Entropy doesn't seem to piggyback off biology at all. It occurs in completely non-biological systems and depends on it not at all. I would agree that biology utilizes entropy.It seems then that these two mechanisms work antagonistically, opposing eachother through, rather ironically, piggybacking of the innate properties of the other.
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In this way, life seems just as inevitable as the increasing chaos of the universe at large - As they depend on one another's properties for their mode of action. — Benj96
Ageing is a biological adaptation, perhaps unwanted, but evolution does not select for wish granting.Entropy seeps into the living through unwanted mutation, and the erosion of functionality. Ageing.
More to the point, anything thus static would not be living at all.If living systems were too stable, too perfect, too ordered and well controlled, if they did not feed off entropy, they would be static. Immortal. Evolution would not be possible. Nothing would change for that living system.
That is just a law of motion. A general principle of opposition is something for which one can argue, but it isn't Newton's law at that point.But in truth, life and death are both illusions of a larger system that simply changes following basic principles of opposition - Newton's third law of motion.
Entropy doesn't seem to piggyback off biology at all. — noAxioms
That is just a law of motion — noAxioms
Natural selection is not particularly a statistical process. The mutations are, but the selection of them is not in any way random, so I guess it depends on whether you consider the mutations to be covered under the NS term.I said [entropy] piggybacks off natural selection, which is a statistical process that I'm sure applies beyond just biology. — Benj96
It isn't a general principle. The third law is essentially a statement of conservation of momentum, and anything beyond that isn't Newton's law, even if it is a valid principle.Where does motion end and behaviour, or further yet, phenomenology begin? If newton's law is a principle of physics ... — Benj96
Entropy always increases in a closed system. Life is not a closed system - it is interacting with the other parts of the universe all the time. — PhilosophyRunner
So, heat death is the most likely ultimate fate — universeness
natural selection, which is a statistical process — Benj96
back to the un-observable - pure potential energy — Benj96
I sometimes wonder if heat death is merely the transformation of actionable energy (light, thermal, kinetic, chemical etc) - observable energetic interactions, back to the un-observable - pure potential energy (as energy cannot be created nor destroyed but only change from one form to another). — Benj96
It's true that creative Energy and destructive Entropy are opposing forces in the world. But ultimately, they are working together -- like warp & woof -- to produce the fabric of Reality : a self-organizing universe from the otherwise annihilating explosion of the Big Bang. In my personal BothAnd worldview, the evolutionary process works like a computer program, interpreting Potential (stochastic probability) into Actual (physical organism), and Nothing (0) into Something (1). Evolution is a heuristic learning process, based on trial & error, in search of functional physical Forms that are "fit" (suitable) for specific niches.It seems then that these two mechanisms work antagonistically, opposing each other through, rather ironically, piggybacking of the innate properties of the other. — Benj96
Entropy really "clicked" for me when I understood it as nothing but the direction we observe energy to move — Moliere
That's a nice way to put it. Although there is also such a thing as entropy of mixing, as when two dissimilar gases mix with each other, in which no energy transfer needs to occur. — SophistiCat
In general, I would describe entropy as the tendency of some macro-scale processes to be strongly time-asymmetric. That is, under the same general conditions we will almost never see their spontaneous reversal. Thus, ice cubes will melt at room temperature and never form out of room-temperature water; cream will mix with coffee and never spontaneously separate from it, and so on.
Yeah it gets more complicated. What you're talking about, I think, is Gibbs "free" energy. Energy transfer still occurs, it's just not in the simple terms I set out. — Moliere
Heh, that's pretty good. But I'd counter the experimental definition. "macro-scale" already says too much, in this notion — Moliere
Does it? What if the gasses are at thermal equilibrium? Where does energy transfer take place in mixing?
Let's take the air in your room, which is mostly a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen at thermal equilibrium with each other (albeit different concentrations). We know that they almost certainly won't spontaneously separate into regions of all nitrogen and all oxygen (thank God - or entropy - for that!) This spontaneous separation won't happen even if thermal equilibrium is maintained throughout. Indeed, bracketing out energy transfer makes it especially easy to see why spontaneous separation does not happen: the number of combinations corresponding to a state of separation is negligibly small in relation to the number of all possible combinations under the same conditions.
(Gibbs free energy is closely related to entropy, and it will decrease as a result of mixing, just as it does as a result of spontaneous energy transfer.)
Or consider mixing in reverse. You need to do work in order to separate mixed substances, transferring energy into the system - but not the other way around. In this sense, mixing does involve an asymmetric energy transfer. — SophistiCat
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