This is why It seems kinda silly to me to consider incels dangerous. Sure they have a pretty toxic community going on, but then they don't seem to have any real social leverage like say the cancel culture who can put that public shame-machine into motion.

In fact I even think Christianity, Catholicism and Protestantism following it, played an essential role in the formation of enlightenment ideals of equality, giving rise to individual rights and feminism. In other words, It's not the realization that those traditional norms existed without reason that gave rise those progressive ideas, they precisely followed from and are a logical conclusion of christian values (who were an inversion of Roman values, and pagan values, that came before).
— ChatteringMonkey

I'm hopeful you're being ironic, but fear you're not. But I don't want to derail this thread. I couldn't help but take note of these remarkable statements, however. — Ciceronianus

It is passive aggressive baloney... what's the point?

No, it came out of a questioning of old norms. Even Stuart Mill questioned why women didn't have equal rights and I don't think the suffragette movement came out of Christianity, most at the time wouldn't consider them acting in a "Christian manner" and they wouldn't have had to if the church or other religious institutions had pushed for such ideals. And you didn't understand what I wrote about traditions, I said that the secularization of power made traditions no longer follow state praxis and instead became traditions in of themselves. Over the course of over a hundred years, since the suffragettes succeeded in getting women voting rights, these traditions have been slowly dismantled over generations since it is easier to question traditions when they only exist as cultural behaviors. I don't think you can give credit to Christian values for this since Christian values have been precisely what's been working against this progression since secularization first began. — Christoffer

I do think it came out of Christian values. Even the notion of the 'secular' only really makes sense in a Christian context (and etymological came out of that context), which is why all of these emancipatory rights came out of the western tradition, and not universally everywhere. If you want to dig deeper into this, you might want to read some of Tom Hollands stuff on how Christianity shaped our world :

https://www.amazon.nl/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-World/dp/0465093507

https://www.gethistory.co.uk/historical-period/general-history/why-the-secular-cant-exist-without-christianity

With Holland, Nietzsche pointed out even earlier how weird the Christian inversion of values really was in a world historical context. The dominant values across the world generally were those of the ruling class. To put is a bit to simple perhaps, good was what was powerful/victorious, and bad was what was weak, the victims... For the Romans the cross was a symbol of humiliation and contempt, the lowest of the low, and specifically in Christianity it became the basis of the whole western value system. Without this inversion of values, none of the emancipatory movements we saw in the west make sense.

And in line with what I've written. The industrial revolution emerged out of secular ideas, since "industry" before that was deeply connected to the power structure of a nation. The modern type of capitalism that raised up from the ashes of monarchy and religious institutions exponentially sped up progression and was able to further finance intellectual institutions outside of elite corridors. What happened was that more people had the ability to question the status quo and it started to influence women to do so themselves which led to things like the suffragettes movement. — Christoffer

First, as I alluded to above the secular came out of Christianity. Christianity with its valuation of the Truth, and Protestantism with its turn to individualism, rather than being in opposition with, also helped pave the way for the scientific revolution. I don't see these things in opposition to eachother, but rather as a continuation.

Second, the industrial revolution had a lot of causes. Cultural climate no doubt was one of them, which was I think influenced by Chirstianity, but more important were other material conditions like the fact that Britain had a lot of readily available coal, had a lot of surplus workers because of the agricultural revolution, and also had a lot of excess wealth because of colonial trade.

I'm not saying these emancipatory activist forces played no role whatsoever, I'm just saying that one shouldn't overestimate their role either. If we are to believe the likes of Nietzsche and Holland, Christianity had in it own valuations the seeds for its own demise, structurally giving rise to revolutions that question the existing power structures on emancipatory grounds (reformation, enlightment, French revolution, socialism/communism, woke-ism? etc etc..).

Contemporary society is a thoroughly alienating experience for many people -- not everyone, but a good share. Social media, dating apps, etc. bring the chilly competitiveness of business to the more intimate business of finding friends and sexual partners. It's great for the winners, not so hot for the losers.

