Can Order come from Chaos?
Offline I'd like to do a thought experiment with everyone who would participate. This is just simple imagination.
Here is the basis of the this experiment.
Imagine you have twenty-six small pieces of paper with one letter from the English alphabet on each side of each piece. Now throw these imaginary pieces into the air and wait for them to land. See how many English words you can find in the jumble. If you find none, gather them up and throw them again. Eventually you will find a word and if this process is repeated enough times you will find, inevitably, every word in the English language.
Now let us remove the English alphabet from the equation and say the letters are just symbols with no other attribute then their shape. Then the only meanings we can infer from the jumble will be proper names such as Robert, Moscow or Excalibur. No matter how many times the paper is cast we can never infer a word from the mess.
Next we can remove the letters from the paper pieces and throw them again. Now the only meanings we can infer are shapes of objects we've seen in the world, the paper mess has become a pictograph.
Finally, let's remove the final aspect of order from this system, us. Without intelligence or order what can the chaotic paper mess ever become?
Please, weigh in. Give your two cents or more if you like.
Edit: spelling
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Offline Throwing pieces of paper into what???
AIR
Hello?? McFly???
You're putting something into an existing system causing it to be considered an open one.
The answer is that there would be no 'UP'. I would not expect the pieces of paper to 'fall'. And finally, if they did it would not be in any order because they would not have anything else affecting them.
There is no violation of the laws of thermodynamics. There is only people who choose to ignore the natural elements in the systems to be analyzed.
In the analogy of throwing pieces of paper into the air, you make the assumption that there is air and gravity and a surface for the paper to land upon.
So let's go back and use the rest of the system and analyze why it would be highly improbable for someone to cause the pieces of paper to fall into specific words.
NEXT!
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Offline curiousjorge wrote:Even if your example would work, it would only function under controlled conditions which can only be natural now. But we don't really know the conditions in the past. For example, the sun was not always there. It is reasonable to assume that at some point in time the sun didn't exhist.
His argument was against evolution. So in the context of his arguments, the sun was always there.
curiousjorg wrote:1) presence of a specific environment
The laws of thermodnyamics are iron, and work under any enivornment.
curiousjorge wrote:2) presence of a specific catalyst (in this case, the sun)
No specific needed. Just a source of free energy. This concept is intrisicatelly linked to entropy. I urge you to study basic biomolecular kinetics.
[quote-curiousjorge]
3) presence and application of a specific law of nature.
The laws of thermodynamics are iron. Nothing can contradict them. I cannot make head nor tail of your statement. Thermodynamics is uniform throughout the universe.
Wow that was quick!
I agree with you that the law of thermodynamics is constant throughout the universe, throughout space, but not necessarily throughout time. Think about it. If you use your formula to explain the formation of order on earth, then it would be natural to use that same formula to explain order on the sun, the moon, the stars and the entire universe!
What i'm saying is that there is a beginning for everything. Let's try to go back, before the formation of the earth, before the other planets were formed, before the sun, before the milky way. Before everything.
They say that everything began with the big bang.
First there was absolutely nothing. Not a single molecule, atom, electron, or neuron. Nothing. Possibly not even the laws of the known universe exhisted because if everything has a beginning, the same principle should apply to the exhisting laws of science. (i'm just speculating at this point since i wasn't there taking notes when everything in the universe started)
You see, from my point of view, in trying to explain order coming from chaos, one would eventually have to explain where the elements from these come from. In other words, to explain how order comes from chaos, one would eventually have to explain where something (or in this case, everything) came from nothing.
And i'm not at this point aware of any formula that can make something out of nothing.
I hope that your not offended by my reasoning. I'm just airing what i think and wish to know your opinion on such matters. That way, i can learn as much as i can and enrich myself mentally.
I'm really grateful for your spending time to reply to my queries, and am specially grateful for not using deregatory language or the sort. Its been a while since i've taken this much time and effort in theorizing and am quite enjoying this exchange.
My hope is to learn from this site and use what i've learned in conversing with like minded individuals.
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provides a one-parameter explanation that works at all scales and requires no “dark matter” to exist at any scale. (I exclude the additional 50%-100% of invisible ordinary matter inferred to exist by, e.g., MACHO studies.) Some physicists don’t like modifying the law of gravity in this way, but a finite range for natural forces is a logical necessity (not just theory) spoken of since the 17th century. [
You wouldn't get every word in the English language. Some words use the same letters more than once.
