Preserved Topic: Physics & Evolution

The laws of pyhsics state that the usinverse is at an ever increaseing state of entropy, or dissorder. The theory of evolution states that life is continualy developing into more perfect beings. I personaly think that physics has the most correct. answer to this situation. life is continually becomeing more and more destructive and chaotic as time passes. this points out to me that humanity will not achive its dreams of an omnipresent society of perfect beings that live forever in happieness. that is without God's help we need a savior to deliver us from our own destruction and he has manifested himself to us through prophecy and Christ.

The theory of evolution does not say that life is continually developing into more perfect beings.

The theory of evolution is actually VERY consistant with the idea of chaos. The theory of evolution (I speak as if there is only one. That is not correct, but for the matter of this discussion, let's stay simple, OK?) says that a species, in its reproduction, passes its genetic code to its descendant. That genetic code undergoes a small and random (chaotic) mutation in the process of reproduction -- noise in the system, if you will. Some of those mutations are useful (or at least neutral), allow the creature to reach an age of reproductive maturity, find a mate and then pass that mutation on to the next generation. Some of those mutations are harmful, do not allow the creature to reach an age of reproductive maturity and reproduce, and the mutation is not passed to the next generation.

Evolution is not a 'path' to be followed. It is a very chaotic process which results in creatures that can survive and reproduce. The survivors are neither perfect nor imperfect, simply survivors.

The idea that evolution produces 'perfect' beings (or beings in a path toward perfection) is a species-centric thought. Many humans still can't get over the fact that we're not the center of the universe, so they see evolution as producing superior beings. Of course, they put humans as the 'most evolved' in the list. This is a simple continuation of the old and foolish thought that the sun revolved around the earth.

It takes but one look elsewhere to see the flaw of this: Which is the 'more perfect' or 'more evolved' species -- the cat or the dog? the beetle or the horse?
Silly.
The cat, horse, dog and beetle (just like the human) are simply survivors; no more, no less.

[edit: dumb fat fingers]

[This message has been edited by mobrul (edited 05-27-2003).]

Vomithorder, I will answer you, but I do it because you are leaving on me an impression of... pity. Really.

"The laws of pyhsics state that the universe is at an ever increasing state of entropy, or disorder."

NO. The laws in the universe are logic, ordered, just sometimes influenced by chaos.

"The theory of evolution states that life is continualy developing into more perfect beings."

NO. Again, evolution does not develop the forms of life into "more perfect beings". Evolution adapts them to their living conditions. The ancestors of humans hardly could eat at their will ? Well, with time they learned how to use tools and hunt, but they could have inherited longer claws.

This evolution is logic, like for the universe, and like for the universe it can be ruled sometimes by chaos laws. Why would life become more destructive ? But the purpose of life is to live, not to destruct ! Life does not mean human activities Vomithorder, life means all the living forms on this planet, and in the whole universe. And you seem to say that life is becoming more destructive and chaotic as time passes, like if you witnessed it personally... Tell me Vomithorder, doesn't life exist since billions of years ? Even a meteorit of 10km wide and a lava eruption during billion of years didn't stop it. I don't think we will put an end to that, trust me.

You seem to think that without God's help we are doomed. Very well, I have a question for you. Don't you think we are more condemned by those who think God will help us and don't do anything except complaining about humans, rather than the persons who don't try to find religious influences everywhere but do a slight effort for the whole mankind ?

vomithorder: Here is a tip - understanding what you are talking about helps to avoid looking stupid in public.

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

quote:

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The laws of pyhsics state that the usinverse is at an ever increaseing state of entropy, or dissorder. The theory of evolution states that life is continualy developing into more perfect beings. I personaly think that physics has the most correct. answer to this situation. life is continually becomeing more and more destructive and chaotic as time passes. this points out to me that humanity will not achive its dreams of an omnipresent society of perfect beings that live forever in happieness. that is without God's help we need a savior to deliver us from our own destruction and he has manifested himself to us through prophecy and Christ.

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I don't think you can make that connection. There may be evidence for entropy at a cosmic level but the point at which that cosmic reality becomes a human concern is so far off, it's more likely we'll be extinct by then.

Furthermore, the use of the word 'perfect' implies a value judgement. Nature has no value judgements, only what is best adapted to survival. So, as a premise, aiming towards 'perfection' is an unattainable goal because, as a value judgement, invented by humans, the state is entirely arbitrary. Since the state is arbitrary, and considering nature has no such thing called 'perfection', only the ability to survive best within an organism's own environment, the constant striving for 'perfection' is an already failed project.

As a thought experiment, consider if there were aliens living on Mars. We'd be considered 'imperfect' due to our inability to survive in the Martian atmosphere. Are we so perfect now?

You sound like you've stumbled across the intellectual rift in our modern world - the dogma of 'positivism' (as handed down to us from the Enlightenment, now called Modernism) versus 'relativism' (generally seen as postmodernism/post-structuralism/late-modernism). We once thought that scientific methodology would constantly make things better until we knew so much that we could fix everything, like a clock.

