Entropy forbids Abiogenesis & Evolution

As discussed here extensively, nothing in “evolution” makes any sense: “natural selection, fitness, speciation, human evolution, gradualism, divergence of character, UCD, TOL, etc. etc.” Not one makes sense. Meanwhile, the “evolution” argument is just one big “affirms the consequent” logical fallacy, while Paley’s excellent argument has never been overturned, and an intuitive intelligent design detector can be used to easily disprove “evolution”. Is there a need for any more proofs? Not really. Are there any other proofs? You bet. Take entropy for instance…

Figure 1

Figure 2

  1. Second Law of Thermodynamics shows that a spontaneous process cannot also revert spontaneously. This is because spontaneous processes always increase the system’s entropy. A uniform gas in a chamber will accumulate in a corner only with external intervention and spontaneous chemical reactions can only revert if external work energy is applied. Current models of entropy assume the gas particles in a chamber to be independent (sometimes represented as pebbles on a Go board) and explains their never observed convergence on one side of the chamber as only due to that particular microstate having a very low probability(*). However, gas particles always interact with each other (Brownian motion) while pebbles do not. Thus, a reliable way to know that entropy of a system increases is if work energy could be obtained when transitioning from the low to the high entropy state while energy is always required for the reverse process.
  2. Total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease. Entropy is currently assumed just a statistical law. Thus, if N molecules are in an isolated system (box), the number of microstates associated with j of them being in one half while N-j being in the other half is Ω = N! / (j!*(N-j)!). If N is small, fluctuations seem possible, but before N increases to anything measurable, the probability of fluctuations rapidly decreases to nil. Furthermore, even these theoretical fluctuations, as improbable as they are, might be impossible since the statistical view does not account for molecular interaction observed as Brownian motion and as gas resistance to compression and expansion. Better fundamentals or statistics, either way entropy will never decrease spontaneously in an observable system (Fig 1.a).
  3. Decreasing entropy is not the reverse process of entropy increasing. That is why a broken egg coming together is easily identified as unreal and a reversed movie of its real shattering. The known laws of physics are the same forward and backward (time-reversal invariance), therefore the reverse shattering process of an egg would not violate any law, but only because these laws are always idealized. Supposedly, if just the right forces are applied to the broken pieces, the egg will come together. In reality this is impossible, and not because the unbroken egg is a highly unlikely microstate, but because entropy increase is not directly reversible even in non-isolated systems. This irreversibility holds for all heterogeneous systems, including life which is perhaps the most heterogeneous system of all. Entropy increase is directly reversible only for homogeneous systems and only if in a defined space. For instance, an expanding gas in an ideal piston creates a force that, when reversed, compresses the gas back into its original state. However, a solid cube of ice can be easily melted by increasing the temperature, but the original ice cube will not reconstitute by lowering the temperature, hence this process too is irreversible despite the cube of ice being homogeneous (Fig 1.b). As far as heterogeneous systems, even separating two mixed gases is way different than the original mixing process, hence mixing is irreversible (Fig 1.c). Entropy decrease is not only different, but also much more complex than entropy increase which is usually spontaneous. Abiogenesis is the entropy-lowering reverse of the biologic decay process, and therefore – if at all feasible – much more complex than adding chemicals and energies.
  4. Once in equilibrium, a “primordial soup” does not change spontaneously. Life is metastable – it requires certain forms of energy to sustain and spontaneously decays when it no longer receives that energy as well as after the end of the normal lifespan of the organism. It was hypothesized that random fluctuations can spontaneously create compounds and structures given enough time. Abiogenesis, as a reverse-decay process, cannot simply be an outcome of Brownian motion of the chemicals mix because a perpetual motion machine powered by decay and abiogenesis cycles would violate the ‘conservation of energy’ principle. Experimentally, one can confirm that chemical blends in static equilibrium never transition spontaneously into a different equilibrium state (this includes oscillating reactions after the settlement period).
  5. A “primordial soup” cannot generate life even if energy is applied. It was hypothesized that abiogenesis can be a product of tidal pools, deep sea hydrothermal vents, and the undersurface of ice caps where persistent and abundant energy is available in the form of thermal and electrochemical gradients. Indeed, energy can throw systems off balance and create all kind of chemical compounds and physical structures. However, as the energy applied increases, a complexity limit and hence a dynamic equilibrium is reached where molecule destruction offsets their creation and, if even more energy is applied, molecule destruction dominates, eventually leaving the experimenter with gunk and none of the desired molecules. Miller–Urey and subsequent experiments were not ended because they reached their goal – life – nor because they ran out of energy and materials, but because they reached this dynamic equilibrium, and by adding more of anything would have left them with fewer of the targeted compounds. The amino acids obtained were not the end product but the intermediate between the original molecules and the useless gunk that was the product of the Maillard reaction caused by the energy applied to the system. More complex molecules (and maybe life itself one day) can be created by intelligent designers adding targeted compounds and energies. Then “why can’t natural processes somewhere somehow just mimic the intelligent designer in this vast and almost timeless universe?” The better question is: “why insist on natural processes when the model to be mimicked is that of the intelligent designer?”
