Ed1wolf
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- Dec 26, 2002
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But they require a huge increase in entropy elsewhere. Living things do not because they show evidence of design.Ah, diamonds, petroleum, glaciers, snowflakes and trees can all have a reduction in entropy. And none of these require human interaction.
All of those things require a huge increase in entropy elsewhere. Petroleum and diamonds require tremendous heat and pressure to form. And snowflakes and glaciers require an compensating increase in entropy in the atmosphere. In addition, this occurs due to the forces involved and to the fact that natural systems seek the lowest energy configuration, which is a consequence of the second law. Ice crystals are just natural systems seeking the lowest energy configuration.dm: All that is required is that we are dealing with an open system that is able to share heat and/or matter with the outside environment. If that happens, a system can decrease in entropy. And if there is a mechanism to use that decrease in entropy such that the end result is something we consider organized, then we can get things like diamonds, snowflakes, and glaciers.
You say there is a temporary huge increase in entropy involved. Flapdoodle. Please document your claim.
Exactly.dm: There is nothing temporary about it. If an open system decreases in entropy, it can only do that by transferring heat and/or matter to the outside environment. When it does that, the outside environment always has a net permanent increase in entropy greater than or equal to the amount of entropy that was transferred to it from our open system.
No, see above about systems seeking the lowest energy configuration.dm: This permanent increase of the environmental entropy occurs regardless of whether a person is interacting with the process. People take low entropy carbon and oxygen and convert them into high entropy carbon dioxide. The increase in the universe's entropy due to the fact that you breathed out carbon dioxide is always greater than any decrease in entropy as a result of what you do.
You downplay the mechanism of molecular structure. Why doesn't that count? Again, what we see is a reduction of entropy of these open systems. It doesn't matter if the mechanism that does it is molecular processes, machines, planetary dynamics, or humans. As long is it is an open system that transfers heat and/or matter with the environment, then any number of different mechanisms can use that to create a low entropy substance.
dm: You allow that trees and humans can cause a decrease in entropy in an open system (and I might add, they can do it only if they increase the entropy of the rest of the environment more than the local decrease.) If trees and humans can decrease entropy of an open system, why can't apes? And if apes can decrease entropy, then how exactly do the laws of thermodynamics keep them from evolving?
Because trees and humans show evidence of designed. Living things are basically machines designed to decrease entropy.
See above.
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