Re: Entropy in crystalization: up or down?

On Oct 18, 5:00 pm, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 18 Ott, 20:01, Seanpit <seanpitnos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Oct 18, 7:12 am, Bloopenblop...@xxxxxxxx wrote:

I can't figure it out either way. The questions on my mind are: Does
crystallization represent a decrease in entropy or no? I think it does
and Wallace is incorrect, but not sure. Does it represent an increase
or decrease in *energy?* And does the 2nd law make any statement about
organization, complexity, organized complexity, etc? Thanks for any
help. Can someone recommend me a rescource on thermodynamics that
would give me the answer?

The key to this problem, which most people do not understand, is that
there is a fundamental difference between thermodynamic entropy and
informational entropy. They aren't the same thing.

Agreed.

The problem for the
ToE is not found in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, but in the problem
of producing additional meaningful or useful genetic information.

Disagreed.

What do you think "natural selection" selects if not improved function
with regard to reproductive fitness or advantage? And, how do you
think this advantage is gained via random mutations? If the mutations
do not produce some sort of detectable change in *function* (i.e., if
the changes are neutral with respect to function), they will not be
detectable by the guiding force of natural selection. In short,
neutral changes are not "meaningful" to nature. Nature is therefore
"blind" to such changes and cannot guide them in a positive manner
toward improved reproductive fitness. All that is left at this point
is purely blind random walk and/or selection.

That produces at least a potential problem for the ToE since evolution
is not supposed to be a random process. Without the guiding light of
natural selection in play, evolutionary processes are at a significant
disadvantage. Basically then, for the ToE to remain viable, one must
be able to show that these neutral/non-beneficial gaps are not
significant - which is more and more difficult to do at higher and
higher levels of minimum sequence and/or structural requirements for
beneficial biosystems.

A crystal, like a snowflake, doesn't require more information than
what is contained in each individual part as it interacts with a
particular type of environment (i.e., cold weather in this case).

I know I'm going to regret this, but can I ask you how do you measure
the amount of information contained in a crystal?

Consider a few of the following thoughts from Michel Baranger, a
physicist from Cambridge University, which may help to clarify this
concept:

"The constituents of a complex system are interdependent. . .
Consider first a non-complex system with many constituents - say a gas
in a container. Take away 10% of its constituents, which are its
molecules. What happens? Nothing very dramatic! The pressure changes a
little, or the volume, or the temperature; or all of them. But on the
whole, the final gas looks and behaves much like the original gas. Now
do the same experiment with a complex system. Take a human body and
take away 10%: let's just cut off a leg! The result will be rather
more spectacular than for the gas. I leave the scenario up to you. And
yet, it's not even the head that I proposed to cut off. . .
When you look at an elementary mathematical fractal, it may
seem to you very 'complex', but this is not the same meaning of
complex as when saying 'complex systems'. The simple fractal is
chaotic, it is not complex. Another example would be the simple gas
mentioned earlier: it is highly chaotic, but it is not complex in the
present sense."

http://www.detectingdesign.com/PDF%20Files/Entropy,%20Chaos,%20and%20Complexity.pdf

A snowflake is a fractal structure. It is not very informationally
"complex". It is informationally simple in that it requires very low
specificity of part arrangement to achieve its fractal-type shape/
structure. This is not true for biosystems. Even a simple single-
protein enzyme, like lactase, is much more informationally complex
than a snowflake of the same size in that its particular function
requires a much more specific arrangement of the molecular building
blocks in its structure relative to each other. A snowflake's
molecules can be interchanged randomly without any change in the
ability of the molecules to self-assemble essentially the same
structure in the same environment; yet with a very different
arrangement of the individual molecular parts in the overall
structure.

This is why a protein-based system cannot self-assemble itself. It
has to be built based upon pre-existing coded information stored in
the form of specifically sequenced DNA. This pre-existing information
must be decoded and used to build to specific sequence required by the
protein-based system in order for it to be able to work at all to
perform its specific task (like the lactase function).

The degree of constraint that a functional protein-based system can
tolerate, with regard to minimum size and sequence specificity
requirements before it completely looses a particular function, is the
measure of its "informational complexity".

Again, further discussion of this very fundamental concept is at:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/meaningfulinformation.html

A different but related concept of Complex Specified Information (CSI)
is discussed at:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/meaningfulinformation.html#CSI

http://www.detectingdesign.com/PDF%20Files/Complex%20Specified%20Information%202.doc

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

.

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