Unleashing a Slow Burn: The Possibility of Controlling Antimatter in Fiction"

[gatztopher]

Like I said the living backwards in time thing doesn't make much sense to me. How would that even work??

So think about it this way... we live in a universe bound by entropy. Life developed counter to that entropy. Life has been anthropic, constantly organizing matter. I always say that I don't believe in time travel except in the sense that life itself is time travel, in defying entropy, the arrow of time. By existing, we are slowing (and maybe one day reversing) the age of the Universe.

Now, there's a bit of progression in life as a whole's strategy. The animals are biologically anthropic, but culturally they're animals. Lions kill each others' babies; even the worst human dictator is a step up from the sheer savageness of "survival of the fittest." Evolution is survival of the fittest. Humans happened upon a different strategy: civilization, which is survival of the most, where we go to great lengths to empower even the most unfit and disabled. Humans went millions of years without it of course, but finding it it allowed them to dominate the planet in a mere 10,000 years. Humans have more than 100 times the biomass of any other large land animal that ever existed - that's the power of civilization.

So, then what if the universe as a whole was anthropic, self organizing? Animals would then be inherently entropic, beasts whose pure goal was disorganization. The lesser animals would half achieve the goal but would still be culturally harmonious. It would take truly intelligent creatures to embrace pure destruction. Moreover, can you imagine interacting with a creature who's cultural AND biological aim is chaos? And it's magnitudes smarter than you? And its primary specialty is hunting culturally harmonious creatures, a label that could be applied to humans? It would make a good story.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

So think about it this way... we live in a universe bound by entropy. Life developed counter to that entropy. Life has been anthropic, constantly organizing matter. I always say that I don't believe in time travel except in the sense that life itself is time travel, in defying entropy, the arrow of time. By existing, we are slowing (and maybe one day reversing) the age of the Universe.

Now, there's a bit of progression in life as a whole's strategy. The animals are biologically anthropic, but culturally they're animals. Lions kill each others' babies; even the worst human dictator is a step up from the sheer savageness of "survival of the fittest." Evolution is survival of the fittest. Humans happened upon a different strategy: civilization, which is survival of the most, where we go to great lengths to empower even the most unfit and disabled. Humans went millions of years without it of course, but finding it it allowed them to dominate the planet in a mere 10,000 years. Humans have more than 100 times the biomass of any other large land animal that ever existed - that's the power of civilization.

So, then what if the universe as a whole was anthropic, self organizing? Animals would then be inherently entropic, beasts whose pure goal was disorganization. The lesser animals would half achieve the goal but would still be culturally harmonious. It would take truly intelligent creatures to embrace pure destruction. Moreover, can you imagine interacting with a creature who's cultural AND biological aim is chaos? And it's magnitudes smarter than you? And its primary specialty is hunting culturally harmonious creatures, a label that could be applied to humans? It would make a good story.

If you want to write this then go for it. However please note that it is factually incorrect. Life does obey thermodynamics. Remember the Earth is not an isolated system, matter and energy can enter.

As for evolution I think you are labouring under some misapprehensions. Survival of the fittest does not relate to aggression or any specific trait. Evolution works through mutation and selection, humans (and many other animals) have had their co-operative traits selected for by evolution. Co-operation is a beneficial trait, that's why it is observed in so many animal species. As for your statement about lions, you do realize that human dictators have caused the death of hundreds of millions throughout history including women, children and babies? As well as slavery, mass torture and even mass rape? That's hardly "a step above" morally from one animal killing another.

The reason humans are so successful is not just co-operation, it is our intelligence.

 

[gatztopher]

Danger, thanks for the pep talk - it's very true, and I like this story enough to not sacrifice it on an altar of endlessly pursuing plausibility.

That said, I'm still taking my first steps in writing this (first six months, after a couple years of thinking about it) and putting the ideas to the fire is allowing me to get some different perspectives and it's generating a lot of good ideas, as well as forcing me to step my game up (hopefully not at the expense of PF contributors' patience and goodwill).

