Posted: 6/13/2017 6:21:40 PM EDT
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I can't get this out of my head, and need a physicist to square me away.
It seems as though the creation of knowledge ought to count as the creation or production of order. An idea has to be physical in some sense, right? A configuration of information within the brain? If that's the case, where is the corresponding increase of disorder? Or am I getting entropy wrong? |
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I can't get this out of my head, and need a physicist to square me away. It seems as though the creation of knowledge ought to count as the creation or production of order. An idea has to be physical in some sense, right? A configuration of information within the brain? If that's the case, where is the corresponding increase of disorder? Or am I getting entropy wrong? Alzheimers, and loss of memory. The memory/knowledge created is fleeting. Even stored records degrade over time without adding energy to preserve them. At some point there won't be any energy to pump into preserving them. Entropy wins. Always. |
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I can't get this out of my head, and need a physicist to square me away. It seems as though the creation of knowledge ought to count as the creation or production of order. An idea has to be physical in some sense, right? A configuration of information within the brain? If that's the case, where is the corresponding increase of disorder? Or am I getting entropy wrong? |
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I'm not a physicist - but it sounds like you're wondering if the creation of knowledge violates the laws of thermodynamics. I would argue that it does not since the creation, recording, storage, and preservation of knowledge requires the expenditure of energy. what i'm wondering about is the conservation of order (if that's the correct terminology) vis-a-vis ideation--particularly with shared ideas. is the only energy implication neuro-metabolic? or can an idea be said to exist apart from a brain? |
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I can't get this out of my head, and need a physicist to square me away. It seems as though the creation of knowledge ought to count as the creation or production of order. An idea has to be physical in some sense, right? A configuration of information within the brain? If that's the case, where is the corresponding increase of disorder? Or am I getting entropy wrong? Just by being alive, you created more disordered heat than ordered information. |
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no, that's not what i'm wondering. i'm assuming an open systems framework. what i'm wondering about is the conservation of order (if that's the correct terminology) vis-a-vis ideation--particularly with shared ideas. is the only energy implication neuro-metabolic? or can an idea be said to exist apart from a brain? Quoted:
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I'm not a physicist - but it sounds like you're wondering if the creation of knowledge violates the laws of thermodynamics. I would argue that it does not since the creation, recording, storage, and preservation of knowledge requires the expenditure of energy. what i'm wondering about is the conservation of order (if that's the correct terminology) vis-a-vis ideation--particularly with shared ideas. is the only energy implication neuro-metabolic? or can an idea be said to exist apart from a brain? Do you hold to a materialist or non-materialist world view? |
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I can't get this out of my head, and need a physicist to square me away. It seems as though the creation of knowledge ought to count as the creation or production of order. An idea has to be physical in some sense, right? A configuration of information within the brain? If that's the case, where is the corresponding increase of disorder? Or am I getting entropy wrong? Your thinking is backwards. That's like saying oxygen is wet. Entropy + Energy = Life (Life cannot exist without both) If one never died was he ever truly alive kind of thing. Oxygen + Hydrogen = Water (water can not exist without both) |
You're using energy to do work - create knowledge.  It fits perfectly in the laws of physics. Unless you are a liberal, then you are increasing entropy which correlates directly with the disorder in their brains. The is what happens when you're a green hippie that hates energy production. Everything can be explained thru physics 
Delta S _universe > 0....thats why these fuckers keep multiplying 
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how? Life is created with energy and requires the input of energy to continue. That is consistent with entropy. once there isn't energy to add, life is done. Also, aging increases entropy - organs and muscles eventually fail. 
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I'm not a physicist - but it sounds like you're wondering if the creation of knowledge violates the laws of thermodynamics. I would argue that it does not since the creation, recording, storage, and preservation of knowledge requires the expenditure of energy. Quoted:
I'm not a physicist - but it sounds like you're wondering if the creation of knowledge violates the laws of thermodynamics. I would argue that it does not since the creation, recording, storage, and preservation of knowledge requires the expenditure of energy. Quoted:
Life violates entropy Plants convert energy from sunlight into stored chemical energy. Animal life either consumes that energy directly, or from other animal life. The fact remains that the concentration of energy (the sun) becomes diffused and reused, therefore entropy increases. |
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I think he's saying, the physical arrangement of neural connections becomes more orderly with increasing knowledge. So that is a decrease of entropy.