The images of men and women (in many contexts) that the businesses of social media and advertising project are often very distorted, and the projections are pervasive. From media that is designed to promote consumption (of goods, services, and other people) it's no wonder that some people feel like they are the left-overs from a clearance sale. — BC

The world is alienating for many people, I agree with this, but then it doesn't seems to be acceptable to point this out if we are talking about incels. Anyway, I pretty much said what I wanted to say about this, I don't want to be an apologist for their behaviours either.

And throughout generations of traditions that no longer function in relation to older power structures, people start to notice norms that seem to exist without any rational reason.

It's no coincidence that women in Western societies managed to reach equality in voting around the same time as religious states in the West became more and more secularized. — Christoffer

This is what triggered me, I don't think this is how it works. In fact I even think Christianity, Catholicism and Protestantism following it, played an essential role in the formation of enlightenment ideals of equality, giving rise to individual rights and feminism. In other words, It's not the realization that those traditional norms existed without reason that gave rise those progressive ideas, they precisely followed from and are a logical conclusion of christian values (who were an inversion of Roman values, and pagan values, that came before).

Aside from that, the biggest contributing factor I think for emancipatory values accelerating in the west, was fossil fuels, the industrial revolution and the technology build on that, creating material conditions that made these new ideologies possible.

But this is, as I said a big topic, and doesn't exactly fit here in this thread.

Yes, egging one another on; reinforcing resentment and blaming others for one's own shortcomings, instead of encouraging positive change. Charisma is rare and accidental and unreliable; courtesy, interest, versatility, tolerance and humour are far better assets. And of course, acceptance of the fact that everybody isn't ever going to get first pick. — Vera Mont

Yes that would be a more positive reaction, some obviously don't have the mental strength to avoid the pitfalls... I guess what bothers me is that the total lack of attempt at understanding and empathy is deemed fine in this case, whereas generally it is literally the basis of our morality.

Thank you for the compliment!

Nobody's marginalized for feeling unloved. They are rejected for acting like jerks - and much or worse. It's just that women who are 'marginalized" in the same way - i.e. have no sexual outlet - don't go around "punishing" - attacking - people.
But there are plenty of women online who share the same frustrated feelings of involuntary celibacy as men. These women want to have romantic and sexual relationships, but for whatever reason, are unable to do so. They call themselves “femcels,” an abbreviation of “female incel.” — Vera Mont

It's not only because they are jerks that they are marginalized, they are generally considered low status because they are single, and perhaps don't have a lot of charisma, attractiveness and/or social skills to begin with. It's a bit of a chicken or the egg problem... they don't become jerks in a vacuum, it's a bit of that good old resentment playing a role here.

EDIT: And the difference with femcel women is predominately testosterone I'd say.

Christoffer, I disagree with the whole way you look at these things, because I'm a materialist/physicalist, and believe ideas usually follow the physical and biological reality more that the other way around. Obviously it isn't that simple or unidirectional, but I think ideology are more post-hoc rationalization than that they are causes. So I don't think we will get past that here.

they have no power at all
— ChatteringMonkey

People with guns have power. — RogueAI

Not a whole lot because the military and the police have more and bigger guns. Social power is were it is at.

Recent revolutions in population genetics suggest that a relative minority of men have had reproductive privilege historically, so i don't think looking to prehistory brings us closer to a solution, on the contrary i'd say.

No Tzeentch, society has decided that women are the victims, so it's okay to marginalize incel men... they are evil because they are man, and so technically part of the patriarchy (eventhough they have no power at all and are considered the lowest of the low).

And so as members of these societies condemning violence, even if marginalized in the case of incels, it is still a big obstacle to act on these beliefs
— ChatteringMonkey

That's true ChatteringMonkey I think the culture is pretty much standard anti-violence in most places and I reckon now is the least violent we have been as a populus compared with hundreds or thousands of years ago. But I also think this is why very brief, sporadic and horrific events are occurring randomly. Like school-shootings. Mass shootings in the locations where the pent up rage/hatred spills over the social anti-violence precedent that usually is sufficient to counter it. — Benj96

This is a bigger problem in the US than say in Europe, and is more because of US gun laws and the place of violence in that society. I think one needs to look more at that relationship with violence, than at the specific problem of incels.