THAT said, I've found yet another possibility for preventing full matter-antimatter interaction here (http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-antimatter-gravity-universe-expansion.html). The theory in the article proposes that antimatter's CPT inversion causes it to have an antigravity affect when around normal matter. It's from an Italian physicist who looks like he's trying to sell his own sci fi, though, but if it's good enough for him I might be able to snatch it up.

 

[cjameshuff]

If you want to write this then go for it. However please note that it is factually incorrect. Life does obey thermodynamics. Remember the Earth is not an isolated system, matter and energy can enter.

In fact, life is rather the opposite of being counter to entropy...life uses available energy to produce more life, which itself uses available energy...etc. It acts as a catalyst, extracting energy from otherwise-stable accumulations and generally increasing entropy faster than would happen without living things around. It only thrives on Earth because, as you said, Earth's not a closed system, it's got a great big source of energy in the sun and all of space as an energy sink.

A universe that somehow tended toward minimum entropy would also tend toward minimum complexity...it would tend toward a perfectly ordered state that takes the least amount of information possible to describe, like a perfect crystal or non-evaporating singularities. It doesn't sound like a universe conducive to life. As for linking thermodynamics with evolution of social traits...I also don't see any way for that to make sense. Even if they must normally cause chaos in their environment to survive against the constant tendency toward sterile order of their own universe, cooperation could be a useful tool in achieving this.

 

[gatztopher]

In fact, life is rather the opposite of being counter to entropy...life uses available energy to produce more life, which itself uses available energy...etc.

Granted - I've been taking the relationship between life and the 2nd law too lightly. (My "life is time travel" statement, I'll scrap it moving forward.) But the relationship is nevertheless distinct. In a universe where things are supposed to get more disorganized, we have a phenomenon of organized, complex life forms. It's what makes Schrodinger's paradox... paradoxical.

The river flows one way, but the whirlpool flows another. Is it too much of a stretch to say that if the river flowed the opposite direction, then so would the whirlpool?

A universe that somehow tended toward minimum entropy would also tend toward minimum complexity...it would tend toward a perfectly ordered state that takes the least amount of information possible to describe, like a perfect crystal or non-evaporating singularities. It doesn't sound like a universe conducive to life.

True, but our universe doesn't sound very conducive to life either. Would a universe with the opposite of entropy (anthropy? negentropy?) necessarily disallow life (or as it were, life's opposite)? Who knows!

As for linking thermodynamics with evolution of social traits...I also don't see any way for that to make sense. Even if they must normally cause chaos in their environment to survive against the constant tendency toward sterile order of their own universe, cooperation could be a useful tool in achieving this.

Cooperation could be a useful tool in causing chaos. Likewise, savagery can be a useful tool in promoting order. Now, would you prefer to have order through savagery or cooperation? I presume the latter.

I'm simply going off the assumption that life, and humanity, strives for order to the maximum that free energy will allow us. I don't think it's a ridiculous claim - here we are, the most successful large land animals by a hundredfold, complaining daily about how the world just isn't safe enough for us. "We need more control! More order! More brotherhood! Things are too chaotic!" It goes a little beyond rationality, but it's our nature.

Whereas, these monsters, born of life-inside-out, strive for chaos to the maximum. "Less control! More chaos! Less coordination! Things are dangerously organized!"

Edit: I might even go so far to say that it would be naive to assume thermodynamics doesn't impact our social traits. Such simple things as the length of a day or a season have tremendous implications for civilization (nevermind life), yet something as grand as a universal tendency doesn't? Entropy isn't a phenomenon you have to be going near the speed of light to confront. It's in the machinery of every fiber of every being.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Cooperation could be a useful tool in causing chaos. Likewise, savagery can be a useful tool in promoting order. Now, would you prefer to have order through savagery or cooperation? I presume the latter.

