not system design, construction, or information loss. A pendulum that moves in ever shorter arcs is losing energy, not design, construction, or information. So adding energy to the system does not add anything to information. Adding just enough to keep the pendulum moving does not add information. Adding too much energy to the pendulum will cause it to either shed the excess energy or ultimately be destroyed by it, but no new information (algorithmic or semantic) will emerge.
The idea, “negentropy”, thus is not a process for adding useful complexity or semantic information, either universally or locally; there is no negative entropy because the systemic losses still exist, even in the presence of added energy to open systems. And in fact, too much added energy causes destruction, which is positive entropy, not negative entropy.
The use of entropy as a factor in complexity emergence is a fallacy because increased energy does not produce increased semantic information; a pre-existing mechanism for creating information must be in place, a system which utilizes energy in order to produce information. The fallacy is that of non-comprehension of systemic entropy in open systems.
5. History of the Universe: Big Bang to universal death:
At 23:00 into the video, Carroll presents a “Complexity” graph. it's a sort of Bell Curve or at least a parabola. According to Carroll, complexity in the universe starts at zero, gradually rises toward a parabolic peak at mid-life, then decreases to zero at the end of life and universal death.
Complexity is declared to be equivalent to life, based on that graph. 23:15
Carroll actually defines complexity in terms of order:
”But complexity, the organization of the stuff that is going on, is a completely different thing than [linear] entropy.” And, “It is in between [Beginning and end] that the universe becomes complex, forms planets and stars, and galaxies and living organisms.”
The terms, complexity and order (or "organization" as Carroll calls it), are not interchangeable. And the historical items of the universe he listed are not created by similar causal actions. The difference is in the information content. Because information content is not related to orderliness, the two terms are mutually independent. For example, a Shakespeare play has no rule for order of the letters of the alphabet to appear, yet it has semantic meaning (information) and is non-compressible to an algorithm. On the other hand, a repetitive sequence of 1,7,3,1,7,3,1,7,3,1,7,3… (three characters repeated for the same length as the Shakespeare play) has order, but little or no semantic meaning or information, and is easily reduced to a simple algorithm.
Here is an example of order migration vs state change, with complexity actually in complete stasis:
Water progresses from vapor (disordered individual molecules), to liquid (non-compressible with definable distance boundaries between molecules), to crystalline (ordered physical relationship with respect to other adjacent molecules), to Bose-Einstein condensate (disorder), to atomic collapse (fully disordered). This is the same curve that the universe lifetime would follow, with “ordered” in the middle. But ice contains no more information (complexity) than does vapor. Complexity does not change throughout the phase changes. That's because the behaviors of each phase are determined by the same set of algorithms (set of physical laws).
Complexity is inversely related to orderliness.[1] The most orderly is the least complex; the least orderly is the most complex. Stated differently, the most orderly requires the smallest algorithm (1,1,1,1,1,1… n=n-1, for n=2 to infinity); the least orderly requires the most difficult algorithm (random output; irreducible system).
In the physical universe, order increases as atomic bonds are made and elements combine into molecules. The algorithm for this process is not created by the process, nor is it created by the molecules controlled by the algorithm. Further, the molecules do not contain algorithmic coding for the creation of the process. The information (laws of physics) are external and stable and have been since shortly after the Big Bang.
Until, that is, first life occurred with a dramatic, singular increase in information, stored in and used by molecules in the metabolism and replication of life. With the creation of first life, local complexity instantaneously increased to far beyond the original physics algorithms. The non-living universe, however, remained at the low complexity, high orderliness level.
The information in the universe is not a curve as is shown by Carroll’s complexity parabola; information and complexity is a huge step function going from the stasis of physics laws for eons, then stepping in a singular jump immediately to the incredibly high complexity of the information required for first life, finding stasis at that level, then jumping very rapidly into the Cambrian Explosion, and then increasing gradually over time to the present.
The complexity curve should be this sort of step function, which describe life only, and NOT the universe of minerals, molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles:
______
_____________-------------- ^ | ^ Humans
Infinity | Complexity of all phyla
| |
| |
| ___________|
| | ^
| | Single cell complexity(high)
| |
| | Complexity of mineral universe (low)
_v_______________| _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ V _ _ _
^ ^ ^
t=0 First Life Cambrian Explosion
So the entropy curves given by Carroll are equivocations in terminology, resulting in incorrect interpretation. Complexity does not peak in the middle of entropic degradation. Complexity peaks locally, not universally. Complexity will vanish from the universe the instant that life is extinguished. The complexity argument placed by Carroll is seriously flawed, because it misinterprets complexity and confuses it with orderliness, its exact opposite: Equivocation Fallacy; and it mislabels the increase in complexity as "universal", when it is actually restricted to life and living things, while the remaining non-life universe remains in complexity stasis. Reductio: If this were not the case, then the laws of physics would be changing in complexity over time; physics actually depends on that not happening.