Yes that's what I suggested in my first post:

I'm not sure what to do about it, other than generally providing for more community-alternatives that can provide support and maybe some meaning. These seem to have eroded for everybody, not only incels, and leaves a lot of people that get sidetracked without any direction or guidance. — ChatteringMonkey

But ultimately the problem is not totally solvable by acceptable means I think, there will always be those who will miss out because they are less attractive/charismatic/rich than others. A healthy society doesn't solve the frustrated desires of those. Historically this has always been a problem.

And I don't think we really want the unacceptable means of dealing with the problem, like say castration, putting down, genetic alteration etc etc.

Why don't we just put them down, like the males of breeding animals we have no use for? Wouldn't that be a major step towards progressive utopia!

Maybe Benj, only the future can tell.

Beliefs are interlinked with the body, and do influence our actions, yes. But as a society we generally condemn physical violence rather strongly now (relative to past societies). And so as members of these societies condemning violence, even if marginalized in the case of incels, it is still a big obstacle to act on these beliefs.

Incels are a dying breed of men who are just holding on to traditions that the rest of us have already moved away from. — Christoffer

God, you really have drunk that progressive kool-aid.

It's not just a matter of a bunch of guys holding onto an outdated ideologies, I think you underestimate 1) how biology played a role into forming these traditional ideologies in the first place, and 2) how their frustrated biological drives now plays into forming post-hoc misogynists rationalization. I bet a lot of incels coudn't care less about traditional norms and values... they're mostly frustrated, and invent stories to make it more bearable for themselves.

More radical by todays standards maybe, but not in an absolute sense I don't think, they used to form roving warbands, were recruited in the army, or started insurrections... now they are merely a nuisance like an internet-troll is considered annoying. Their frustrated energy is re-directed mostly into verbal aggression, instead of physical aggression, which is probably a win for society... unless it has some yet unknown toxic effects downstream.

I'm not sure what to do about it, other than generally providing for more community-alternatives that can provide support and maybe some meaning. These seem to have eroded for everybody, not only incels, and leaves a lot of people that get sidetracked without any direction or guidance.

Incels always have been a problem historically, because a lot of testosterone without a reason (aka a women and a family) that can channel it into a social constructive force is a recipe for and source of societal unrest.

What changed is societal evolutions making being incel even more undesirable (MeToo, male-centered values devaluated etc etc), and technology like social media making it easier to organize around whatever.

It's not overlooked, it's taboo to talk about it.
— ChatteringMonkey

Yes, which is unfathomable to me. Whatever the contributing factors to ecological damage are, they are magnified by the size of the population. If we can't at some point rise to the level of rational dialogue, I don't suppose we are as a species worthy of survival anyway. — Pantagruel

It's a thorny issue in more than one way, but a large part of the problem is that acknowledging all the different aspects of the issue, poses fundamental problems to all current dominant political ideologies... They don't seem to be able to incorporate what would be needed into their ideology without becoming something else.

We all were using a lot less energy in 1890,
— BC

I don't think the rate of emission matters much. Produce the emission size from the 1890s over a period of 500 years and you've got a climate crisis. — frank

I does matter some, there are carbons sinks that have more time to draw carbon out of the atmosphere, and slower emissions do mean slower temperature change, which give us and eco-systems more time to adapt.

Beware of pointing to population as a contributing factor in this eco-crisis, you will get accused of being a Malthusian. It's not overlooked, it's taboo to talk about it.

Social laws are not causal, and future human and social consequences are not necessitated by the past. At the extreme, humans can choose to act in opposition to such predictions. It is logically impossible to know what someone will do in the future, since even given that they know, it remains that they might do otherwise. I can predict that you stop reading this post here, but it remains that you may choose to read on — Banno

I didn't really address this particular point I feel.