What is the meaning of this experiment. We all know if you get a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters for a thousand years you may produce a great work of literature. If this is some lame creationist take one evolution please say and we can prove you wrong.
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Hi there!
As I am most certianly the least quailified person in these forums to answer this question, my answer is probably meaningless. However, when you posed that question, the first thing that came to mind was:
patterns.
*shrug*
I am looking forward to the replies. I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at but I'd like to hear the answers too.
Judge: god, you have been accused of existence! What do you have to say for yourself?
god: I am innocent until proven guilty, your honour!
Order out of Chaos?
I would argue that we rationalize and make sense out of the chaos, it's still chaos, but we find an order to it.
As far as your experiment goes, i fail to see the point.
YOU shut the fuck up! WE'LL save America!
Seems he's trying to show the "absurdity" of evoultion. I've heard thought experiemnts like this before and thats usually where it leads to.
I seem to see that theists don't believe in evolution because they don't understand it.
He's trying to show that the second law of thermodynamics disproves evolution. He's referring to something known as a free energy loss. If I start with 100 pieces of paper each with one letter intricatly arranged and toss them into the air they will almost certainly not reconstitute themselves. If I burn the paper, the ashes and oxygen will never reconstitute themselves. Water does not flow uphill.
Things always progress to the lowest free energy state.
Yet for life to exist, to grow, and to evolve requires it to seemingly break this iron law. I will now demonstrate why this is false.
At any rate, we need to understand some basic concepts first. These are The laws of thermodynamics, entropy, enthalpy and free energy.
Let us imagine a box, a system closed off from the universe, with a cell inside it. The cell in a box is a closed system with a fixed amount of free energy. This system will have a total amount of Energy denoted E. Let us suppose the reaction A to B occurs in the box and releases a great deal of chemical bond energy as heat. This energy will increase the rate of molecular motions (transitional, vibrational and rotational) in the system. In other words it will raise the temperature.
However, the energy for these motions will soon transfer out of the system as the molecular motions heat up the wall of the box and then the outside world, which is denoted sea. Eventually, the cell in a box system returns to it’s initial temperature, and all the chemical bond energy released has been transferred to the surroundings. According to the first law of thermodynamics, the change in energy in the box (denoted ∆Ebox or just ∆E) must be equal and opposite to the amount of heat energy transferred out, denoted as h. Therefore ∆E=-h.
E in the box can also change during a reaction due to work done in the outside world. Suppose there is a small volume increase in the box (∆V) which must decrease the energy in the box (∆E) by the same amount. In most reactions, chemical bond energy is converted to work and heat. Enthalpy(H) is a composite function of work and heat, (H=E+PV). Technically it is the Enthalpy change (∆H) is equal to the heat transferred to the outside world during a reaction.
Reactions with a -∆H are exothermic, and ones with +∆H are endothermic. Therefore –h=∆H. The volume change in reactions is so negligible that this is a good approximation.
-h≈∆H≈∆E
The Second Law of Thermodynamics allows us to predict the course of a reaction.
Let us consider 1000 coins in a box, all facing heads. It is a closed system, which, by definition, does not exchange energy input or output with the rest of the universe. States of high order have low probability. For instance, if we imagine a box with 1000 coins lying heads up, and we shake it twice, it is vastly more probable that we will end up with a chaotic arrangement of coins than the arrangement that we had previously. Thus, the law can be restated closed systems tend to progress from states of low probability to high probability. This movement towards high probability in a system where the energy is E, is progressive. In order for the entropy (the progression towards high probability) to be corrected, there must be periodic bursts of energy input, which would break the closed nature of the system. In this case, it would require someone to open the box and rearrange the coins.
Therefore, for a living organism to maintain order and increase order, there must be a useful energy input. For that to happen, there will be a useless energy output. Thus increasing the order in the cell will increase the disorder of the entire universe. In this way, we can imagine life forms and other complexities as islands of order in a universe progressing towards disorder. For this to happen, there must be a colossal influx of free energy all the time. This is one the requisites for life. As luck would have it, we have such a system: The sun.
We need a quantitative unit to measure this, and to measure the degree of disorder or probability for a given state (recall the coins in a box analogy). This function is entropy (denoted S) The change in entropy that occurs when the reaction A to B converts one mole A to one mole B is
∆S= R log PB/PA
PA and PB are probabilities of states A and B. R is the gas constant (2 cal/deg-1/mole-1) ∆S is measured in entropy units (eu).