I think you are simplifying things here. It would be better if you had a definition for these terms. What do you mean by "savagery"? Does driving thousands of bulldozers through the Amazon count as savagery and chaos? Do a pod of killer whales co-operatively hunting to smash up icebergs and drown seals could as order or chaos? These are very vague terms and it really depends on what side you are on as to what you think of it.

I'm simply going off the assumption that life, and humanity, strives for order to the maximum that free energy will allow us. I don't think it's a ridiculous claim - here we are, the most successful large land animals by a hundredfold, complaining daily about how the world just isn't safe enough for us. "We need more control! More order! More brotherhood! Things are too chaotic!" It goes a little beyond rationality, but it's our nature.

I don't think this is true. Humans strive for safety and happiness. You're use of the term order here is confused because you are using it for two meanings at once. Order in thermodynamics means something completely different to order in a social setting. In the former we are talking about the distribution of free energy, in the latter we are subjectively referring to the efficiency and regulation of a system.

Humans don't strive for order in the entropy sense, if we did we would act to create huge edifices of stored energy and kill everything to make sure this order lasts as long as possible. In reality by increasing our energy consumption we increase disorder. In addition human behaviour is highly multifaceted, to say that we strive for order is not entirely true because many people in many different areas of life strive for the opposite for many different reasons.

Are you sure you want to use these terms and go down this route? If you do you should really read up more on evolution and especially evolution of group co-operation and behaviour.

Whereas, these monsters, born of life-inside-out, strive for chaos to the maximum. "Less control! More chaos! Less coordination! Things are dangerously organized!"

I would have to ask; what's the competitive advantage of being an organism that is averse to co-operation? How even would intelligence evolve (note that many hypotheses about why humans evolved intelligence revolve around our co-operation). You don't have to explain that of course but if I were reading your book it would spring to mind.

Edit: I might even go so far to say that it would be naive to assume thermodynamics doesn't impact our social traits. Such simple things as the length of a day or a season have tremendous implications for civilization (nevermind life), yet something as grand as a universal tendency doesn't? Entropy isn't a phenomenon you have to be going near the speed of light to confront. It's in the machinery of every fiber of every being.

I highly disagree. We have no instinctual understanding of entropy. Of course it shapes our lives and our evolution but it is totally not the same as our relationship with the sun, you are comparing apples and oranges there. It's like saying that it would be naive to assume quantum mechanics doesn't impact our social traits. It doesn't other than to be a mechanism by which physics, chemistry and therefore biology works.

 

[gatztopher]

I'll be the first to admit it - I lack thought experiments, mathematical evidence, and fictionalized biology. I'm working on these, to the extent that I can (certainly, they're helpful to plunk throughout the story), but I am mostly running on intuition. However...

What do you mean by "savagery"? Does driving thousands of bulldozers through the Amazon count as savagery and chaos? Do a pod of killer whales co-operatively hunting to smash up icebergs and drown seals count as order or chaos?

Which is offensive: With the bulldozers, that they're organized or destroying the forest? The killer whales, that they're coordinated or killing seals? For both it's the latter - our sensibilities are plainly against destruction. This is our gut instinct; maybe after thinking logically about it, we'd see it a little differently, but overall, to the best of our ability, we would take action to curb the violence. Certainly if you have a pet killer whale, you're not going to feed it live seals. You'll try and civilize it. Also, humanity is making some progress moving away from deforestation.

You're use of the term order here is confused because you are using it for two meanings at once. Order in thermodynamics means something completely different to order in a social setting. In the former we are talking about the distribution of free energy, in the latter we are subjectively referring to the efficiency and regulation of a system.

I do have to clear this up.

Humans don't strive for order in the entropy sense, if we did we would act to create huge edifices of stored energy and kill everything to make sure this order lasts as long as possible.