The problem I have with this idea (that it is logically impossible to predict what humans will do because if they know it, they can always choose otherwise) is that these predictions don't necessarily concern individuals, but groups of people or the outcome of a lot of people interacting with eachother. Maybe individuals have some amount of agency, although I would probably argue about the extend of it, but groups of people don't necessarily have. Social outcomes are almost never the result of a single self-aware person make a decision, the impact of individuals is usually rather limited, and so I don't think it would be logically impossible to make predictions about the future of societies.

I'm gathering that there are more points people pick up than this from Michel :D -- yes?

I agree that there's no static system or utopia, and that social lives are in perpetual motion. That's not the point I saw in Michel, but hey, we agree there.

*That is, the guy who, in writing, wrote about how slavery is good. That guy. Slaves? OK. Oligarchy? Fuck that shit. That guy. — Moliere

Yes, it is what I take away from it I guess.

Michels wasn't a static entity either ;-), he started out a socialist and when he wrote about the Iron law of of oligarchy he apparently was some kind of syndicalist revolutionary. He was not that extreme yet when he wrote that book. But yeah I do get your point, there's a lot not to like about the guy for sure.

The interesting thing to me is that he did come out of socialist milieus and the unions, people who are supposedly aware of and actively fighting against oligarchies, and yet turned oligarchy themselves. That is where he got the experiences that influenced his ideas about oligarchy.

(1) In the Politics even Aristotle* makes a distinction between Oligarchy and Aristocracy -- and he happens to like Aristocracy over Oligarchy. Naturalized politics is kind of his whole thing and gets along with the idea that we can falsify such stuff, I think.

1: Given that we're looking at all societies due to the law-formluation, I'd take Aristotle's Politics as evidence that many constitutions exist, and someone smart back then knew about these tendencies but didn't generalize oligarchy to all organizations. If we're looking for textual counter-examples then he counts. — Moliere

I'm not all that familiar with Aristotle... but even though he was in many ways more empirically minded, he was still a student of Plato and his academia. Isn't aristocracy akin to the Ideal form, how it is ideally conceived and intended originally, and oligarchy how it eventually ends up after special interests corrupt it over time. If that is the case, then this wouldn't exactly be a counterexample to the iron law, but rather a more general and broader theory about the eventual corruption of political organisations.

(2) The second formulation of the CI pretty explicitly points out how one would organize with someone: by treating them as not merely a means, but as an end unto themselves.

2: This points to how we can collectively organize on ethical grounds even from a libertarian individualist stance. It's not inevitable, from that perspective, because we all make choices based upon some commitment, and here is a commitment which harmonizes collective action rather than pits all individuals against one another. Even on rational grounds. — Moliere

I'm not sure how to address this because I don't think the CI works in practice. I don't mean this in a base or mean spirited way, but we do sometimes use people as a means, out of practical and psychological necessity... I would be hard if not impossible to live in total accordance with the CI.

I think I do agree that collective organisation around values is where it is at, I'm just not sure how we can do it in practice while at the same time avoiding all the known pitfalls. What you describe for instance functionally looks a lot like how religions or myths would organize communities around shared value systems, but then a lot can and historically has gone wrong with that.

Thank you for your response. I think I disagree with the general picture you paint though. A lot of historians do indeed view human history and future as fundamentally unpredictable. There are others though who do think there are patterns we can discern and use to make predictions about the direction of human societies, like say Peter Turcin. Turcin started as a biologist predicting behaviours of groups of other animal species, with some success, and he saw no reason why this couldn't be tried with "human populations" as he became a historian.

One reason I think there is much resistance to this idea, we'd like to think we have a lot agency in determining the direction of our societies, it's a problem for our treasured notion of free will if we don't.

