- #1
- 1,187
- 5
Since the human mind has a relatively large degree of freedom, it can do things on its own will. How does the human mind fall under the laws of entropy?
Since the human mind has a relatively large degree of freedom, it can do things on its own will. How does the human mind fall under the laws of entropy?
This was explained by Landauer, when he showed how to resolve the Maxwell's Demon paradox. The contribution to the entropy made by the information stored in a brain or computer is N k Log(2), where N is the amount of bits of stored information.
I see, that makes sense. But I was sort of thinking that our degree of freedom is higher than most other intelligent systems; we're able to break mechanized processes through a freedom of choice, so our systems have the ability to heavily randomize...wouldn't that require heavier compensations than most other processes
Quickie question: How does entropy relate to Poincares Recurrence theorem?
I know that the theorem only applies to systems where energy is conserved and volume is fixed. I'm lucky in that I just so happen to have one of these systems sitting next to my kitchen counter, a sealed glass jar :tongue:
Now Poincare tells me that, eventually, all the gas in that jar has to accumulate in the corner on the undersurface of the lid before dispersing out again to do its usual dance. Apparently the recurrence time is REALLY long, but still, it will happen (if we are right about a bunch of assumptions we as thinking monkeys make). So entropy is not strictly increasing then is it?
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, and if I've made a blunder I apologise in advance.
Quickie question: How does entropy relate to Poincares Recurrence theorem?
I know that the theorem only applies to systems where energy is conserved and volume is fixed. I'm lucky in that I just so happen to have one of these systems sitting next to my kitchen counter, a sealed glass jar :tongue:
Now Poincare tells me that, eventually, all the gas in that jar has to accumulate in the corner on the undersurface of the lid before dispersing out again to do its usual dance. Apparently the recurrence time is REALLY long, but still, it will happen (if we are right about a bunch of assumptions we as thinking monkeys make). So entropy is not strictly increasing then is it?
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, and if I've made a blunder I apologise in advance.
But the thermodynamic computation of the pressure is done by assuming that this time average is the same as the ensemble average of all possible systems distributed evenly over phase space. Then the Poincare recurrence of any individual system becomes competely invisible.
Apologies for the side tracking of the discussion :tongue:Heh...well, that was interesting. I'll have to look into all this, including this Poincare stuff. So...its just science fiction. Thing is is that I was watching a few things and read a few things as well, so I was thinking about how the human conscience sort of plays into things.
Of course "Gear300" most likely is right in his guessing human intelligence and creativity
at least locally may be able violate known spontaneos laws of entropy. To me this possibility is almost axiomatic - why should just that be impossible? Is it even possible
prove something is impossible? I think otherwise clever scientists must have misunderstood
something here. Even a steam engine is a practical impossibility being born spontaneosly in universe - but by aiming human cunning skill to create such things, it became possible.![]()
I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
First of all, you have to define what consciousness is before you can begin to discuss it. As has been said, entropy is still increasing even though we think and feel. We are using up hydrocarbons (glucose) as fuel in order to engage in that sort of activity, which we get from the food we intake which gets its energy from the sun (by deepest consequence) and the sun has a limited amount of fusion it can do. So even though we are ever so clever monkeys, we , like everything else, are on our way out