5. Michael Russell, Geochemist at Jet Propulsion Laboratories:
Russell is quoted as giving the meaning of life: “to hydrogenate carbon dioxide.” at 24:55
Carroll: Entropy “required” the increase of complexity to get from CO2 to methane, and the “sloshing about of all the complex reactions produced life – that’s what life is”.
No. Entropy does not "require" anything; it is not a force, nor is it a prescriptive law of causation. This is a continuation of misconstrual of order vs. complexity.
Next, no: methane is not an increase in complexity, it is a continuation of existing chemical laws which apply when the environment (temperature, pressure, concentration, mobility conditions, etc) allows. It is like crystallization in that it is a reduction to a lower state, one of increased order but not increased complexity.
And NO. That is not what life is. Life has specific requirements not deducible from chemistry or physics. To be defined as life requires that separate but necessary sub-systems are all activated to work in concert toward mutual goals (metabolism and replication) for no known activation cause; when they coincidentally are programmed to cease to function in concert toward mutual goals, death occurs (programmed death).[2]
Life is not a substance, not a natural force, not an energy, it is a self-animated, autonomous, self-contained process. End of life is the end of the process: “extinguishing the candle; you don’t GO anywhere. You stop happening”. The reaction stops. Ultimately we will all reach equilibrium.
6. Ridiculing heaven.
I'll just briefly acknowledge the completely non-empirical ridiculing of the concept of heaven, as if that is satisfactory proof for Carroll.
"Heaven is a bad idea, because you reach thermal equilibrium and nothing happens."
He charges though a list of non-science, nonsense, non-empirical ridicules:
Happiness is a bad idea. Heaven fetishness iconizes perfect happiness. Hedonic treadmill, in psychology: happiness is unchanging regardless of circumstances.
He even refers to the catacombs of skeletons in Paris, for proof of what, is not clear.
But he finally addresses a significant question: free will (42:30 – 43:25):
“Depends on your definition of free will. If by free will you mean that somehow you are able to override the laws of physics, no you can’t do that. You are made of atoms; if we knew the state of your brain to arbitrary accuracy, and we knew all the laws of physics to arbitrary accuracy, and we had infinite computational power, we could predict what you would do. But the point is that we don’t have any of those things. So this is a fact, and not a very relevant fact to how we should treat actual people in the actual world. The way I like to think about free will is that it is an emergent phenomenon. The right way to think about people, since we don’t know where all there atoms are and we can’t do the math, is as rational, hopefully rational, agents that have the ability to make choices.”
So yes: the mind is deterministic; and yes, people have both rationality and agency.
No internal contradiction is noticed, at least visibly, and he rapidly leaves.
As for "emergent phenomenon", this has become a very popular phrase which is code for: "it just started to happen, coming out of nowhere, for no apparent reason - it just... emerged, because: negentropy... or something complicated, here, look at my equations."
There's not much that is more entertaining than watching a physicist try to disprove metaphysics with his own metaphysics.
In Summary:
1. Empirical content of the subject matter, life after death: none. 2. Failure to produce a proper understanding of the science of complexity and information. 3. Building syllogistic arguments on false premises.
Conclusion:
Complete failure to produce empirical, objective knowledge regarding the proposition of non-physical consciousness, intellect, qualia, etc., being detached from material host and continuing after host death.
No objective knowledge or empirical data regarding the actual subject was produced or discussed, and much inference and innuendo was produced with the apparent intent of using that as if it were objective knowledge for the discussion of the continued existence of the non-physical consciousness, intellect, etc., when detached from the physical tether of the living organism.
NOTES:
1. The order/complexity scale is presented by Hubert Yockey, "Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life", Cambridge University Press, 2005; p169:
"Information is a measure of complexity. Complexity is a scale with orderliness at one end and randomness at the other."
Orderliness/small information content<--less---complexity---more-->Randomness/large information content.
Orderliness is reducible to small algorithms and contains little information. Randomness, and semantic information are irreducible to small algorithms and contain large information content.
2. Cells don't just die, they are programmed to undergo a managed death and dismemberment process, called apoptosis.
Cooper and Hausman; "The Cell; A Molecular Approach"; Sinauer, 2013; p682 - 689.