In an example with a box containing one thousand coins all facing heads, the initials state (all coins facing heads) probability is 1. The state probability after the box is shaken vigorously is about 10^298. Therefore, the entropy change when the box is shaken is R log 10^298 is about 1370eu per mole of each container (6.02x10^23 containers). ∆S is positive in this example. It is reactions with a large positive ∆S which are favorable and occur spontaneously. We say these reactions increase the entropy in the universe.
Heat energy causes random molecular commotion, the transfer of heat from the cell in a box to the outside increases the number of arrangements the molecules could have, therefore increasing the entropy (analogous to the 1000 coins a box).The release of X amount of heat energy has a greater disordering effect at low temp. than at high temp. therefore the value of ∆S for the surroundings of the cell in a box denoted ∆Ssea is equal to the amount of heat transferred divided by absolute temperature or
∆Ssea =h/T
We must now look at a critical concept: Gibbs Free Energy (G)
When observing enclosed bio-systems, we need to know whether or not a given reaction can occur spontaneously. The question regarding this is whether the ∆S for the universe is positive or negative for the reaction, as already discussed.
In the cell in a box system there are two separate components to the entropy change in the universe. The ∆S for the inside of the box and the ∆S for the surrounding sea. These must be added together.
For example, it is possible for an endothermic reaction to absorb heat therefore decreasing the entropy of the universe (-∆Ssea) but at the same time cause such a large disorder in the box (+∆Sbox) that the total ∆S is greater than zero. Note that ∆Suniverse=∆Ssea+∆Sbox. 13
For every reaction, ∆Suniverse must be >0. We have just encountered another way to restate the Second Law of Thermodynamics
In this case, the reaction can spontaneously occur even though the sea gives heat to the box during the reaction. An example of this is a beaker of water (the box) in which sodium chloride is dissolving. This is spontaneous even though the temp of the water drops as it is occurring.
The most useful composite function is Gibbs Free Energy (G) which allows one to deduce ∆S in the universe due to the reaction in the box. The formula is: G=H-TS.
For a box of volume V, H is the Enthalpy (E+PV), T is the absolute temperature and S is the entropy. All of these apply to the inside of the box only. The change in free energy in the box during a reaction is given as the ∆G of the products minus the ∆G of the reactants. It is a direct measure of the disorder created in the universe when a reaction occurs. At a constant temp, ∆G= ∆H+T∆S. ∆H is the same as –h, the heat absorbed from the sea. Therefore
-∆G= -∆H +T∆S or -∆G=h+T∆S Therefore -∆G/T=h/t+∆S
h/T still equals ∆Ssea but the ∆S in the above equation is for the box. Therefore.
-∆G= ∆Ssea +∆Sbox =∆Suniverse
A reaction will spontaneously proceed in the direction where ∆G<0, because it means that the ∆S will be >0. They are inverse functions of each other. For a complex set of coupled reactions involving many molecules, one can calculate ∆G by adding the ∆G of all the different types of molecules involved before the reaction, and comparing that to the ∆G of all the molecules produced by the end of the reaction. For example, comparing the ∆G of the passage of a single proton through the inner mitochondrial membrane across the electrochemical proton gradient to the ∆G for ATP hydrolysis, we can conclude that ATP synthase requires the passage of more than one proton for each molecule of ATP synthesized.
Let’s review:
2nd Law: Basically an expression dictating that the whole universe progresses towards disorder, and any reaction must contribute to that disorder. Disorder is energetically favorable and probability-wise favorable.
Heat Energy: The energy in the random motion and hubbub of molecular jostling and movement. This is basically a measure of temperature, but all reactions give off heat energy, which is irretrievable (another way to restate the second law). Heat energy is denoted h.
Enthalpy: A composite function of heat and work, but since ∆V is always next to nothing, we can regard it as the inverse of heat. Enthalpy is a measure of heat energy lost or ∆H=-h
Gibbs Free Energ
The total ∆G for a reaction measures how far from equilibrium the reaction is. The large negative ∆G for ATP hydrolysis means that the cell keeps it very far from equilibrium. Equilibrium is reached when the forward and backward rates of each reaction are precisely equal and the ∆G is zero. For ATP hydrolysis, this occurs when the vast majority of ATP has been hydrolyzed (because ATP hydrolysis is much more favorable than ATP synthesis), like in a dead cell.
What we can conclude is that every reaction must have a negative ∆G to occur.
