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Old 05-28-2021, 01:38 AM   #35 (permalink)
Guybrush
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Originally Posted by Marie Monday View Post
Edit: this got me thinking and I suppose they base their argument on the fact that they've heard that entropy will eventually cause the universe to be an atom soup that is the same everywhere? Which makes them think new DNA combinations violate entropy? In that case what they don't understand is that entropy tends towards randomness, but that's not necessarily sameness. To use an example that I've been working on, if you align molecules they're all pointing in the same direction, but the randomness is reduced, so it comes at an entropy cost. The analogy with our genes is shaky at best anyway, but even if we viewed all the world's genes as a communal DNA soup, enforcing that everyone has the same DNA is actually less random and goes against the entropy principle
Though my understanding of entropy is somewhat limited, I think I can recreate our general understanding of it along with their argument like this:

Let's say the universe is only my kitchen and I want to make a cup of coffee with the important property of coffee being that it is warmer than its surroundings. To heat water, I have a stove. If I have a hot cup of coffee, its heat will evaporate into the room, heating the room ever so slightly while cooling the cup and the difference in temperature outside and inside my coffee cup will decrease. This represents an increase in entropy. That energy is still in my kitchen, but it won't help me make more coffee. To do that, I need things I can burn in my stove. So over time, as I make more coffee, more of the energy in my kitchen that is tied up in matter instead gets converted into radiation, energy which is not useful to me in terms of coffee production. Eventually, there's no more matter, only evenly distributed raditation.

Their argument then I guess would generally be that something like a plant works to decrease entropy because it takes energy carrier by photons and orders that into building carbohydrates.

So to my dumb kitchen analogy, they argue that while I make cups of coffee, I could also grow plants. The light from the stove will provide them with energy to do photosynthesis. As the plants develop into wood, I get more wood for my stove. This DECREASES entropy in my kitchen. Perhaps I could keep it running indefinitely.

HOWEVER, without going into too much detail, even if the plant can do this and even if I can keep planting them, the best plants can hope to do is slow down entropy in my kitchen ever so slightly. Entropy is still increasing and moving my kitchen towards heat death.

So I'm not sure how good this is.. sorry if I made everyone reading this a little dumber
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Last edited by Guybrush; 05-28-2021 at 02:05 AM.
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