So putting it simply, even if we accept that there is a trend in democratic institutions towards centralisation of power, humans can choose to work against that trend. — Banno

Yes human can (and will) work against it, that's not the point I don't think, the point is that humans on aggregate won't keep working against it hard enough over time. It's more like say the second law of thermodynamics in that way... even tough locally entropy can decrease, on aggregate the total entropy of the system will always increase over time. Roll enough dice and you will tend to the mean.

The supposition that democratic institutions will become oligarchies gives no time frame. Suppose a given institution remains democratic after a year, is that a falsification of the "Law"? Perhaps we shoudl wait ten years? If an institution remains democratic after a hundred years, do we consider the law falsified? Any institution that remains democratic is not a falsification, since it can be claimed that it still will become an oligarchy. Hence the supposed law is inherently unfalsifiable.

While studies of the history of such institutions might reveal a trend, there is no reason to suppose that such trends are inevitable. Trends can only tell us what happened in the past, not what will happen in the future. This is a result of the problem of induction, addressed by Popper in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and resolved by fablsificationism. Inductions of the form that are used to justify the supposed "iron law" are logical invalid. Even in physical sciences, the statements sometimes called "Laws" are for fablsificationism only as-yet unfalsified generalisations, to be further tested. Historicism will oft mistake such a trend for a supposed universal law.

Social laws are not causal, and future human and social consequences are not necessitated by the past. At the extreme, humans can choose to act in opposition to such predictions. It is logically impossible to know what someone will do in the future, since even given that they know, it remains that they might do otherwise. I can predict that you stop reading this post here, but it remains that you may choose to read on. — Banno

It's hard to argue this point because this seems like a variation of Hume's problem of induction, and I think ultimately Hume was right, there is no reason to believe the future will resemble the past. But you can use that objection against science as a whole, and all we are left with is some form of absolute scepticism. Scientist haven't cared all to much about this lack of epistemological foundation and just went with what seemed to work.

Specifically about the social sciences, as you are probably well aware, there has been a replication crisis , starting a good decade or so ago... and I would argue they haven't really recovered since. Either results of research cannot be replicated or the research is so trivial truism to be of little use... I think there are issues with trying to use the same methodology as the exact science in the social sciences. It's just a lot harder to isolate phenomena and have all other variables remain the same so empirical test can be run that can be compared with eachother.

So, again, where does that leave us?

We can just throw our hands up into the air, and give up on the endeavour altogether. I would be fine with that, I wouldn't say Michels theory is a scientific theory, but I still do think there is something there, even if not scientifically proven. We believe a lot of things that strictly can't be proven.

Or we can try to devise better methodologies that do try and address these concern, like Peter Turcin. Maybe that will be successful, maybe not, we will have to see.

What constitutes an oligarchy is left ambiguous by the Law. As a result the supposed trend towards oligarchy is left to interpretation, so any mooted historian may find or falsify the trend as they see fit - based on their ideology, as it where. Ideology is written into the very structure of the "Law". Hence it is disingenuous to insist that responses avoid ideology. A better response would be to openly admit the ideologic base of both the supposed "Law" and the responses. — Banno

What I object to is the all to common dismissal out of hand, because it doesn't fit our ideology. You were the first one in this thread to post something that actually dealt with the substance. I would like to think that the purpose of a philosophy board is to question our beliefs rather than to have them confirmed and echoed all the time.

Oligarchies fail eventually, even Michels himself says as much, because oligarchs tend to always push inequalities to far, and so it breeds discontent, and eventually revolutions... at which point you get new organisation and things can start again.

The point is not that oligarchy is a good system, or even that one shouldn't even try to do something about it, tensions and struggle against oligarchy is just as inevitable... the point, I think, is rather that we never arrive at some perfect static system, at some utopia, but that these things are in perpetual motion.

Yes yes, it always comes down to this, we don't like the consequence of an idea, so it can't be true... as if the consequences of an idea have anything to do with it's veracity.

I wanna say maybe Poppers critique is itself ideological, as a progressive you would want the future to be unconstrained from the past, so it can be whatever we want it to be.