But how? What about anabolism, free energy creation, energy stores? Many reactions in cells are energetically unfavorable. Most polymerizations are, oxaloacete generation, ADP condensation etc as well as supramolecular operation like ribosomal assembly, mitosis, mRNA synthesis etc
These seemingly impossible reactions make use of a key concept covered earlier. Let us return to our cell in the sea scenario. Except the cell is not in the box, it is in the sea, receiving free energy from the sun.
Recall: ∆Ssea +∆Sbox =∆Suniverse
Except now it becomes: ∆Ssea +∆Scell =∆Suniverse
For an unfavorable reaction to occur, it must be coupled to a favorable reaction of higher magnitude. IN this way, even the order in the cell increases, the disorder in the sea increases by a greater amount therefore the ∆S is still positive and the ∆G is still negative, leaving the laws of thermodynamics intact.
There are a vast number of examples to choose from. Let us consider a typical unfavorable condensation reaction
A-H+ B-OH = A-B + H20
This reaction will not occur spontaneously. It cannot. It will create free energy of its own accord. That’s impossible. Fortunately there is a mechanism to bypass this.
A favorable reaction is coupled to it. ATP Hydrolysis is a favorable and readily occurring reaction where ATP splits one phosphanhydride to ADP, leaving a very reactive inorganic phosphate. This bond, because it is highly reactive, readily bonds with B-OH forming B-O-PO3.
This is called a high-energy intermediate. Because the bond is so high-energy, it will immediately react with B-H producing A-B + H2O + Pi + ADP
This concept exists in a huge number of reactions. Many reactions involve critical stepwise passing of high energy intermediate chains.
The cells must maintain order by maintaining a constant stream of biochemical catabolism and anabolism being driven by enzymes which lower the activation energy. Food is broken down from macromolecular giant biological polymers like polysaccharides, polypeptides, proteins and giant fatty acids by oxidation, electron carrying, and catalysis of favorable reactions into simple molecules like glucose, amino acids and glycerol. Some of this is in turn, catabolized to break the phosphate bonds which release heat energy to power the cell (and increase entropy in the universe). The rest of it is used to be anabolized again into giant structures in glycogen or lipid storage for later consumption or construction into cellular structures like ribosomes. All of these highly intricate metabolic pathways that do these things must be set in motion by thermodynamically favorable events.
For instance, imagine rocks falling off a cliff onto the ground. The kinetic energy is being converted into heat and sound. This is useless. But if we set up a turbine underneath the rock which powers a small hydraulic pump, we are obtaining useful work from free energy.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
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It amazes me to see how a simple idea can be over analyzed until the perceived question differes entirely from the acctual question.
deludedgod, the science forum is under the Yellow Number Five heading but thanks for that wealth of info.
Free Thinking, i appreciate your post and you're right. Our intellect could perceive patterns in such a system of chaos. But, without some foundation of order, it seems to me, these patterns would vanish. Without a means to be established and become recurring they would have no bearing on the system.
deludedgod, the science forum is under the Yellow Number Five heading but thanks for that wealth of info.
Your analogy is merely a rehashed version of the entropy argument. i have refuted it. I have shown that order can come from chaos, using simple mathematical functions. Have you a rebuttal?
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
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If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
You're right Gershom. The logic scheme you set up doesn't even come close to illustrating how life violates of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. As long as it wasn't the intended purpose of your question you're doing fine. So I guess we're just pondering the wonders of shredded paper.
Of course if it was a rhetorical question trying to show life as a violation of the 2nd law, it's utterly failed. All life requires the entropy of neighboring matter in order to exist and yes, evolve. Abiogenesis requires the 2nd law in the same manner. The natural world could never be without the 2nd law. It seems that whole "closed system" element of the 2nd law description is always overlooked by creationists.
But I'm digressing. Sorry. Your query was about torn up pieces of paper. I'm not interested.
edit-inkohairent speelnig
I'm curious what distinguishes a pattern from chaos. Let's say we ripped apart piece of paper and tossed it into the air. It would no longer fit the abstract idea of order, the rectangle, we recognize among the otherwise disordered collection of fibers and binders. However, each piece of paper will fall to the floor within certain parameters; each piece interacts with the air on the way down in a certain way; two pieces will interact with eachother in predictable ways as they fall. While the dynamic of such an action is complex, perhaps too complex for us to predict perfectly as we'd have to account for many variables that might not be clear at the time, it won't produce results outside a range of expectations. The pieces won't cease to be paper spontaneously because they've lost our idea of "order."
Then there's the question of what constitutes a pattern. Is the rectangle orderly because we understand the parameters of its shape? Our brains developed pattern recognition for survival, not to help us answer existential questions. We're good at recognizing things to eat and things that want to eat us. Couldn't a lot of things constitute patterns which are simply unreconizable to us?
