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Author
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Topic: Is 2nd Law a special case of 4th Law?
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Stephen Wright
Member
Member # 195
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posted 02. October 2006 16:50
quote:
“Therefore, the change of entropy in closed systems is always positive; order is continually destroyed. In open systems, however, we have not only production of entropy due to irreversible processes, but also import of entropy, which may well be negative. This is the case in the living organism, which imports complex molecules high in free energy. Thus, living systems, maintaining themselves in a steady state, can avoid the increase of entropy, and may even develop towards states of increased order and organization.” - L Bertalanffy
Richard and all,
While not contesting your comments about entropy and gas particles, could you see a broader range of entropic thinking, such as described by Ludwig von Bertalanffy? His viewpoint, expressed in General Systems Theory, sees both bio-evolution and evolution of a gas as systemic. One (bio-evolution) being less deterministic than the other due to the capability of “importing” ordered information into an open system. Living things, by making choices and taking measurements, can make causal changes in their inner and external environments, via the Process # 1 quantum event concept developed by J. Von Neumann and described by H. Stapp in recent years.
This pragmatic view of the importation of facts into living systems, IMHO, is observed by using simultaneously the dual viewpoints of physics and a broad view information/logic theoretic. It sees living things as using Process # 1 events to obtain mutual information, as facts or “knowings” about themselves and about their surroundings. This creation of mutual information is the core of how CSI could be created. I think this helps keep biology away from “mystery” and open to the logic and math analysis of what we know from empirical results.
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Salvador T. Cordova
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Member # 959
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posted 02. October 2006 21:30
quote:
Richard wrote:
We have no way of measuring the disorder of molecular structure even though molecules can store energy and conduct energy flow.
Thank you again for your response. The measure of disorder, at least in terms of the 4th law is with respect to some configuration which we view as a designed configuration. This measure is not directly related to measures of disorder as stated in the 2nd law (as far as I know anyway). Something can become more thermally disordered but not more configurationally disordered. Infact, I suspect one could build a thought experiment where the two entropies (2nd vs. 4th law entropy) might be anti-correlated.
What then constitutes a "designed configuration" and configurational orders? It is this area where I pointed out that lurking somewhere is the question of what constitutes a valid design? Can "subjective" specificaitons be considered designs amenable to scientific inquiry. Specified complexity defines what is configurationally ordered.
The issue of both thermal (2nd law) entropy and configurational entropy (what is now addressed by the 4th law) was stated in the semial 1984 book, Mystery of Life's Origin.
The treatment of Configurational Entropy was incomplete, imho, in 1984, and it really awaits the rigor of dicussions such as those we are having here. Plese refer to : Thermodynamics and Origin of Life
Salvador
[ 02. October 2006, 21:34: Message edited by: Salvador T. Cordova ]
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Richard Oldani
Member
Member # 2606
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posted 02. October 2006 23:16
It seems that most of you are hesitant to accept so simple a solution to something that has been such a stumbling block to understanding life processes. To convince you I need to start with the fundamentals. I am not an expert on the history of thermodynamics nor very good with details so if I leave something out it is not intentionally. My understanding is that all the terms in thermodynamics have their foundation in statistical mechanics. Thus temperature is defined as the average speed of molecules and resultant force on the wall of the container.
Now take a look at any textbook on complex systems at what happens when the temperature of a system is increased. They will tell you how a polyatomic molecule will absorb energy by rotational, vibrational and translational motions. And they will explain equipartition of energy meaning that energy is divided equally among the bonds until at very high temperature the bonds are disassociated. But that's where the discussion ends because there is nothing more that can be observed. The energy absorption of more complex molecules is completely ignored because it is impossible to measure. This is a very short summary and I urge you to verify the total lack of attention by science to the subject of heat absorption and flow by means of molecular bonds. I remember vividly the moment I verified it for myself years ago in the library.
You mention Bertalanffy who has adopted the traditional concept of a system with fixed boundaries and measurable inputs and outputs. Why should nature conform to our experimental methods so that we can find out her modus operandi? He has assumed that entropy increases or decreases uniformly throughout a system. However, if energy is absorbed by a molecule it represents greater order than if it had acted to increase the translational velocity of the molecule. Thus the same energy can act at the same time both to increase and decrease entropy. It is up to us to find a way to recognize localities of higher and lower entropy without resorting to fixed boundaries and verification by measurement.
Chris, sorry that should be entropy not disorder. Does it make more sense now? The energy absorbed by a molecule cannot be represented as only due to excitation because of bond rotation and vibration. We should assume that the greater the complexity of the molecule the less energy will be absorbed as excitations.
Mel, I have found that a great way to simplify life processes is to express them in terms of energy flow. As far as individual interactions, as a physicist I prefer to reduce everything to fields. All observables, and energy is an observable, can be expressed in terms of fields. However, that is a completely different topic.
I am going to try to get my paper and referee comments posted somewhere on this site. This paper is the result of many failed attempts over the years and was only recently accepted a few weeks ago.