It seems to me that Poppers critique in the poverty of historicism would apply more to something like dialectical materialism and Marxism, than Michels thesis about how organisations tend to oligarchy... because Marxism is much more a prediction of where the totality of society goes.

Maybe more importantly, I wonder where that leaves us? If we want to demand the same methodological standards like in the exact sciences, it seems to me very little can be said that would stand that test, and so we are just left with competing ideologies without any real justification in past events? That doesn't seem right to me, the world does seem to put constraints on what is possible.

I think, if we are willing to be somewhat charitable, and not dismiss his thesis out of hand because it doesn't fit our ideology, there's something there.

I've said this before in another thread, it doesn't need to be a law, and strictly inevitable, to be something we should probably take into account if we want to have a political philosophy that is effective.

His point is precisely that specialisation and leadership tend to oligarchy over time because of very common human tendencies to want to maintain power, seek and conspire with likeminded people, bend and corrupt the rules because they are in a position to do so etc etc... Demanding this very precise definition of oligarchy so we can go measure it in the world is kind of weak argument it seems to me... if we see this process happening all the time. This is not the kind of thing we can test and verify with perfect accuracy like say a law in physics anyway.

And one doesn't need to subscribe to conservatism, fascism or any far right ideology like that because of this insight, but we probably should take seriously the notion that organisation and hierarchy are in some way tied to each other, and that we therefor should probably take that into account to determine the kind of equality we want to aim for (if we want organisation at all). But you know, this is a non-starter for a lot of lefties.

There are operating communes all over the world; all different, mostly functional. So, of course it's feasible. In fact, it's the most reasonable and efficient form of human organization. Unfortunately, it only works on a small scale. And since these communities are surrounded by oceans of dysfunctional monetary society, they have a high rate of death by drowning. — Vera Mont

It will be relevant again. See my first post on this topic. I always differentiated between ideology "ism" and a communal system of organization. — Vera Mont

Are you suggesting a whole lot of people will die? Or at least our dysfunctional global monetary system will die, which probably also implies a lot of people dying.

Because that's the only way i see it really becoming relevant again. Global geo-politics won't go away on its own otherwise, and so communal systems of organization will continue to be drowned out.

You realize literally every person, intelligent and not, said this exact thing, in personal sincerity and absolute truth, since the beginning of language. Correct? — Outlander

Maybe they said that, but they were wrong :-).

I have actual reasons that are more that just "I feel special". I could elaborate, but this isn't really the thread for it I think.

EDIT:

Man discovers fire. Same thing. Man discovers cooking. Same thing. Man discovers ChatGPT. Same thing.. there truly is nothing new under the sun. — Outlander

For much of history progress was very slow, and general energy consumption and economic growth modest. Since the industrial revolution, and exploitation of fossil fuels, this has accelerated exponentially. Now we are nearing the end of that exponential growth, with climate change fundamentally altering the climate we developed our civilizations in, fossil fuels that need to be phased out and populations stagnating. That, combined with unprecedented scientific knowledge and technology makes for I would say unprecedented times.

The key word there is "history". We may need to look farther back for sustainable systems of human organization. And even when we've found a model that could work for us, we'd still have to find its vulnerabilities and insure against the identifiable threats. And, having done all that, prepare to change whatever needs changing in response to new developments and circumstances. — Vera Mont

The farther back one goes, the less relevant human organisations become for present times it seems to me... There were a lot less people and a lot more space and resources to go around. There's also the practical problem that we can't really know what came before written history.

What I would agree to is that we are heading for truly unprecedented times in a lot of aspects... so maybe none of history will remain all that relevant shortly.

I voted no, because I believe we do have certain tendencies that tend to certain outcomes.These are not necessarily hard limits to how we can organize, but rather practical concerns that steer organisations over time in certain directions (Oligarchy). The problem isn't necessarily that you can never overcome those tendencies some of the time, but that you can't overcome them sustainably.

