Jerry D. Bauer
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Member # 756
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posted 29. March 2005 22:06
Due to Stephen Wright's and Jim Skipper's comments in another thread, I think at this point it is helpful to expand on my former post entitled The Copenhagen Interpretation and I might as well do so in another thread. Please read that OP first for better understanding.
My point with introducing the work of Young, Heisenberg, Bohr, Tipler, Feynman, Wheeler and others is that the more temporal humans learn scientifically about the universe around us, the easier it becomes for any free-thinking person, regardless of religious beliefs, to accept and fully embrace intelligent design. And once realizing that intelligent design is not based on religious beliefs then metaphysics become a moot point and we can look directly at science to discover a Supreme Observer as explained in the link above.
This Supreme Observer can be Christ to me, Yahweh to the Jews, Allah to the Moslems, Krishna to the Hindus, nothing more than quantum mechanics to the atheist and the agnostics still just may not know WHAT the heck it is.
But since this Observer is a god of quantum mechanics, so to speak, we can propose a design methodology beginning with quantum mechanics which is exactly the way that molecular design engineers do it.
Let's begin by throwing out a post-grad paper on the subject:
Molecular Theory and Modeling Chemical Engineering, 698D
In this engineering course in molecular design taught by Edward J. Maginn, University of Notre Dame, we discover how molecular design is understood by design engineers. Maginn states throughout the paper that the understanding of molecular design hinges on reductionism--the microscopics of design explain the macroscopics of the final product.
Methodologies used to get from the statistical mechanics of molecules to the properties of macroscopic systems are quite complex and have been difficult to understand and calculate in the past, Maginn asserts. However, great progress has been made in the last ten or twenty years and today, even complex systems can be understood.
“Statistical mechanics play a central role within the hierarchy of approaches for first principle design of engineering materials. An alternative design process, utilizing a “shotgun” approach, is called combinatorial chemistry of combinatorial synthesis. The tools discussed in this class are also applicable to this process, as some guidance on the molecular level can greatly reduce the number of “trials” one makes and thus can help focus the search for new materials in the combinatorial approach. The following figure depicts a rational design “hierarchy” strategy. We see that quantum mechanics is the most fundamental step in the process……”
A schematic by D.L. Theodorou is introduced in the paper to synopsize the process:
In chapter 4 entitled Equilibrium Ensembles Maginn announces the HOW of approximating macroscopics from microscopic states of molecular interactions and concludes this is best done by statistical mechanics:
"What we wish to do in this chapter is set up a statistical mechanical framework. From this framework, we hope to derive the laws of macroscopic thermodynamics from a fundamental set of postulates governing the microscopic state of the system. Most important to us for this class is the form of the expressions for thermodynamic quantities, such as equations of state, heat capacities, etc. We want to show how these observable quantities are obtained from nothing more than molecular interactions. Besides these macroscopic quantities, we can also obtain important microscopic details such as molecular organization, motion, and structure."
He then does so. Enter the math at your own peril unless you are Tipler or Dembski. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I WILL state this for clarification for most people at the Brainstorms level. If we know the macroscopics of a design, then we can also deduce the microscopics of it. In thermodynamics, microstates are defined as the total states in which matter/energy can come to rest. If I have 4 coins and I wish to know how they can be arranged as to heads or tails, I understand there are two possible microstates for each coin, and 4 coins and therefore there are 2^4 possible resting states, or 16. The below table shows the 16 arrangements:
But the macrostates, or the configurational entropy of the way the coins ACTUALLY EXIST AFTER THEY FLIP is another critter and is figured quite differently. In fact, configurational entropy is calculated using factorials; or some call them combinatorials:
We can see how that knowing the macrostate is 1 and that macrostate is 4 heads automatically tells us that we are dealing with 4 coins and 16 microstates and we can just look at the above chart to see what they are.
An interesting side note: we can also see what type of entropy Feynman described for us in Lectures on Physics published in 1963 entitled "Order and entropy" (vol I section 46-5) as "We measure "disorder" by the number of ways that the insides can be arranged, so that from the outside it looks the same. The logarithm of that number of ways is the entropy."
And the total way those coins can be arranged is not 16 as this just calculates the way that the heads and tails can be arranged. The TOTAL ways something can be arranged regarding each other for 4 coins is 4!, or 24. If those coins were colors we can see this in the below chart:
Anywho, I digress. From the above schematic outlaying the mechanism for material design from microscopics to macroscopics we can glean understanding of molecular design and it is not that difficult to extrapolate a mechanism regarding the concept of a Supreme Observer.
And, most finally, I think that Jim can now see the importance microevolution plays in the concept of macroscopic design.
[ 29. March 2005, 22:26: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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