How do we explain universal complexities?

[Timedial]

This thread has gone two pages and I still have no idea what a "universal complexity" is. Could this be a solution in search of a problem?

I'm not the inventor of this question to universal complexity, and so I'm working on the assumption people have been exposed to it for the most part. The discussion about the apparent fine tuned parameters of the constants of nature etc. Do you feel I should present details which have been historically discussed on the subject?

 

[Timedial]

Complexity is nothing more than a natural consequence of the tendency to increase entropy.

That’s a popular view. Entropy being a property of thermal dynamics which has been extrapolated to considerations of pretty much everything universal moving from orderly, to a disorderly state. I wonder if that extrapolation beyond thermodynamics is warranted?

It is often said that life is able to harness the entropy of energy to work for it, and achieve a momentary reprieve of entropy as ordered systems of life are assembled and maintained. But this implies that universal order only exists within biological systems, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Life is clearly a continuation of an ordered system that begins at the level of fundamental particles, Quarks and Electrons order themselves as 118 variety of elements, which come together in countless variety of very orderly minerals and molecules, and large variety of very orderly chemical interactions. Darwinian systems entirely exploit the pre-existing potentials of very very very orderly elemental and molecular chemistry. Under this circumstance, why has the notion of universal all-encompassing entropy been taken so far?

If entropy rules supreme over the universe as people like to think, then what of the condensation of matter out of the early hot BB plasma? It seems to me, the large amount of energy contained within the extraordinarily small volume of an atomic nuclei’s, and that this energy is so remarkably stable over time. Its hard to envision a bigger contradiction of the notion of entropy’s universal rule, that would otherwise suggest that big bang radiation should just have spread out featureless over space, not coming to form the condensed material universe.

 

[PeterDonis]

It is often said that life is able to harness the entropy of energy to work for it, and achieve a momentary reprieve of entropy as ordered systems of life are assembled and maintained.

I think you're misstating this. Living organisms are open systems--they are constantly exchanging matter and energy with their environment. So you have to take into account their environment when you're looking at entropy. When you do that, you see entropy increase, not entropy decrease; there's no "reprieve".

Its hard to envision a bigger contradiction of the notion of entropy’s universal rule, that would otherwise suggest that big bang radiation should just have spread out featureless over space, not coming to form the condensed material universe.

Do you have any actual math or references to back this up? Please bear in mind the PF rules on personal theories.

 

[Grinkle]

If entropy rules supreme over the universe as people like to think, then what of the condensation of matter out of the early hot BB plasma?

What of it? The early universe was a relatively much lower entropy than the modern universe. The condensation of matter increased the entropy of the universe.

Entropy ruling supreme to me means a belief that what we perceive as the arrow of time is an objective reality, not just a subjective human perception. Is that what you mean by it?

 

[Dotini]

Not resorting to religion, how does apparent ordered structured complexity materialize in the universe?

One way to account for our universe with such highly ordered and structured complexity is randomness - just pure luck. In other words, there are many other universes in which there is no such order or complexity. Too bad there's not much evidence for other universes.

 

[Timedial]

I think you're misstating this. Living organisms are open systems--they are constantly exchanging matter and energy with their environment. So you have to take into account their environment when you're looking at entropy. When you do that, you see entropy increase, not entropy decrease; there's no "reprieve".

Do you have any actual math or references to back this up? Please bear in mind the PF rules on personal theories.[/QUOT/

We,re suffering strongest storms in 50 years here, power and communication outages. Crazy times. Given time I would like to better respond to this topic. As for the implication of entropy for the condensation of matter in the early universe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(energy_dispersal)

Timedial said: ↑
Its hard to envision a bigger contradiction of the notion of entropy’s universal rule, that would otherwise suggest that big bang radiation should just have spread out featureless over space, not coming to form the condensed material universe.

 

[PeterDonis]

As for the implication of entropy for the condensation of matter in the early universe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(energy_dispersal)

Wikipedia is not always a reliable source. It is particularly not a reliable source when an article has the number of warnings/disclaimers at the top that this one does. (You might need to look at it on a non-mobile device to see them, the mobile version of Wikipedia appears to suppress them.) The viewpoint expressed on that page does not appear to be a mainstream one, though it does have textbook references given, but no peer-reviewed research papers that I can see, it all appears to be about pedagogy, not physics.

Also, none of the discussion on that page talks at all about the implications for the early universe (if there are any), so either you're making that up yourself (in which case it's off topic for discussion here, we don't discuss personal theories), or you should be able to give some other reference that discusses it.

 

[PeterDonis]

At this point I am closing this thread. Timedial, if you can find better references for your viewpoint, please PM me.