Hmm... I half wonder if we don't. After all, humanity is an official extinction event - we sort of do kill everything that violates our order. Do we create huge edifices of stored energy? I mean, how many atom bombs are stock piled... how many gallons of oil are held as back up... how many cans of corn (that'll last god knows how long) are gathering dust...

I would have to ask; what's the competitive advantage of being an organism that is averse to co-operation?

A term like competitiveness doesn't apply - that's why the idea is so out there. For us, there's the notion of "we have survive against the hostile terrain and creatures." There's a lot of competing. In the other universe, it's more like "we have to survive against friendly terrain and creatures." We're used to mutations being few and far between, getting weeded out by harsh competition. There, I imagine mutations are frequent and radical, fueled by a universe where the general dynamic is "be harmonious." It's like a teenager who rebels harder in proportion to how good a home they come from.

We have no instinctual understanding of entropy. Of course it shapes our lives and our evolution but it is totally not the same as our relationship with the sun, you are comparing apples and oranges there. It's like saying that it would be naive to assume quantum mechanics doesn't impact our social traits. It doesn't other than to be a mechanism by which physics, chemistry and therefore biology works.

Quantum mechanics isn't something encountered in the macro world. A better example might be something like bacteria. It's there, we just didn't know about it (and even before we did, it had some pretty sizable impacts on our social traits).

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Which is offensive: With the bulldozers, that they're organized or destroying the forest? The killer whales, that they're coordinated or killing seals? For both it's the latter - our sensibilities are plainly against destruction. This is our gut instinct; maybe after thinking logically about it, we'd see it a little differently, but overall, to the best of our ability, we would take action to curb the violence. Certainly if you have a pet killer whale, you're not going to feed it live seals. You'll try and civilize it. Also, humanity is making some progress moving away from deforestation.

My point is destroying the rainforest and building regulated farms could be argued by some as civilised and ordered. What counts as "savage" and "civilised" are totally subjective human constructs, they don't exist in the natural world. So when you say "evolution is savage" it's a meaningless judgement statement. Evolution doesn't care about what we would class as savage, civilised, ordered or chaos. All that happens is that when you get inheritance with variation under environmental conditions you get species adapting to their environment.

Hmm... I half wonder if we don't. After all, humanity is an official extinction event - we sort of do kill everything that violates our order. Do we create huge edifices of stored energy? I mean, how many atom bombs are stock piled... how many gallons of oil are held as back up... how many cans of corn (that'll last god knows how long) are gathering dust...

You're rationalising here. If indeed we are the cause of the holocene extinction event (and the jury is still out on that one) that doesn't mean that we are indistinctly trying to slow down the universes march towards maximum disorder. Stockpiling of nuclear weapons are down to our innate violent tenancies and storing of resources is for in preparation of a shortage.

A term like competitiveness doesn't apply - that's why the idea is so out there. For us, there's the notion of "we have survive against the hostile terrain and creatures." There's a lot of competing. In the other universe, it's more like "we have to survive against friendly terrain and creatures." We're used to mutations being few and far between, getting weeded out by harsh competition. There, I imagine mutations are frequent and radical, fueled by a universe where the general dynamic is "be harmonious." It's like a teenager who rebels harder in proportion to how good a home they came from.
The term does apply, wherever there is evolution there is competition. Co-operation is a competitive trait. The rest of what you say shows that you do really need to go and read up on biology and evolution (I hope I don't sound harsh here, that's not what I'm trying to do!). Mutations aren't weeded out unless they are deleterious. And whether or not a mutation is deleterious, neutral or advantageous is contextual on the environment.

Quantum mechanics isn't something encountered in the macro world. A better example might be something like bacteria. It's there, we just didn't know about it (and even before we did, it had some pretty sizable impacts on our social traits).

True but the difference I was trying to get at is whilst our world is governed by entropy and this obviously effects our environment in a myriad of ways (e.g. our ability to utilise fire) it doesn't necessarily follow that human behaviour will have evolved to quicken or slow the entropic effects we see around us.