My brother Ken sent me a link to an aritcle that could be used to start multiple threads. I want to focus on it's harmony with the idea that the universe is not evolving, but devolving.

I also wanted to point out, that those of you who think that things unobservable are unsceinttific in the empirical sense, had better set those boys at Scientific American straight.

Here's the link to the full article: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the ... imes-arrow

Appearently things are somehow backwards, with entropy playing a central part in the mystery.



You call it a multiverse, I'll call it heaven.

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Bambi grew up to have horns

"Evolving" just means changing over time. No direction is implied. And be clear that when cosmologists talk about the cosmos evolving, or even about stellar evolution, that's not in any way related to biological evolution.


They don't need any setting straight. They are engaging in speculative hypothesizing, and they know that. There is nothing unscientific about speculative hypotheses, as long as they are recognized as speculative and not demonstrated fact.

To say it differently, these scientists enjoy using mathematics to explore some "what if" questions. They are having fun.

Really, there is nothing to see or say here. This isn't a subject that you can use for any of your ideas. Unless, of course, you just like to have fun with the mathematics.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

Well I personally would not say that they are 'not in any way' related, just as I would not say that they are 'in every way' related. Most assuredly, and utterly obviously... they are related and operate under the same physical laws.

And actually.., direction is implied. That was one of the main points of the article. Time is only moving in one direction, and it is tied inexorably with entropy.

This puzzles the scientist, but not those even partially familliar with the eternal.

You said they are only having fun...

so am I.

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Bambi grew up to have horns

Local evolution isn't hampered by the universal tendency toward "devolution".


If scientists were never puzzled, you'd be posting via smoke-signal.


It's a pity that those who are preoccupied with "the eternal" - whatever that is - aren't puzzled more often.

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What we really need to do is fix the public.
-- Jon

That seems like a silly response. My comment was that there is no direction to the evolution of the universe, not that there is no direction to time.


I expect that most scientists are not at all puzzled. The puzzling mostly comes from a few theoreticians who spend too much time philosophizing about their equations and models, and not enough time observing.

If you go back 20 or 30 years, you will probably find similar comments in Scientific American, perhaps in a sidebar rather than a full article. There is nothing new about this.

Some people think that scientific laws are "laws of nature", and are the fundamental rules by which the universe operates. Others say that they are only are best attempt to describe the universe, so are man-made laws. They say that scientific laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. For those in the second group (and I include myself there), it is no surprise that our descriptions are imperfect.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

Oh...

Well I was under the impression that the universe was in time. And since all things physical are subject to relativity, then all things follow time. And it moves in one direction according to scientists engaging in speculative hypothesizing.

but what do I know...?

Now that I have gotten the sarcasm out of the way, that was why I found the article so interesting and wanted to bring it to your attention. You see, if the universe was to have evolved (into higher states of order), then it is not a universe we can observe.

It's nothing new... the invocation of multiverses and laws of physics that are different than what we observe have been posited many times before.

It's called metaphysics; specifically metaphysical naturalism.

Just thought you should know. I am not anti-metaphysics. I just think it ironic that you and many others are so desperate to avoid the metaphysical, that you end up leaning on a metaphysical crutch to support your position.

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Bambi grew up to have horns

I do not know of any scientist who believes the universe will evolve into higher states of order.


Quite. It is speculative hypothesizing, which is often done in theoretical physics.


Actually, it is just mathematics and mathematical modeling.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

That is not what I am saying...

They (and you) must believe that it did at one time (if you can call it time, since time is the problem).



With no observable or empirical evidence to support it. That is called metaphysics nwr.

We cannot observe what caused the original ordering so as to allow for the entropy we observe now.

That's all...

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Bambi grew up to have horns

As I have often said, the universe is a disorderly place. There is no need to believe that it was ever in any higher state of order.

Take a deck of cards. Shuffle it, to make sure there isn't any order. Then deal out a hand of bridge. You still get some interesting bridge hands (i.e. an appearance of order).


If you do not understand the difference between mathematics and metaphysics, then there isn't much point in the discussion.


