To atheists
11 Nov '09 22:322 editsOriginally posted by Bosse de NageThe Big Bang occurred and the singularity was shattered. As with the dice, when the singularity shattered, there were more possible ways that ME could be distributed in a disordered fashion than an ordered fashion on a grand scale. However, chunks of order still remained of various "sizes" just as you would still find patches of 1's with the dice.
OK, you've explained what entropy is. But that doesn't explain, not clearly anyhow, why objects differ from each other. Could you explain, using entropy, why a fish differs from a spoon?
The point is that in saying that entropy accounts for difference, you are setting up entropy, a property of matter, as some sort of selector, something that determines the way matter is.
Now, we know about quarks forming hydrogen early on, and then fusion reactions in stars creating the other elements (at least up to iron, the most stable element). All of these things take place because of electrical and gravitational forces the effects of which are not symmetrical on a grand scale as before described.
I won't bore you with how the solar system formed, etc because I don't think we will have any disagreement there.
So, we have a solar system, and various atoms, including carbon, oxygen, iron, hydrogen etc.
The iron atoms do not tend to have complex chemistries because of the arrangements of valence electrons and the metallic nature of the element (allowing valence electrons to be delocalized instead of associated with particular atoms), so generally just react with oxygen and sit there in the dirt in the form of rust.
Carbon, on the other hand, due to it's small size and four valence electrons, has very, very complex chemistry. All kinds of different forms of carbon molecules with or without other atoms form spontaneously. Some of these will have an enzymatic activity on other substances. Some of those will be floating around in water where lipid molecules drip into the water, forming micelles which help concentrate the enzymes into a localized area, and cells begin to form. Then we have an evolutionary process which again I don't think we'll disagree about and end up with humans and fish, and humans, in order to help feed themselves, mine iron and make spoons with it.
Every single step is simply a complex interaction of various forces and matter and spacial relationships which helps contribute towards universal entropy. Organisms especially are good at manufacturing entropy. We take food and oxygen and turn it into poop and carbon dioxide; take pure water and turn it into urine; etc.
Entropy is not a "selector". It is simply a recognition that the vast majority of possible arrangements of matter will show the same macroscopic properties. I don't know which atom will be where, but it doesn't matter. All I know is that they almost certainly won't randomly all roll 1's. Is entropy "selecting" 7's when you roll pairs of dice? I suppose you could say that, but only barely.
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