It must take some chemical energy to form those connections. There's going to be dQ/dt or some irreversibilities in that metabolic process that give the concomitant entropy increase. Does this help, OP? |
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Viewing entropy as disorder is fairly simplistic. I had a professor for continuum mechanics who, in the PhD candidacy exam, would ask the student to describe entropy. Any answer involving order earned his vote to fail you for the entire exam.
Entropy is the work congugate of temperature. Just as volume is the work congugate of pressure. |
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Knowledge isn't created or destroyed, it's just discovered or forgotten.
Think about it; the properties of the physical universe exist whether or not we know about them. Our discovering them has no bearing on their "being". The square root of 81 has always been 9. |
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Viewing entropy as disorder is fairly simplistic. I had a professor for continuum mechanics who, in the PhD candidacy exam, would ask the student to describe entropy. Any answer involving order earned his vote to fail you for the entire exam. Entropy is the work congugate of temperature. Just as volume is the work congugate of pressure. |
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Creating knowledge is making order out of chaos, and more order equals decreased entropy.
The only known way to do this is through the application of energy. Unless this knowledge is reproduced, it will eventually decay and be forgotten. Therefore, the decrease in entropy is temporary and can only be maintained through the expenditure of more energy. |
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For those interested in reading more on this topic, you should look up Rolf Landauer (deceased, formerly of IBM research labs). He was an important researcher in the area of reversibility of computation. He also wrote on the topic of Maxwell's demon, and he linked the information content of the demon's brain to the thermodynamic process of gating the molecules. The demon's finite memory must eventually be deleted, and this increases net entropy.
Someday, this topic will be foundational to economics, since the energy that goes into computational identification of prime numbers is what keeps encryption and cryptocurrency safe/valuable. There is, fundamentally, a minimum amount of energy which must be dissipated to factorize a number or range of numbers.  Failed To Load Title |
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Entropy is the state of order of things.
S = k Ln W Entopy = constant x natural log of omega Omega is an organizational term defined by a permutation. It is the number of ways that items can be arranged is discrete groups. (Formally called microstates) We often use energy groups or quata... but temperature is a good analogy. If we have 10 gas molecules in a vacuum amd we put all the system energy into one molecule, there are 10 ways to have one molecule with all the energy and 9 with none. If we have the same 10 molecules with equal energy there is only one possible combination. 10!/10! =1 and 10!/1! = 10! The second case has much higher entropy. This is what the universe is doing, slowly changing from discrete areas of localized energy into a unform distribution aka thermodynamic equilibrium. It is trying to perfectly organize itself. When that happens there will be no stars, no temperture change, no chemical reactions, nothing... heat death. Entropy is the driving force for all equilibrium reactions, thermodynamic, chemical, even physical. Does this answer your question... |
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Viewing entropy as disorder is fairly simplistic. I had a professor for continuum mechanics who, in the PhD candidacy exam, would ask the student to describe entropy. Any answer involving order earned his vote to fail you for the entire exam. Entropy is the work congugate of temperature. Just as volume is the work congugate of pressure.
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For those interested in reading more on this topic, you should look up Rolf Landauer (deceased, formerly of IBM research labs). He was an important researcher in the area of reversibility of computation. He also wrote on the topic of Maxwell's demon, and he linked the information content of the demon's brain to the thermodynamic process of gating the molecules. The demon's finite memory must eventually be deleted, and this increases net entropy. Someday, this topic will be foundational to economics, since the energy that goes into computational identification of prime numbers is what keeps encryption and cryptocurrency safe/valuable. There is, fundamentally, a minimum amount of energy which must be dissipated to factorize a number or range of numbers.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKRzXMZEug0
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God created everything out of nothing. He can also make everything into nothing if He chooses to. Entropy only applies to a closed system. So if, by the act of creation, God put mass/energy into the universe, then the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not apply to the creation of the universe. |
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God created everything out of nothing. He can also make everything into nothing if He chooses to. |
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This isn't a physics question; it's a philosophical inquiry (i.e. mind-body dualism vs reductionism). Do you hold to a materialist or non-materialist world view? |