In the Iron law of oligarchy, Michels for instance describes step by step how the unions he was part of gradually became stratified and hierarchical over time, because of the simple reason that at some point you need specialists, because everybody doing every job all the time just doesn't make much practical sense (people can't be bothered basically).

Because of specialization you inevitably get differentiation in power (some become representatives, or leaders eventually, for instance), and then those specialists tend to group up with like-minded people, to eventually consolidate their power-advantage over the rest (because they have better access to decision-making processes, and therefor can make rules that benefit them more, get more money, resources and power etc etc...).

Ultimately these oligarchs do seem to always take it to far however, at which point you get revolutions because of to much inequality... and all of it can start over again basically.

All of this seems pretty human, and actually seems to describe a process that we have seen over and over again in history. I think good political philosophy should start from description.

My point here is not the Protestant professor's take on Nietzsche, but the way he seems to be positioning his interpretation around an appreciation of aesthetic grounds. — Tom Storm

Ironically Nietzsche rejected Christianity and God precisely on aesthetic grounds. And he thought most philosophy through the ages essentially boiled down to a rationalisation for morality, aesthetics :

"It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of — namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown."

Aesthetics, morality, beliefs... all of them are in some way personally embodied and intertwined with what motivates someone as a living human being. Truth is not something we arrive at after some un-motivated dialectical process. Reason usually only comes in after the fact.

Can those immersed in the philosophical tradition tell me if aesthetic reasoning is used to justify positions on morality and meaning? — Tom Storm

It is, unconsciously... but usually no philosopher will admit as much consciously, that is the philosophers conceit, their pride in their reason getting in the way.

I am not disagreeing with the low(er) entropy part. The space that is currently occupied by the observable universe was at a much lower entropy 14 billion years ago (it had better be!) Was it at a maximum entropy? That's a trick question. I would say that, in a limited sense, it was. — SophistiCat

The space or the matter in that space is at lower entropy? That is what is confusing to me. How can space itself be measured entropically. Isn't that just the condition that sets the degrees of freedom for matter in that space to be in, determining the range of entropy? Maybe I'm missing something fundamentally here, which very well could be.

Ah, see, I actually don't agree that "low entropy is unlikely by definition." That is true of closed systems that have been evolving for some time. As per the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the entropy of such systems should be increasing over time. But we are talking about the initial state, which does not have a history. — SophistiCat

Yes unlikely by definition maybe isn't true for initial conditions, I can see the reasoning there. It still is an observation (and a condition for our universe to like it is) that the universe was in a low entropic state, it could have been otherwise I suppose... Not that that is saying much. We just don't know anything beyond it, and so it is what it is then, is the best we can do?

In response to this Count Timothy von Icarus invoked the principle of indifference. I object that we cannot get a free lunch from the principle of indifference: it cannot teach us anything about the physical world. And conclude that statements about how probable/special/surprising the early universe was are not meaningful absent a theory of the universe's origin that would inform our expectations. — SophistiCat

Yes I definitely agree with that. Anything like the principle of indifference, or anthropic principles, or things along these lines, is making assumptions we have no right to make. And without these kind of assumptions, we don't have enough information to sensibly talk about probabilities.

I'll have to return to this thread for a more detailed response later, but the early universe has this very confusing property of being in thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium but nonetheless being "low entropy." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes this I don't understand then I suppose, because isn't equilibrium necessarily maximum entropy... If entropy always increases, it can only be in equilibrium if max entropy has been reached no?

EDIT: Unless max entropy and low entropy are somehow considered the same in this particular instance, i.e. it is still considered low eventhough it is maximum entropy (for instance because compared to entropy in the rest of the history of the universe it is low). But that just sounds like confusing use of terminology to me.

This is confusing since most textbooks and classes will lead you to associate equilibrium with high entropy. The simplest explanation, which leaves out a lot of nuance, is that there is also gravitational entropy to be considered, and this being low initially offsets the apparent equilibrium seen in the cosmic microwave background.