I apologize to Fred for the delay in answering his question concrning the Details of the First Principles; it is a timely question, so I will answer it in a post:
Fred: ”Stan, Thank you for the answers and clarifications. I appreciate your time. In the third-to-last paragraph of your answer (Materialists do in fact claim...) you state Materialists' adherence to Cause and Effect doesn't allow for any human agency which in turn doesn't allow for any "original" - uncaused - thought, since this requires agency. You then say that because of this, reason,... also cannot exist under naturalism. How do you draw this conclusion? Would not a Materialist say that reason does not have to be uncaused (original) for it to exist? Would not a materialist also state that even granting for the non-material transcendent nature of thought one cannot deny the chemical and cellular processes occurring in the material brain in tandem with these thoughts as evidenced by countless scientific experiments; many of which have demonstrated that human behavior (and therefore thoughts) can be altered as a result of material changes through various means to the brain?”
For Cause and Effect to be completely in control of every aspect of human thinking, every thought (which must be material itself) must have a direct physical cause and that cause must be an effect of a prior cause, clear back to the big bang. Now Cause and Effect is ruled by entropy, which means that every effect must be less than its cause, with at least a portion of the cause resulting in disorder such as heat. A relentless trek toward disorder is the fate of the physical universe, and this is a rule that allows no exceptions: there can exist no reversible machines in our physical universe.
The emergence of life is the first anentropic (non-entropic) event, and that has been followed by generations of further anentropic events, all constrained to living systems. The universal law of Cause and Effect fails to account for the increasing order that is found in living systems. So there is some attempt to claim that things like sentience and thought “emerge” from complex systems somehow, yet there is no explanation for why complex systems exist in an entropic universe in the first place.
Cause and Effect as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics are universal and undeniably applicable to every and all physical systems… except living systems. But for Philosophical Materialism to be valid, everything that exists must exist physically and obey the laws of physics. This means that, given the conclusion first and trying to fit premises to it, all life must not be exceptional, all life must also fit into the rules of the physical universe, including Cause and Effect and Entropy.
Now if entropy dictates the degradation of effects within a long chain of causes, how might we account for sentience, thought and rationality? It has to be argued that a) these things are physical, and b) they are not exceptional, so that c) if they seem to be exceptional, that is an illusion or delusion. Even the self and consciousness as well as intentionality and agency are declared illusory or delusory. (If we believe an illusion it becomes a delusion).
Brain activity is given as definitive evidence of this delusion; moreover, damage to the brain shows that no mental activity can be correctly performed without a proper brain, with all segments hooked up and working together as shown under MRI. That physical hardware is exercising software of unknown origin escapes this description, which requires that a hardware brain be hardwired with physical connections, and that these connections fire just right somehow to perform a thought, the results of which are then transferred to the conscious mind – which is a delusion.
So it is the firing of the synapses that create the thought, and the thought is a transient state, existing only in time.
We are deluded into thinking that we somehow control these transient states, even creating sequences of them as would be required for critical thinking. There is no agency in the physical universe according to Philosophical Materialism. There is only response to stimulus (effect from a cause) and the response is lossy at that. So we are locked into our delusions.
I am not making this up, as ridiculously absurd as it appears. It is the necessity of a physical-only, material-only dogmatic philosophy that forces such absurd conclusions. Those who think that these positions are not absurd should pledge to abstain from using the results of intentional, conscious agency, including clothing, buildings of all types, transportation of all types, toilets, water and power utilities, and communications devices; these are concrete products of intentional agency. Denial of agency is dumfoundingly absurd. And so are the claims that we all live in a shared delusion.
The existence of the mind, rationality, agency and self requires a completely separate understanding of our existence within a physical universe. Our existence defies the natural laws, and requires a separate and extended view of reality beyond the Materialist viewpoint. The Materialist viewpoint is not sustainable even using its own standards of empirical knowledge: it cannot prove the limits it self-imposes on reality. But even more damaging is the boatload of absurdities that become necessary to believe, if Materialism is to be preserved.
“I suppose the question then is whether it is these material processes in the brain which are the material precursors to non-material thought, or vice versa? Or is it that the two are in a circular relationship where one causes the other and back and forth, back and forth, etc. Of course, a Materialist would give the "first/original" cause of all this as being purely material, the big bang. And a theist would give first cause as the "thought" or original act of creation of God. Is this not then an endless argument which can never be resolved since neither claim can be proven?”