What original ordering? As I keep saying, the universe is a disorderly place.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

It seems to me that it is not belief... It is simply a fact that if things are becoming more disorderly as time passes, then if we were to go back in time things were more orderly. It couldn't be simpler really...



And that is why the author of the aritcle says there is something unnatural about our universe, and that 'something else' is going on. Robert Jastrow has made simmillar comments to the effect that he is very uneasy about the matter.




Fine nwr... that's fine... but compared to what? The past?

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Bambi grew up to have horns

I already answered that. If the whole universe was "more orderly" (in terms of energy distribution, at least) in the past, it doesn't require anything "unnatural" to produce local decreases in entropy.

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What we really need to do is fix the public.
-- Jon

We don't actually have any evidence that things are becoming more disorderly. Nobody has measured the entropy of the universe as a whole.


If the author says that, then the author is clearly mistaken. Our very notion of "natural" is based on the way the universe is, so by definition the universe could not be unnatural.

You need to keep in mind that the laws of physics define an idealized universe, and are only approximations to the real universe. So what the author presumably means is that the real universe does not match his ideals. Well, no big surprise there. It has always been my observation that real things do not match our ideals.


I was not making a comparison.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

And that is definetely part of the puzzle. What we can all agree on, is that there is more to the story as explained further below.



But that is the problem... the way the universe is, it is becoming more disordered. That is the natural state. But that cannot explain the original 'more ordered state'. As Robert Jastrow said in one of the question and answer segments of 'The Privilaged Planet', 'I feel I'm missing something'.



Perhaps our ideals are unnatural?



C'mon man... at the very least we are comparing things with our ideals. If you make no comparison then you are not doing science. Science requires testing, and testing requires comparison between at least two reference points, entities, witnesses, or whatever you like to label them.

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Bambi grew up to have horns

Call it what you will Rob. This does not mean the properties of the multiverse {if it does exist} are in any way applicable to whatever properties you would drag into the arguement concerning heaven.

Why do you insist on bringing a concept of religious origin to the table as though ancient people had any better notion of what a multiverse/"heaven" would entail since , as the article points out, it has not been observed?

Also the notion of "hints at" is not a concrete declaration of the validity of the ideas expressed in the article either.This is also not news as the notion of multiverse is many decades old nd for modern science goes back to Hugh Everett III http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Everett.

I remind you that the grasping of straws from fields of knowledge in which you have no firm understanding do not constitute an arguement in favour of your pre-concieved imaginings.

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It would seem "intelligent" design is all relative. In the land of the abysmally stupid, mere morons seem brilliant.

Just Al
Way of the Woo website

We don't actually know that.

If I shuffle a deck of cards, it becomes more disordered.

If I start with a randomized deck of cards, then it is already as disordered as it can possibly be. So if I shuffle it, then it doesn't actually become more disordered. The entropy doesn't actually increase. And if I deal out a bridge hand, that might still be an interesting bridge hand.

The randomized deck of cards might still contain a run of spades, even though randomized. And shuffling will break up that run. So it appears to increase entropy. But all it does is increase the local entropy in that short run of cards, without increasing the global entropy of the deck as a whole.

Our physics of entropy is mostly local. The local entropy is increasing, though it is usually admitted that statistically the local entropy could decrease though the probability of this is small. But we don't really have a good theory of global entropy (the entropy of the universe as a whole). It is plausible that, much like the randomized deck of cards, the entropy of the universe as a whole is at a maximum and doesn't actually increase.


This assumes that there was an "original 'more ordered state'." We cannot really know that.


It is natural to have ideals. It is unnatural to expect reality to match those ideals.


When I say "the universe is a disorderly place" I am not making comparisons. What I mean is probably not what you take to mean.

To say that the universe is orderly, would be to say that it is ordered. But there is no absolute meaning to "ordered". We can only say that it is ordered relative to a particular system of ordering it. When I say that the universe is disorderly, I am asserting that the universe does not come with its own canonical system of ordering. The only ordering we know are the ways that we humans have ordered it for our own purposes.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie