We die--then what??

[Mike Cl]

You know as a pessimist I could accuse you of redefining life as a natural outcome of the death cycle Once again our words describe thing and are not actually the things themselves. I see death and entropy as an irresistable force...you may be more optimistic.

Death and entropy are part of the process of the universe that causes life.  As Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist says:

The answer, as he quite correctly puts it, relies on my favorite law of physics, the second law of thermodynamics. This law says that the entropy of the universe or of any closed isolated bit of the universe increases as time goes on.

Entropy is simply a measure of the disorderliness, the messiness, the chaotic nature of stuff. If you start with an unbroken egg, it is easy to break the egg. That makes it more disorderly and disorganized. It's easy to turn that broken egg into scrambled eggs. Again, more disorganized. It's very difficult and would never happen by itself to take the scrambled egg and make it back into the pristine form of an unbroken egg, Humpty Dumpty notwithstanding. This law is very profound and captures people's imaginations.

At a scientific level, it also captures the imagination of creationists. They say, look, there is a fundamental law of physics. You're telling us, one of the famous laws of 19th century science says that things run down, that things become less and less organized over time, that ultimately the universe will reach "heat death." Yet you expect me to believe that all of the marvelous complexity of life and the biosphere and this evolution that you guys talk about all just happened starting from some disorderly primordial goo. How is that possible?
There is a simple and perfectly correct answer, which focuses on the phrase "isolated systems." The Earth is not an isolated system. T

But there's another question, somewhat more subtle. It doesn't seem to violate the letter of the second law of thermodynamics for life to arise on Earth. But does it violate the spirit of the law? Why is it that complicated elaborate complex organisms arose just through the impersonal working out of the fundamental law of physics? If there is no guidance there, if anything, the tendency seems to be towards messy disorder.

So visualize life here on Earth, a lively landscape on a sunny day. The sun is a hot spot in a cold sky. If the whole sky were the same temperature as the sun, Earth would get a lot more energy. Energy is good. But the Earth would soon come to be the temperature of the sun, and we would all die. On the other hand, if the whole sky were the temperature of the night sky, the Earth would come to be the temperature of the night sky â€" and we would all die.

Why life arose

The reason why we are here and life arose on Earth is because the sun is a hot spot in a cold sky. What matters is not that we get energy from the sun, but that we get low-entropy energy. Orderly energy, which is able to do useful work. We chew our cuds and we photosynthesize and we have conventions, all of which degrades that energy. We raise its entropy and then we send it back to the universe.

For every one photon of light we get from the sun, we radiate 20 photons back into the universe, with 20 times the entropy. We give exactly as much energy back to the universe as we get: On average, each photon we radiate out into the sky has one-twentieth the energy of the ones we receive. What matters is not that the sun is a source of energy but that it's a source of energy in a low-entropy form.

This is not just here in our biosphere. This is something that is characteristic of the universe as a whole. Let me remind you of the history of the universe. If you took a picture of the universe one second after the Big Bang, it would simply be a featureless bright glow in all directions. Sometimes you'll see the Big Bang, which happened 13.8 billion years ago, portrayed as like a bright dot on a black background. That is completely wrong. That makes you think that the Big Bang was an event with a location at a place in a preexisting space/time, which is not right. The Big Bang is the whole universe beginning. One second after the Big Bang, the universe was hot, it was dense, it was smooth, and it was the same everywhere. It was shining with a brightness of, I don't know, some really bright thing.

We can take a snapshot of the universe 380,000 years after the Big Bang. This is the moment when the universe became transparent. The radiation from that moment, the cosmic microwave background, has been imaged by astronomers. And what we see is the gradual formation of structure. The universe is growing increasingly lumpy and inhomogeneous. Some spots are a little bit emptier, other spots are a little bit heavier, a little denser. And if you go on, gravity increases the contrast of the universe, until we get the wonderful collection of galaxies and stars and superclusters we see in the current universe.

We now live roughly 10 billion years after the Big Bang. (Really it's about 13.8 billion years, but only the order of magnitude concerns us for now.) We live in a world with hundreds of billions of galaxies, and who knows how many conventions are going on with extraterrestrials fighting to keep church and state separate in their local environment. The universe will continue to evolve, even after we're not here.

Above us only space

Now picture the universe 1 quadrillion years (1 followed by 15 zeros) after the Big Bang. Ultimately the stars will burn out. After about a quadrillion years, the last star will stop shining. We'll have nothing in the universe but cold rocks and black holes. But even that will not be the end. Because all those rocks, those planets, those dead stars, those comets, will fall into the black holes.

Stephen Hawking in the 1970s taught us that black holes do not last forever. They give off radiation, they will evaporate and will eventually disappear. That will take one googol (1 followed by 100 zeros) years. The last black hole will have evaporated and there will be nothing left but empty space. Our best current model is that empty space lasts forever, infinity years into the future.

That's the history of the universe. I want you to notice something about this story. Entropy increases as the universe expands, so soon after the Big Bang, the fact that the universe was very smooth was actually in that physical circumstance a reflection of the fact that it's very orderly. It was so dense and the gravity was so strong that keeping everything smooth is a very rare and finely tuned state of affairs. Entropy grows as the universe expands, structure forms, stars shine, people live and die, and eventually you reach empty space. Which turns out, if you go to the math, to be a very high-entropy state.

But complexity, the organization of the stuff that is going on, is a completely different thing from entropy. In the beginning, the universe was a very simple place, just hot and dense and smooth. And the end, a googol years from now, the universe will be a simple place once again. It will be empty space. It is between when the entropy is increasing from low to high that the universe became complex, forming planets and stars and galaxies and living organisms.

That behavior is not an accident. That is a universal way that complexity behaves. Entropy just goes up, but complexity first goes up and then fades away once you approach the final state, which we call thermal equilibrium. So the right answer to the creationists is that not only is it allowed by the second law of thermodynamics â€" that complex structures like living beings arose here on Earth â€" but the reason why is because of the second of thermodynamics. We are parasitic upon the increase of entropy of the universe.

We are little surfers riding a wave of entropy until we eventually scuttle up on shore, and it'll just be empty space forever. And again, the universe is not special, you can see this in a cup of coffee. You take a cup of coffee with the cream separate, that's low entropy. Highly organized but also very simple. If you mix them together, it is high entropy, everything mixed together but also very simple.

It's the "in between" when you see the tendrils of the cream reaching into the coffee and swirling in little complex patterns. That's when you get the complexity of the universe. These little swirls, these little ethereal bits of complexity that are caught between the simple beginning and the simple end. That's us. That's what we are, temporary eruptions of structure and organization as the universe goes from simplicity to simplicity.


So, if you wanted to read all that, then you will see that life is just a part of the process of the universe--just as death is.  Entropy and complexity occur in some places as the universe changes from all energy to no energy.  It is all a process and there is no need for a force, or god or gods to explain any of it.

[Mike Cl]

1. Is it admissible logically to attribute an unknown source to an effect/outcome when every known source is discounted? If O is the outcome, and all known sources are S then a subset of S has caused O. If however, the whole set of S is discounted as yielding O, then O should have another source outside of S. Is this a logical approach?

2. 

Please share some of this evidence.

1. You lost me.  I get all tangled in the 'logical approach'.  Could you break that down in English?  I will say this.  All that the universe is, all that it contains is natural.  And nothing exists outside of nature.  There is no supernatural.  To say that god exists outside of nature is wishful or sloppy thinking.  There is not one speck of evidence that anything outside of nature exists.  None.

2.  To give a full answer I'll have to dig up old sources.  But, there have been several attempts to measure the weight of the soul, for instance.  The weight of the living person and the dead person did not change.  Modern brain researchers have searched for a structure of the soul or attempted to find where it may reside and to no avail.  There just is no evidence that such a thing as the soul exists.  There is evidence that 'we' exist as 'us' within our brain.  And when we die the atoms of the brain do not store the 'we' that makes us the unique being we are.  Like a candle that goes out, when we die, we die and the process that was our life stops.  That's it.

[thebesttrees]

1. You lost me.  I get all tangled in the 'logical approach'.  Could you break that down in English?  I will say this.  All that the universe is, all that it contains is natural.  And nothing exists outside of nature.  There is no supernatural.  To say that god exists outside of nature is wishful or sloppy thinking.  There is not one speck of evidence that anything outside of nature exists.  None. I do not know what this discussion has to do with god and why you bring up god. Let me give you an example and hopefully this helps. I am walking in the desert and I see some markings (effect) in the sand. I am able to formulate some guesses as to what or who might have caused these markings (effect). It could have been left by a dog, or a car, or a camel or perhaps made by the sun. Hence nature is the source (cause) of these markings (effect). My question to you is this: Is it possible to find an effect that cannot have nature as its cause or source?  Yes or no?
2.  To give a full answer I'll have to dig up old sources.  But, there have been several attempts to measure the weight of the soul, for instance.  The weight of the living person and the dead person did not change.  Modern brain researchers have searched for a structure of the soul or attempted to find where it may reside and to no avail.  There just is no evidence that such a thing as the soul exists.  There is evidence that 'we' exist as 'us' within our brain.  And when we die the atoms of the brain do not store the 'we' that makes us the unique being we are.  Like a candle that goes out, when we die, we die and the process that was our life stops.  That's it. Thank you

[Mike Cl]

You said:  I do not know what this discussion has to do with god and why you bring up god. Let me give you an example and hopefully this helps. I am walking in the desert and I see some markings (effect) in the sand. I am able to formulate some guesses as to what or who might have caused these markings (effect). It could have been left by a dog, or a car, or a camel or perhaps made by the sun. Hence nature is the source (cause) of these markings (effect). My question to you is this: Is it possible to find an effect that cannot have nature as its cause or source?  Yes or no?

Me--No.  Why god? Because, usually when one asks if there is anything supernatural, they are pointing toward god/gods.  I don't know if this applies to you or not.  As for nature--that all there is.  There is no supernatural.  All that occurs and is not man made, is nature.  (and because man is of nature--all is nature.)

[thebesttrees]

You said:  I do not know what this discussion has to do with god and why you bring up god. Let me give you an example and hopefully this helps. I am walking in the desert and I see some markings (effect) in the sand. I am able to formulate some guesses as to what or who might have caused these markings (effect). It could have been left by a dog, or a car, or a camel or perhaps made by the sun. Hence nature is the source (cause) of these markings (effect). My question to you is this: Is it possible to find an effect that cannot have nature as its cause or source?  Yes or no?

Me--No.  Why god? Because, usually when one asks if there is anything supernatural, they are pointing toward god/gods.  I don't know if this applies to you or not.  As for nature--that all there is.  There is no supernatural.  All that occurs and is not man made, is nature.  (and because man is of nature--all is nature.)

Now let me ask a question if you do not mind. There was a point in time that there was no man on earth. In other words, the creature know as man did not exist let's say two million years ago. Man gradually came into existence. Just like the fetus which goes through so many stages of development over nine months, so did man over tens of thousands or perhaps millions of years. Do you agree with this assessment?

[Baruch]

thebesttrees - "Is it admissible logically to attribute an unknown source to an effect/outcome when every known source is discounted? If O is the outcome, and all known sources are S then a subset of S has caused O. If however, the whole set of S is discounted as yielding O, then O should have another source outside of S. Is this a logical approach?"  May I give a complete analysis?

We are assuming a cause/effect scenario, with an option that the whole is greater than the parts?  We are assuming human knowledge is incomplete?  Assuming this is so ... then of course we can admit that there is an unknown source.

As Rumsfeld, a known expert on epistemology said ... known knowns, un-kown knowns, known un-knowns and un-known un-knowns ... exhausts the Venn diagram.  What is a known known is a cause/effect pair where both are known.  What is a un-known known is an effect missing a cause (the point you made).  Every effect has a cause and every cause has an effect.  What is a known un-known is a cause missing an effect.  What is a un-known un-known is something that is outside any known scenario.

Now accepting that a set has a property that a subset does not, is allowable, if the subset is a proper subset.  Because a set is defined by its members, and a member is defined as having characteristics that define its subset.  But that means that if a set has a proper subset, then there has to be more than one subset in the set, a subset that has different characteristics than the original one.  The set can then be defined as simply having those two subsets, each defined as before.  So I am assuming that the two subsets are defined as having no common member (intersection is the null set).  So for example, the irrational numbers and the rational numbers are distinct subsets of the real numbers, and the real numbers are precisely the union of those two subsets.