The Atheist / Materialist claim can be proven false, due to the non-rational absurdities required for all humans to be living in a shared delusion. Theism is an understanding of a non-physical, non-material reality that presumes that, for one thing, a sentient being is required to create sentience in other objects such as humans. This cannot be proven empirically because it is not an empirical hypothesis, but it is not non-coherent nor is it paradoxical nor does it depend on mass or individual delusion.
"Of course, you rightly point out that because of this inability to prove their claims atheists cannot claim to be any more rational than deists. Is this the main, and only, point of your blog: to deny atheists the claim of rationality? Do you go on to make any arguments in favor of the claims of theists? (I suppose I could answer the last question myself by reading your posts further!) Best wishes.”
Please do feel free to read the posts, they are categorized by subject for your reading convenience. I do not indulge in theodicies because they are not proof of anything to the materialist mind. There are a great many theological sources but very few logical assaults on the Atheist worldview such as is done here. So that is the focus of this blog. However, I provide an insight into the study and use of real logic, and that can be used to find a coherent theology; that is a particular journey that I feel every seeker must make for himself, not one that I try to influence.
Again sorry for the delay in answering your question.
Carl Sagan has claimed that life (1) is in fact entropic and that a decrease in order in the sun compensates for an increase in order in earthly systems that receive energy from the sun, specifically living systems. This, he said, proves that life is entropically possible and moreover is likely driven by entropic forces.
Mathematicians have followed this route, using entropy as a force for motion, and since evolution is also declared a motion, then deriving a mathematical justification for an entropic cause for evolution. This has received a certain amount of play in the media and some traction with evolutionists.
In order to examine these propositions, it becomes absolutely necessary to understand exactly what entropy is and is not, and to what the second law of thermodynamics actually refers.
Entropy is an energy based concept, which refers to reversible / irreversible systems. According to thermodynamic system theory, a system cannot use all of the energy it contains due to losses. This means that no system is reversible if it depends upon its own self-contained energy.
If a system receives energy from the outside, it can become reversible, unless it becomes unstable and is destroyed. Stability is achieved when the useful energy in the reversing system plus the waste energy equals the input energy. Excess input energy either is turned into waste energy or it builds in the system somehow as potential or kinetic energy. If it builds in the system too long, destruction occurs.
Entropy only secondarily describes order in a system. It does this by describing the amount of disorder that a system, open or closed, produces. And every system, regardless of whether it is open or closed, produces excess disorder. The equation for conservation of energy in a system looks like this:
Entropy merely states that Ewaste is never zero. In other words, entropy is merely a metric which is used to measure system energy loss to disorder.
From this equation we see that when Einput = 0, Ekinetic output = 0, and Ewaste = 0 (non-lossy), in other words, an ideal closed system doing no work, then,
Epotential + Ekinetic internal = KeSystem (a constant).
So when Ekinetic is minimum, Epotential is maximum; conversely when Ekinetic is maximum, then Epotential is minimum. Just like the pendulum.
This means that an ideal system can reverse itself from all kinetic energy to all potential energy.
If external energy, Einput, is added to a perfect, ideal, non-lossy system, then,
Einput + Epotential + Ekinetic internal = KeTotal
So, assuming the potential energy to be limited, the kinetic energy would increase beyond its original values by the amount of energy input, and the total system energy increases also. With unlimited energy input over time, then the kinetic energy would also be unlimited.
But that is not a feature of nature. Here’s what happens in reality, where all systems incur losses, Ewaste:
Einput + Epotential + Ekinetic internal + Ewaste = KeTotal (assuming no work done by the system)
So in reality, the extra input energy from the input is turned into waste energy at ever increasing levels, while the system continues reversing itself.
If work is being done, Ekinetic external, then the relationship becomes:
Where Ekinetic external is work. Work is defined as energy expended over a given time.
In natural systems, such as a rolling boulder hitting another boulder and dislodging it, thereby doing “work”, a series of energy conservation equations can be written, and combined into a single system equation. The work done then becomes a completely internal energy issue, and the energy wasted remains a positive value. There is nothing to suggest that natural, material systems ever develop more energy than they consume. Nor is there anything about entropy that suggests that work in a material open system ever creates more order than is lost to waste.
There is nothing about entropy that even suggests that order is being swapped around. What is clear is that disorder is created from order in varying amounts by inputting varying amounts of input energy. This is true whether the system is closed or open.
In addition, the energy that is radiated from the sun is in the form of subparticles and photons, the entropic degradation products of fusion from hydrogen to helium. When this energy is finally input into living systems, mostly via photosynthesis, it is done at the electron level. There is nothing about this energy input to living systems that suggests that anentropy could be expected as a result, or that order would be increased in defiance of thermodynamics.