Regards to all,
Richard
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Richard Oldani
Member
Member # 2606
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posted 02. October 2006 23:44
Salvador,
A brief reply before retiring. I call configurational entropy "structure". I skimmed the content of the literature you cited and I believe the author is not being careful enough to distinguish between formation by growth and formation by evolution. All structure, whether of an organism or an atom, is ordered and should not be considered extraordinary with respect to thermodynamic concepts. The way that structure was achieved is what is of interest.
As stated previously, I do not agree that the laws of thermodynamics as presently formulated can comment meaningfully on life or life processes.
Richard
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Christopher D. Beling
Member
Member # 723
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posted 03. October 2006 04:50
Hi All,
Wow the pace here is such that I can hardly keep up - will make response latter. But I just want to show a diagram I have in mind to get us to define, or think about, what we mean by the 4th law:
In my understanding there are a number options for the 4th law. [See section 3:10 in No Free Lunch by Bill Dembski]:
{Note: in the lower part - I draw the entropy in the coded part of the system - not the entropy of other physical states of the system}
(I) 4th Law (real). CSI in the real (stochastic) world/system can only decrease. Decrease in CSI accompanied by an increase in coding entropy. [This form supported by Shannon, Hoyle, Kondrashov]
(II) 4th Law (ideal). CSI in an ideal (deterministic) world/system remains constant in time. [This form supported by Dembski and Medawar; [both refer to "The law of conservation of information"]
(III) 4th Law (unknown naturalistic mechanism). CSI can increase in time by a hitherto underdiscovered process - often but not always talked about as some form of "self organization". [This form supported by Weisskopf, Kauffman, Davies]
(I) is strongly supported by the theoretical works of Hoyle and Kondrashov who deal with transfer of genetic code assuming the stochastic process of mutation. As mentioned before their equations for genome (CSI) degradation [expressed as the "fitness" of the resulting phenotype] are:
(II) is strongly supported by Bill Dembski's theoretical development in Section 3.9 of NFL "The Law of Conservation of Information" (N.B. Bill only deals with deterministic processes).
Note (I) and (II) can be combined into a single statement of the 4th law:
The CSI in a system will tend to decrease or at best remain constant. (Def. 4.1)
It would be very nice to see some discussion of Def: 4.1. So far we have not really discussed what we mean by the 4th law - and if we mean different things its not so good. Thanks for your participation - Chris
[ 01. December 2006, 19:12: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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Christopher D. Beling
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Member # 723
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posted 03. October 2006 07:44
Richard- Changing disorder to entropy makes things easier to understand, but I still have difficulty:
quote:
We have no way of measuring the entropy of molecular structure even though molecules can store energy and conduct energy flow... The energy absorbed by a molecule cannot be represented as only due to excitation because of bond rotation and vibration. We should assume that the greater the complexity of the molecule the less energy will be absorbed as excitations.
Surely the energy of a molecule is given by: E(electronic)+E(vibrational)+E(rotational) and quantum states |i>=|E,V,R> where E,V and R are the respective quantum numbers. [Generally the energy separation on E, is larger than that on V which in turn is larger than that on R]. The index "i" is taken to cover all combinations of E,V and R. Surely the Shannon entropy of the molecule in thermal equilibrium is:
S=Thermodynamic Entropy, T=temperature. Are you referring to the impossibility of measuring a single molecule's entropy? - Also, why will less energy be absorbed as excitations for a more complex molecule?
Thanks for putting your paper up sometime - Chris
[ 03. October 2006, 21:15: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 03. October 2006 09:40
All
The diagrams from Chris's last two posts do not show on my screen. Are they visible to every/anyone else?
-Mel
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 03. October 2006 10:17
The best way to keep an open system going is to make the terminal products both inert and diffusible. CO2 and H2O comply perfectly. The reverse, photosynthesis, of course requires energy input.
So much for the thermodynamics of open systems.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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Christopher D. Beling
Member
Member # 723
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posted 03. October 2006 11:36
John - you said: quote:
That is what leads me to consider evolution as a progressive loss of information, a narrowing of potentialites. This can explain why no contemporary organisms can evolve any more. All they can do is become extinct.
I think that here you are actually agreeing with Sal - when Sal talks about the de-repression of existing information throughout evolution - he is basically saying the the information (CSI) for evolution was there all along. As the de-repression takes place (perhaps in speciation) in some sense information is lost. Your concept of reduced potentiality seems of value here.
The 4th law of thermodynamics is all about information loss in time - you might therefore be happy it gives your position strong support.
One of the most interesting things from the last few days discussion is with the genomic degradation of species leading finally to extinction. I find it interesting that some (like myself) say the degradation is due to chance (i.e. random mutations) others (like yourself say it is pre-programmed). We seem to have uncovered an interesting scientific problem - Population geneticists are using chance as an explanation. The process of apoptosis (programmed cell death -or removal of repressing agent)in organisms might well give credance to prescribed extinction. I know on other threads non-random mutations has been discussed at length. Where then does the truth lie? - Chris
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Richard Oldani
Member
Member # 2606
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posted 03. October 2006 21:57
Chris, what I said is basically the same as what you are saying, namely that excitation energy is greater than vibrational which is greater than rotational. Therefore energy will flow first into rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom and last into excitations.
