Re: entropic creation

On Sep 6, 10:44 am, Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
tension_on_the_wire <tension_at_h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 4, 4:07 am, TomS <TomS_mem...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I just happened across this new book:

Kragh, Helge
Entropic creation : religious contexts of thermodynamics and cosmology
Aldershot, Hampshire, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, 2008.

It covers the attempts, mostly in the 19th century, to use the 2nd
law of thermodynamics to demonstrate creation. It would be
instructive, I think, for those today who still appeal to entropy
in this way to read about how it was thoroughly investigated quite
some time ago, and rejected - including by many committed
Christians. There is some mention of the people who realized that
"entropy increases" does not rule out an eternal world. (There are
increasing bounded functions over the whole real line.) And there
are several other fundamental problems which eventually put an end
to that line of argumentation. Unfortunately, it seems to crop up
again, from time to time, among some creationists.

There is a little bit about evolutionary biology. (I had known that
Boltzmann was an admirer of Darwin, but this book also mentions
Helmholtz in that regard among the founders of thermodynamics.
Unfortunately, the book does not have a reference for that - can
anyone help?)  Mostly, it is about cosmology.

--
---Tom S.
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
attributed to Josh Billings
Hm, I've been reading Paul Davies lately and it doesn't seem to me
that all the ramifications of thermodynamics are as wrapped up as you
suggest.  And the topic certainly was not put to rest in the 19th
century.  It is still very much being wrangled with in contemporary
physics and chemistry as it pertains to issues of origins and
maintenance of the universe.  I'm still reading, and my ideas are
still not complete on this subject yet as this is also an area of
great interest to me, that is the lengths to which we can speculate on
the nature of the universe as it pertains to the possible existence of
a creator using theoretical physics and thermodynamics.  I'm sorry if
I've missed past threads on this topic, as I'm sure I have.  I'd like
to return to this thread after searching the archives to see what has
already passed before.

Classical non-equilibrium thermodynamics can't be applied over
relativistic distances without a lot of work.  There is, as yet,
no general theory applicable to large chunks of the universe.

So yes, what you are watching is an attempt to develop what might
be called a "relativistic thermodynamics".

It is quite clear that many non-relativistic notions such as "volume"
don't quite carry over unchanged into the relativistic domain.

--
   --- Paul J. Gans- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes, it is evident to me that, at least as of 1983, there was still no
accepted complete paradigm to apply, on the grand scale, all the
principles involved. From what you are saying, I gather that still
has not changed. And scale (in either direction) is everything, or
string theory, among other things, would mean nothing. Fortunately,
thermodynamics, like various aspects of theoretical physics, has been
so well immersed into the language of math, that it is much more
easily manipulable than if we were struggling to understand it all
conceptually in an abstract way which causes so many problems when
trying to visualize ideas, so many of which are counter-intuitive at
first glance when it comes to dealing with the very large and the very
small.

But at least, for me, it's good to understand that much and realize
that most of the "glass ceilings" are being dealt with (or at least
the attempt is being made) in terms of the laws of physics and how
they either "break down" or at least just need redefining at the
extreme ends (forgive the very loose terminology, not meant 3-
dimensionally) of the universe, both in terms of time, boundaries, and
the harshest of conditions such as singularities vs. "end-stage"
expansion.

Slightly off-topic, but another thing which is most exciting to me
these days are the various attempts to struggle with the concept of
singularity itself, and it's implications for time, "outside time",
causation, and how to define independence of existence for a universe
which may be as complete as we think it is in its entirety, and yet
may be only one of a plethora of "singularity consequences" that
bubbled out of a "mother ***" without invalidating our concept of
what constitutes "everything". The permutations and combinations are
mind-boggling when these possible variations are introduced.

Precisely because of what we don't know about these leading edges in
physics, I have often felt it premature to suggest that science has no
bearing on the existence of a creator, when the truth is we still
don't know enough science to be sure that it isn't relevant to the
question, and yet we are pushing as hard as we can to answer questions
that directly relate to the creation/formation/origins/ vs. eternicity
(to coin a word for eternal nature) of the universe.

--tension


"It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to
God than religion. Right or wrong, the fact that science has actually
advanced to the point where what were formerly religious questions can
be seriously tackled, itself indicates the far-reaching consequences
of the new physics." --Paul Davies, PhD, Professor of Theoretical
Physics

"Religion without science is blind. Science without religion is
lame" -Albert Einstein

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