Well, that simply hasn't happened. In fact, science has actually done the exact opposite. It's blinkered our perception of the world. Some scholars have blamed WWII on this way of thinking. I tend to agree. This view is arrogant. To say that Man is so great that we can understand and fix everything is basically announcing: "move over, God, I'm taking over!" To say that is to say that we are gods, which places us outside and above nature. It denies the fact that we're animals - part of nature just like everything else.

There's plenty of useful things about science, but it's not a religion and we're not our own deity. Perfection is a figment.

Okay... vomithorder, your post is very confused (and confusing)... I think, the best method would be to discuss it piece by piece - so let's do that.

The laws of pyhsics state that the usinverse is at an ever increaseing state of entropy, or dissorder.
Yap, that's our understanding of the universe today. Emphasis on today, because science never proves, it only disproves.

The theory of evolution states that life is continualy developing into more perfect beings.
[i]Now here we get the first problem - I could write a paragraph on how this is not exactly right, but I think mobrul already did a great job doing that - so I'll just shut up about this part *g*.

I personaly think that physics has the most correct. answer to this situation.
Whoops! Back the truck up here for a second... What situation are we talking about? Physics and Evolution are two theories - and as I see it without any overlap, without any "situation" to be answered. Suggesting that Physics is more correct about something, though, inevitably suggests that Evolution is less correct (in other words: wrong) about it. The problem here is just that as far as I know there is no contradiction between evolution and physics - a requirement for being more correct about something. It all boils down to this: Either you got yourself a serious logical mistake here, or I completely missed your point (if that is the case I'd be happy to hear your explanation).

life is continually becomeing more and more destructive and chaotic as time passes.
Okay, this is your idea, theory, or - scientifically speaking - hypothesis. You cannot simply see this as a fact, because you have given no supporting evidence. As you can see in Moon Shadow's post, there are people who do not think that life is becoming more destructive and chaotic (although Emperor is quite right about the first part of the post). Your job now is to prove to us, with convincing arguments, that you're right, that life really is becoming more and more destructive and chaotic as time passes (or, viewed scientifically, disprove all alternatives)

this points out to me that humanity will not achive its dreams of an omnipresent society of perfect beings that live forever in happieness.
First of all (as we established in the paragraph before) you draw conclusions from something you have not proven beyond reasonable doubt. And even in this conclusions you commit logical homicide . Who says that "humanity dreams of an omnipresent society of perfect beings that live forever in happiness"? I, for example, remember some scientific studies saying that eternal happiness is physically impossible and even harmful (apart from the philosophically doubtful desirability of eternal happiness).

that is without God's help we need a savior to deliver us from our own destruction and he has manifested himself to us through prophecy and Christ.
Now you're not even jumping to conclusions anymore, you're practically flying - without any solid argument beneath your feet. Even considering God's existence as proven, the logical gap is just too big. And even if you are a firm believer in God's existence, you have to admit that by just looking at the facts it can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (Yes, I'm an atheist, how did you get that idea? ).

Oh well, I suppose that wraps up my post... I hope i didn't bore you to death
Wouldn't be a nice start, would it?

Take Care,
notime

Just because I'm paranoid that doesn't mean people aren't following me.

Hmm... you can dress it up with fancy language but this is really just an extension of the old Watch in the desert argument.




.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

to specialpurpose there is a value for perfection and that is anything that survive. Humans are not perfect because we do not survive.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics ? The Law of Entropy

A technical reference to the Second Law notes: The entropy function always increases in the presence of internal irreversibilities for an adiabatic, closed system. In the limiting case of an internally reversible, adiabatic process, the entropy will remain constant. In plain English the Second Law states that entropy (that is, disorder) always increases or remains constant in a closed system. (As a practical matter, for any non-trivial system entropy tends to increase due to irreversible processes.) The entropy of an entire closed system can never decrease within that system. Since the universe can be modeled as a closed system the universe is considered to be entropic ? that is, running down.

Immediately after the Big Bang the universe was tremendously hot as a result of particles of both matter and antimatter rushing apart in all directions. As it began to cool, at around 10^-43 seconds after creation, there existed an almost equal yet asymmetrical amount of matter and antimatter. As these two materials are created together, they collide and destroy one another creating pure energy. there was an asymmetry in favor of matter. As a direct result of an excess of about one part per billion, the universe was able to mature in a way favorable for matter to persist. As the universe first began to expand, this discrepancy grew larger. The particles which began to dominate were those of matter. They were created and they decayed without the accompaniment of an equal creation or decay of an antiparticle. There has to have been an element of inconformity to offset the balance so that the rate of our universe's favoring matter could exist

oh crap those last two replys were for my other post

no the law of thermodynamics is good though

@ bitdamaged:
No, not at all. The "old Watch in the desert" argument deals with whether evolution as natural principle exists - and I've seen nobody really arguing that evolution does not exist...

Edit: Thx for the link though, because just a page away there is the issue we're really talking about here. After reading that page I think vomithorder is partially right, depending on how far you extend the word "life". If we just look at our tiny little bit of universe called earth, we might say that we are actually creating order rather than chaos - as long as the energy doesn't run out. But since it will, in the bigger picture, life is going down eventually - not anytime soon though *gg*. And that's fair enough for me *gg*.

Just because I'm paranoid that doesn't mean people aren't following me.

[This message has been edited by notime (edited 05-28-2003).]