By the way, I googled molecular temperature and got an interesting discussion on it. If you go there you will see confusion in the various exchanges and it is caused by standard theory's imprecise treatment of thermodynamic concepts as they apply to material entities such as molecules. It substantiates what I have been saying and yes I do maintain that it is impossible to measure that entropy.
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Salvador T. Cordova
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Member # 959
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posted 03. October 2006 23:32
Gentleman,
I will hopefully be on a brief vacation for a week. And even when I return, I'll need some time to digest the very substative issues being raised. I may have to go back an re-learn some thermodynamics to be able to keep pace with some of you guys.
Sal
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Christopher D. Beling
Member
Member # 723
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posted 05. October 2006 06:22
Stephen - appreciate your joining discussions:
quote:
Living things, by making choices and taking measurements, can make causal changes in their inner and external environments, via the Process # 1 quantum event concept developed by J. Von Neumann and described by H. Stapp in recent years.
Is it possible to for a living system to "make a choice" or to "take a measurement". Does this not imply the organism has some inbuilt intelligence? That organisms take in low-disordered chemicals and give out high disordered - thus not violating the 2nd law - has not been shown on its own to be a sufficient condition for producing information. Reduction in disorder (entropy) does not necessarily equate IMHO with increased CSI. - Chris
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Richard Oldani
Member
Member # 2606
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posted 07. October 2006 09:07
A question to all who have been following this thread:
Please excuse me as I make yet another attempt to return to the fundamentals. When talking about the laws of thermodynamics as they apply to life systems we attempt to reduce processes to the simplest level possible. I think everyone would agree with that and it is equally true for complex systems.
In our search for a model for these systems is it necessary to reduce processes to the level of the molecule? In other words, does molecular structure provide the key to understanding complex systems? To illustrate consider the most extreme example I can think of, the butterfly effect. It is hypotyhesized that the motion of a butterfly's wings can initiate a hurricane hundreds or thousands of miles away by being amplified through molecular interaction. The implication is that all processes can be traced back to deterministic origins.
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Christopher D. Beling
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Member # 723
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posted 07. October 2006 11:04
Richard; I think you are hitting some major points needing discussion-
quote:
When talking about the laws of thermodynamics as they apply to life systems we attempt to reduce processes to the simplest level possible. I think everyone would agree with that and it is equally true for complex systems.
One problem here is that thermodynamics was developed for macroscopic systems - i.e. systems made from a huge number of particles - where statistical effects are used to give understanding. To apply thermodynamics to the molecule can be done, but perhaps with some caution due to poorer statistics. I need some convincing that such a reductionist approach (at the molecular level) is necessary or advisable.
True - the butterfly effect is a purely deterministic phenonemon. - although real physics seems to require determinism plus chance (stochastic) processes due to QM. Consider the following:
For a purely deteministic approach - where all the molecular coordinates Q(i) of the molecules in the butterfly and atmosphere where known to arbitrary precision dQ(i), thus constituting information -log2[dQ(i)/Q(i)] bits per ith molecule. If the total number of molecules in the atmosphere and butterfly is a ginormous N, then the total information required to specify the intial state is:
CSI(t-0)=SUMover,i,i=1to N,{-log2[dQ(i)/Q(i)]. - - -(1)
Thus one may consider the Omega space describing the huge Q(i) as one huge multidimensional fine mesh of spacing dQ(i). Being purely deterministic (i.e. no stochastics) the 4th law (ideal: i.e."the conservation of information") will apply and the information available for describing the final state (as found in the computer predicting the final state at any time t latter) will still be the same as given by (1). As t progesses the errors on the Q(i) within the dQ(i) will be taking more effect. [e.g is the starting Q(i) smack in the middle of the mesh "pixel" of is it towards one of the corners? - the prediction will begin to depend on this]. Thus to predict further in time the dQ(i)s must be further reduced with an accompanying increase in information (and size of computer). Stochastics (real 4th) will only make the situation worse. Mel's dice experiment parallels the butterfly experiment quite nicely -Are we on the same wavelength? Chris
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Richard Oldani
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Member # 2606
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posted 08. October 2006 03:34
Chris,
In your discussion of the butterfly effect I assume you are using generalized coordinates to describe the n structureless molecules of a gas. This is the standard method for defining thermodynamics in terms of statistical mechanics. This is not what I am talking about. There is no conceivable way a dice experiment can be compared to the butterfly effect.
The butterfly effect was invented by someone in chaos theory to try to interpret it in terms of a molecular model. Whereas thermodynamics is the study of how an ordered system becomes disordered, chaos theory studies how order can arise from disorder. In this case we are considering how the chance flap of a wing can cause the order represented by a hurricane. The branch of thermodynamics that discusses chaos would refer to the hurricane as a dissipative structure , where "dissipative" implies increasing entropy due to energy loss, and "structure" implies decreasing entropy. If entropy is increasing and decreasing at the same time, how can a molecular model be used to explain both? In other words, why do we insist on a molecular model even in a paradoxical situation?
quote:
I need some convincing that such a reductionist approach (at the molecular level) is necessary or advisable.
I agree. It seems that visualizability is at times more important than accuracy in the construction of a physical model.
Richard
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