Don't molecules more or less behave in predictable ways? I'm a layman, but it's not hard to imagine complex dynamics forming simply out of the interaction of things that behave in predictable ways.
Chaos is what we can't predict. Order is what we can. If you can predict it, there's order in there. If you can't, then either there is no order, or you just don't have the right understanding to make good predictions.
E.g. An encrypted message will look completely random, unpredictable, and chaotic to the average person. But give that person the decryption algorithm and the proper keys (i.e. understanding), and they can extract the hidden order in the chaos.
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Are you suggesting that order and chaos are dependant on human knowledge? Our ability to observe and predict complex systems (weather, liquid flow, etc) has vastly increased over the years.
If that's the case, then order has most ceratinly been increasing.
Or perhaps it's just "chaos of the gaps"
You can take a 2x2 inch square from a painting an with seeing the whole painting, that piece represent chaos, when added back, and we see the big picture, we have order.
Chaos is just are minds unability to see the big picture.
Man is the only animal in all of nature that cannot accept its own mortality.
I am not clear on which chaos is being discussed. Are we talking about mathematical chaos or mythical chaos? I will eschew mythical chaos as an absurdity. However, your pieces of paper being thrown seems to represent a nonlinear dynamic system, which is the key to Chaos Theory.
Your experiment starts with a system with a sensitive dependence to initial conditions. A small change at the beginning leads to a large difference in the end (butterfly theory). As a result of this sensativity, flipping the paper the same way twice would appear to be impossible; ergo, the same result twice also appears impossible. Thus, we perceive the resulting events to be utterly random. But are they?
No, not really. I will refer to a Koch curve for this portion. If one has an equilateral triangle and adds another equilateral triangle to the middle third of each side, then the initial appearance of the curve appears completely random. If one continues the process, the Koch curve is realized, and therein is a contradiction. The line can be infinitely long but it actually has an internal area less than the natural curve which surrounds the triangles tangentially. This is the development of a fractal pattern. We are provided a very simple nonlinear dynamic system that is changed dramatically if altered initially and appears to become ordered when replicated. However, that order tends to be paradoxical in the resulting two conclusions above with regard to length and area.
So, your bits of paper are like a Koch curve, but they are nearly infinitely more complex than the Koch curve. So, in the end, there will be a mathematical order that will form but we have difficulty seeing it.
There are natural occurances of this system as well. They appear chaotic but have a simple fractal explanations. Some are electrical discharge from clouds, the growth of synapses, and the growth of tree branches. They follow a simple pattern made in a set. The set is defined as z=z(2)+c. C is your initial figure and acts as the first z. Repeat. It appears random but develops a mathematical pattern that looks like the natural events above.
What is the end result. From what appears to be chaos, there is actually mathematical certainty. Where there is mathematical certainty laws can be derived. So, replace chaos with complexity, and the point is one of interest.
Shoudl anyone like me to expand on this I will be happy to do so.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
No one for chaos theory?
*Bump*
Actually, you did not refute it. All you showed was that order can possibly come from chaos given the presence of an external catalyst, in this case, the sun.
In other words, you only showed that for order to come from chaos, something or someone will have to cause a reaction to make it happen.
Yes. And that something is the Sun. And in the context of the universe, that something is free energy. His thought experiment is meant to refute evolution by suggesting that order cannot come from chaos. I have shown this false. Please read it again and look at the complementation formulae dictating the nature of entropy.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
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Hmmm... But if you really think about it, your example strictly speaking is of order coming from order. Consider the fact that for your example to work the following would need to be present:
1) presence of a specific environment
2) presence of a specific catalyst (in this case, the sun)
3) presence and application of a specific law of nature.
the absence of just one of the above would result in your formula being ineffective.
Even if your example would work, it would only function under controlled conditions which can only be natural now. But we don't really know the conditions in the past. For example, the sun was not always there. It is reasonable to assume that at some point in time the sun didn't exhist.
His argument was against evolution. So in the context of his arguments, the sun was always there.
The laws of thermodnyamics are iron, and work under any enivornment.
No specific needed. Just a source of free energy. This concept is intrisicatelly linked to entropy. I urge you to study basic biomolecular kinetics.
[quote-curiousjorge]
3) presence and application of a specific law of nature.
The laws of thermodynamics are iron. Nothing can contradict them. I cannot make head nor tail of your statement. Thermodynamics is uniform throughout the universe.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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