But there is a lot more going on. Particles are changing identities incredibly frequently at these energies, the fundemental forces aren't acting like they do normally, the density of particles are changing as the universe expands and temperature shifts. It's a very dynamic model. To make things more confusing, there are arguments that the laws of physics aren't eternal and unchanging, but actually behaved differently in this era. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This sounds like it could be an answer to my question, but I don't know enough about this to judge it to be honest.

There is no limit to thr energy we can harness as long as that energy harnessing isn't directly dangerous to our existence (the air we breath, the water we drink m, the food we eat etc). — Benj96

There are limits though, even only theoretically speaking... never mind practically.

Is the level of organisation required to produce life the antithesis of entropy? Who knows. — Benj96

No, life is perfectly compatible with the second law of thermodynamics, no antithesis or counterforce is needed. In fact life depends on the universe "flowing" from a low entropy state to a higher entropy state, if the universe were static at either end no life would be possible.

Life itself is a process by which entropy is increased. We take in low entropy free energy and produce higher entropy waste, sustaining our biological form along the way for a while. A pre-condition for this is that you have a source of low entropy energy, like the sun. This makes local decreases in entropy possible (i.e. biological life-forms on earth), but the total entropy of our solar system always increases.

As the sun eventually runs out tending towards maximum entropy.... no life will be possible. That's why I said "ultimately" in quotes, it will take a while... and shouldn't necessarily concern us all that much. We live on a different time-scale as humans.

I would still critique the idea of continual progress, but from a slightly different perspective, still related to energy and entropy. The total amount of energy we receive from the sun is limited, as are natural resources on earth. That puts physical hard limits on how much we can progress, limits we possibly already passed in some ways.

To maintain complex societies we need a lot of energy continuously, the more complex the more energy.... Currently we are getting surplus energy from fossil fuels that took millennia to generate (from that fixed amount of energy from the sun), but those will run out eventually. Maybe we could replace those with other sources of energy, but at this point it's entirely unclear if we can do that without the kick-start from fossil fuels. Maybe we can manage to some extend, but certainly not indefinitely... and as you said there are always trade-offs.

Maybe more fundamentally, there are also other biological and psychological reasons why continuous progress may actually not be what we want. To "grow" as persons, and societies too, we want and need some challenges to be able to grow. As things get progressively more safe, easier and more conformable, we may also lose something vital... so you know, the question then becomes is that kind of progress really progress?

So, was the (relatively) low-entropy state of the early universe very special and unlikely (whatever that might mean)? Frankly, I don't see how. — SophistiCat

Likely or unlikely, it was in a particular state, which we have no explanation for.

In cosmology, the past hypothesis is a fundamental law of physics that postulates that the universe started in a low-entropy state,[1] in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. — Past hypothesis - Wikipedia

It wasn't at equilibrium, because it was quickly expanding, but if, counterfactually, there was no expansion, then the universe would have already been at its maximum entropy (and on very short time scales, during which expansion could be neglected, it was). — SophistiCat

You seem to be disagreeing with the past hypothesis, in that it wasn't low entropy, but maximum entropy?

Anyhow i'm not sure what the question is relating to this topic, I couldn't figure it from what was quoted, maybe I should read the other topic.

EDIT: I guess the question is not whether it was likely or not, but whether it was low entropy or not (low entropy is unlikely by definition), and that would in turn depend on whether space/the universe itself was expanding (progressively giving more degrees of freedom for matter to be in), or whether it was a low entropy configuration of matter expanding into an already existing larger universe/space. This is probably very basic stuff, but i'm no physicist so excuse my ignorance.

EDIT2: And if it was the first case (the universe itself explanding) than the past hypothesis isn't "matter was in a low entropy configuration", but "the universe was small". Is a small universe likely or unlikely, without another frame of reference, who knows... so I guess I would agree with you. Probabilities only make sense if you have relevant information. And since we don't, it doesn't. What is the likelihood of drawing the ace of spades out of an undefined amount of cards and with undefined types of cards in the deck?