So we have covered everything you said formally, by defining our terms rigorously.  In epistemology, one can have a superset that covers the subset in question, that has other subsets, that has a different and distinct membership criteria each subset from each subset.  And that superset and those other subsets, can be in the un-known category, maybe we only currently know one subset.  This involves a principle called the Axiom of Choice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice

But one can't extend the superset indefinitely ... there is no mathematical "universal set", without contradiction.  No infinite regression of proper supersets.

So your point being ... in cause/effect analysis of the universe, is there a superset that is properly a superset ... and the answer by the quantum mechanics is that there is more than one universe, and that the set of all universes is the final superset.  So a being in another universe could be the cause ... the effect of which is another universe.  My POV is exactly that case ... that each being is a universe, and being is the cause of being (sometimes it takes two beings ;-) ... though I don't need quantum mechanics to believe it is so.  The final proper superset of all beings, is the Buddhakaya.

[Baruch]

CrucifyCindy ... When did you learn about life and the regress of entropy? ... if you have learned about death and the progress of entropy?  Also aren't you suffering from Aristotelian teleology ... that the ultimate cause is the end, not the beginning ... so the ultimate meaning of the universe is the heat death of the entire universe (assuming it is closed ... but if it is open, then the law of entropy doesn't apply to it)?  For me I don't look to the beginning or the end.  So your hot coffee eventually gets cold, it reaches room temperature ... we are all doomed! ;-)  Also aren't you involved in the theft of fruit (babies) from that coffee plant, and you have deprived the coffee bean of becoming a coffee plant by roasting it?  The horror!

[thebesttrees]

thebesttrees - "Is it admissible logically to attribute an unknown source to an effect/outcome when every known source is discounted? If O is the outcome, and all known sources are S then a subset of S has caused O. If however, the whole set of S is discounted as yielding O, then O should have another source outside of S. Is this a logical approach?"  May I give a complete analysis?

We are assuming a cause/effect scenario, with an option that the whole is greater than the parts?  We are assuming human knowledge is incomplete?  Assuming this is so ... then of course we can admit that there is an unknown source.

As Rumsfeld, a known expert on epistemology said ... known knowns, un-kown knowns, known un-knowns and un-known un-knowns ... exhausts the Venn diagram.  What is a known known is a cause/effect pair where both are known.  What is a un-known known is an effect missing a cause (the point you made).  Every effect has a cause and every cause has an effect.  What is a known un-known is a cause missing an effect.  What is a un-known un-known is something that is outside any known scenario.

Now accepting that a set has a property that a subset does not, is allowable, if the subset is a proper subset.  Because a set is defined by its members, and a member is defined as having characteristics that define its subset.  But that means that if a set has a proper subset, then there has to be more than one subset in the set, a subset that has different characteristics than the original one.  The set can then be defined as simply having those two subsets, each defined as before.  So I am assuming that the two subsets are defined as having no common member (intersection is the null set).  So for example, the irrational numbers and the rational numbers are distinct subsets of the real numbers, and the real numbers are precisely the union of those two subsets.

So we have covered everything you said formally, by defining our terms rigorously.  In epistemology, one can have a superset that covers the subset in question, that has other subsets, that has a different and distinct membership criteria each subset from each subset.  And that superset and those other subsets, can be in the un-known category, maybe we only currently know one subset.  This involves a principle called the Axiom of Choice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice

But one can't extend the superset indefinitely ... there is no mathematical "universal set", without contradiction.  No infinite regression of proper supersets.

So your point being ... in cause/effect analysis of the universe, is there a superset that is properly a superset ... and the answer by the quantum mechanics is that there is more than one universe, and that the set of all universes is the final superset.  So a being in another universe could be the cause ... the effect of which is another universe.  My POV is exactly that case ... that each being is a universe, and being is the cause of being (sometimes it takes two beings ;-) ... though I don't need quantum mechanics to believe it is so.  The final proper superset of all beings, is the Buddhakaya.

Thank you. How I admire reason! I will get back to you later. Thank you again.