This is a direct contradiction to Sagan’s claim that increasing disorder on the sun allows for more order to be created in an earthly system. Sagan has taken scientifically illegitimate liberties with the concept of entropy.
Again, entropy is a merely metric for loss in natural systems, whether open or closed. And it defines an increasing disorder only, not any possibility of increasing order. To claim otherwise betrays either an ignorance of physics and specifically thermodynamics, or an intent to deceive using fuzzy physics for obfuscation.
Either way, entropy is not a force that can be used because it is a definition of wasteful disorder, and it cannot be a force for increasing complexity as is suggested by the evolutionists and mathematicians. It is a logarithmic measure of system loss. No matter how fancy the math, if it is based on incorrect premises then it cannot produce correct theorems.
General Discussion:
Here is how the man who defined entropy in the first place describes it:
Max Planck:
”“Whether reversible processes exist in nature or not, is not a priori evident or demonstrable. There is , however, no purely logical objection to imagining that a means may some day be found of completely reversing some process hitherto considered irreversible: one, for example in which friction or heat-conduction plays a part. But it can be demonstrated that if, in a single instance, one of the processes here declared to be irreversible should be found to be reversible, then all of these processes must be reversible in all cases. Consequently, either all or none of these processes are irreversible. There is no third possibility. If those processes are not irreversible, the entire edifice of the second law will crumble. None of the numerous relations deduced from it , however many may have been verified by experience, could then be considered as universally proved, and theoretical work would have to start from the beginning… It is this foundation on the physical fact of irreversibility which forms the strength of the second law. If therefore, it must be admitted that a single experience contradiction that fact would render the law untenable , on the other hand, any confirmation of part supports the whole structure, and gives to deductions, even in seemingly remote regions, the full significance possessed by the law itself.”(2) [emphasis added].
There are no reversible processes seen in nature. Using the admittedly flawed inductive process we can say that entropy is universal: there are no “back eddy anentropic natural processes”. We can also say that purposefully moving a rock back uphill is anentropic. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, catching a train is against the determinate laws of nature. Determinate physical processes are not the same as non-determinate intentionality. Living things convert energy into higher forms of existence. Animate living things, especially higher forms, can go up hill, by first wanting to go there, then by purposefully implementing energy conversion into an increase in altitude. They can take rocks up hill by wanting to do that, then implementing that, intentionally.
On the other hand, atoms forming into molecules, crystals, etc. are finding lower energy levels at which to exist; they deterministically obey laws of physics, not self-intent. Intent is a capability accompanied by sentience, life and includes defying physical laws as in purposefully using certain laws of nature (e.g. leverage) to defy other laws of nature (e.g. gravity).
Crystal formation and molecular chains form under entropic law. Such molecules are not “more organized” than individual atoms. They are merely atoms connected together in lower energy combinations, when they find physical positions that satisfy that criterion. The properties are those of self-description, i.e. water is “wet” in the sense that it adheres to surfaces giving those surfaces a different quality of friction, refraction, and evaporation changes surface temperatures, all of which are in obedience to physical laws. This is eminently predictable under those physical laws.
Living things that exhibit intent and sentience can and do violate physical laws. Their behaviors are not predictable under any law of physics.
Here is an assortment of non-mathematical definitions of entropy:
Entropy: 1. “There is a tendency in nature to proceed toward a state of greater molecular disorder.” [not restricted to closed systems]. (3)
2. 100% conversion of heat into mechanical work is not possible by any form of engine.(4) [Specific]
3. There is a tendency in nature to proceed toward a state of greater molecular disorder. This one-sidedness of nature produces irreversible processes. (5) [General]
Notes: (1) http://isotope.colorado.edu/~geol3300/Sagan%20Definitions%20of%20life.pdf Sagan also defines life as the focus of several viewpoints, with the idea of obscuring the fundamental characteristics. An example is the claim that automobiles give the appearance of life due to metabolizing fuel. This obscures the totality of living things which demonstrate all the physical characteristics plus one: life itself, which only comes from other life, and once it is gone, it is gone. Sagan has an objective: apologetics for evolution, which supports his Atheism.
(2)Max Planck, “The Second Law of Thermodynamics”; World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics, Ferris, Ed.; Little Brown & Co. pubs; 1989; pg 343.
(3) Modern University Physics, Richards, Sears, Wehr, Zemansky, Addison-Wesley Pub., 1960.
(4) http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/SECOND_THERM.html; Sears and Zemansky, p 342,
(5) http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/SECOND_THERM.html; Sears and Zemansky, p 347,