[Baruch]

I was admiring your posts (there are a number of people here I admire greatly, even new posters) and thought this one deserved a little unwrapping ... and voila ... it seems I was right ... Nefertiti was wrapped inside ... and is alive ... still fresh ;-)  Egyptian tupperware is the greatest.  Lots of people praise rationality, but few can actually practice logic (we can't all be Vulcans).

[Mike Cl]

Now let me ask a question if you do not mind. There was a point in time that there was no man on earth. In other words, the creature know as man did not exist let's say two million years ago. Man gradually came into existence. Just like the fetus which goes through so many stages of development over nine months, so did man over tens of thousands or perhaps millions of years. Do you agree with this assessment?

Yes, I agree.  (But I smelleth a trap) :))))

[Mike Cl]

I was admiring your posts (there are a number of people here I admire greatly, even new posters) and thought this one deserved a little unwrapping ... and voila ... it seems I was right ... Nefertiti was wrapped inside ... and is alive ... still fresh ;-)  Egyptian tupperware is the greatest.  Lots of people praise rationality, but few can actually practice logic (we can't all be Vulcans).

One of my biggest disappointments was the logic class I took in college.  And it spilled over into the basic philosophy class, as well.  It was that formal logic drove me nuts.  I tried and tried to understand and follow all those diagrams and letters and equal/not equal signs from start to finish.  I could start, but could not finish.  And I was disappointed in me, and not the class.  I passed it, but not easily.

[Youssuf Ramadan]

You die... then people fight over your crap.  The End.

[Cocoa Beware]

What more credit can you give it? We all suffer then we die.

Okay you are creeping me out;
Mission accomplished?

[peacewithoutgod]

Quote from: thebesttrees on Today at 12:24:38 AM

    Now let me ask a question if you do not mind. There was a point in time that there was no man on earth. In other words, the creature know as man did not exist let's say two million years ago. Man gradually came into existence. Just like the fetus which goes through so many stages of development over nine months, so did man over tens of thousands or perhaps millions of years. Do you agree with this assessment?"

Yes, I agree.  (But I smelleth a trap) :))))

It does look like the MO of the creationist who does not understand how natural selection works. He probably thinks it could not have been possible to make the first homo-sapiens baby without two homo-sapiens parents, and that it could only have proceeded from a single genetic fluke at a single geographic point, and that anyway it would be born a different species, unable to mate with anyone (CHECKMATE!!!)

Fortunately, natural selection doesn't make such logical complications for itself - it began with silica particles in river bed clay (probably) which were able to bond with base chemicals for RNA, which began to self-replicate. They were the first life forms, no more complex than modern viruses, which probably had to consume each other because there were no large animals for them to prey on. The strong survived, the offspring of their subsequent generations evolved, and eventually there were life forms with DNA, which in turn made possible the complexity and diversity of life as we know it today. When apes which were closely related to modern chimpanzees and bonobos were driven out of their shrinking African forest habitat and forced to forage the steppes in search of food, while dodging predators, the pressure to make the best of any genetic changes which may help any one among them survive was on! Taller apes could see further, spot remote food sources, and avoid predators before they got too near. Better were tall apes who could stand longer on their hind legs. Those which could stand straight up and walk naturally that way were able to go greater distances than any ape, because this requires less energy than the use of four legs. The steppes had a dearth of trees, therefore arms made for climbing became less useful than arms that could throw objects at their prey and predators more effectively. Those who had the most of these traits scored highest in the mating game, and it's how natural selection follows the best suited individuals in any group as they head down whatever environmental path they are moving in.

So, how does this relate to a fetus developing in a womb? I don't think it does at all. It's not only how the "womb" metaphor smacks of creationist woo, when natural selection is no sort of a mother, it violently oversimplifies the process. You only need two sets of gens to create a life form in a womb, and you should not expect one womb in one lifetime to change it by much, if it is to survive at all. The apple really doesn't fall far from the tree unless it's an apple from the 1000th descendant of the tree. Also, nothing that happens under natural selection is properly referred to as the "development" of an end product, and we should not presume to be the final chapter in our branch on the scientific tree of life.

[Baruch]

Mike CL ... got an A+ in one semester class in college in Symbolic Logic (general, not limited to math).  Taught by an ex-physicist from the Manhattan Project (he left physics because ... ).  Just saying ... keep at it, you will grow pointy ears eventually ;-))