  6. If natural processes were capable of generating life, the environment would be full of intermediate bio-compounds. Life is so complex that laboratories have no hope of replicating it in the foreseeable future. However, if abiogenesis were an outcome of natural processes, the cell structure would be produced only from subsystems and complex biomolecules that in turn would depend on simpler molecules down to H-C-O-N, the atoms of life. A “primordial soup” capable of generating life, thus must contain all intermediate compounds from the atoms of life to the most complex biomolecules and subsystems in an ever-decreasing ratio as complexity increases. Not knowing anything about how this process would work (or even if possible), the most reasonable assumption is a normal distribution of outcomes with life being an n-sigma event (with n unknown) while the availability of the atoms of life being a 1-sigma event and anything else falling in between (Fig 2). Many x-sigma events would be required for each (x+1)-sigma event, with a good first approximation given by the normal density function. Thus, the 2-sigma event could be the basic molecules of life (water, methane, etc.), and we would expect only one of these events for every seven of the 1-sigma events. This approximation would further yield (in one scenario) 1/7 fewer molecules of life than atoms of life, 1/17 fewer simple lipids and carbohydrates molecules (3-sigma) than of molecules of life, 1/43 fewer complex lipids and carbohydrates (4-sigma) than 3-sigma events, 1/110 fewer amino acids (5-sigma) than 4-sigma, 1/291 fewer simple proteins (6-sigma) than 5-sigma, 1/771 fewer complex proteins (7-sigma) than 6-sigma and then – rule of thumb – 1/1600 (8-sigma), 1/3800 (9), 1/9100 (10), 1/22k (11), 1/52k (12), 1/126k (13), etc. fewer of each additional sigma event than previous event where 8+sigma being (this scenario) nucleic acids, short chains, long chains, organelle subsystems, organelles, other critical cell components and finally the fully functional biologic cell – the n-sigma event which is not quite life but good enough for this analysis. Then how can we test this?
  7. Apart from life itself, the complex molecules of life are nowhere to be found in the universe. To test the ‘natural processes’ hypothesis of abiogenesis, one must observe the intermediate components of life in nature and in the ratios estimated above (or from another reasonable estimate). In addition, one must observe the spontaneous transitions (aided by energy) from simple to complex even if not all transitions are observed at once. Earth is “polluted” with life down to the deepest ocean trenches, therefore the first focus is the extraterrestrial space where, too bad, the largest confirmed interstellar molecules have a maximum of 13 atoms (apart from C60/C70 fullerene). Back on earth we see all intermediate components, but only within life itself. Outside of the cells, aside from the simplest biomolecules, we only see products of decomposition that are never in the ratios associated with abiogenesis, meaning we never see increasing molecule complexity in decreasing ratios resembling anything reasonably expected. Abiogenesis is not happening due to the irreversibility of the entropy increase and for the same reason egg breaking, butter melting, gas mixing, etc. are not reversible processes. Humans can only create a few of the complex molecules, although most always aided by life itself, and even then the power of synthetic biology is severely restricted. The more complex, the harder these molecules are to obtain and the faster they decay instead of spontaneously combining with one another to form even more complex compounds and ultimately life.
  8. Miller–Urey style abiogenesis experiments are ill conceived, hence doomed from the beginning. To be more specific, they are only good for PR (public relations) given the irrelevant “organic compounds” created that raise the hopes of the believers. Trying to obtain an automobile from scratch by mixing chemicals and energy, qualifies the person attempting as delusional and the one selling such vision as charlatan. So why would those attempting the same with life – which is infinitely more complex than an automobile – not also be labeled charlatans and delusional? Abiogenesis experiments belong to the Reverse Engineering category of processes and, when done right, they are very different than Miller–Urey. Their starting point is never some “primordial soup”, but the most advanced compounds available, preferably already organized in working subsystems. Swapping organelles or parts within organelles, exposing organisms to various environments, attempting to revive dead organisms, substituting engineered subsystems and so on are part of the hard work with long tradition and already being done in medicine and many industries for other purposes than to prove abiogenesis. If and when someone will be able to reverse the decaying and dying processes, we will know that abiogenesis is possible as an act of Intelligent Design creation. To confirm abiogenesis as an “unguided process” we would have to observe reverse-decay and reverse-dying processes happening in nature, not in a lab. Yet 2nd law proves this impossible.
  9. Is abiogenesis not feasible because it was a unique event? If true, abiogenesis would be a “materialistic miracle” and furthermore not just one, but a long series of “materialistic miracles” since a long series of – so far unknown – events are needed to get from atoms to the simplest organism. Yet one of the tenets of materialism is “no miracles” showing the inconsistency of the materialistic “unique event” assertion. And of course, physics and chemistry transformations are never unique. And even if entropy allowed for abiogenesis, the laws of life do not follow from any priors (physics, chemistry, mathematics). Life has a drive to survive and leave off-springs which entails harm avoidance, immune system, metabolism, food seeking, homeostasis, growth, reproduction, and body structure. Without these, any cell would start decaying the instant it was formed as in fact it does as soon as it no longer is alive. Despite having lasted almost since the formation of The Earth, life is metastable – one knock and it dies and then decays. This is unlike other negative entropy machines that can be restored (rebuilding proportional with the damage).
  10. Other considerations.
    1. “Dissipation-driven adaptation of matter” (J. England, MIT) claims that life is inevitable because life “absorbs and dissipates more energy from external sources” leading to faster entropy increase. However, there is no law that entropy has to increase faster. In addition, most of the entropy in the universe is captured by black holes with life having a nil contribution to that entropy.
    2. Some claim they have obtained “protocells” that seem to mimic real cells at least in part. However, “protocells” are to biological cells as fool’s gold is to real gold.
    3. “Kolmogorov complexity is lowest at low and high entropy and high in the middle hence life is supposedly inevitable (S. Carroll)”. However, life is not complexity. Life is much more than snowflakes, vortices and chemical reactions (candle burning). And most certainly, life is not the complex swirls of cream mixing into coffee on a journey from low entropy to high entropy (both having low complexity). In addition, unless very specific external action continues to be applied to maintain those patterns, they soon disappear like in sand dunes exposed to shifting winds. The patterns therefore do no “arise”, but are created by an external force.
    4. “Gradients of energy in deep vents are responsible for abiogenesis”. But all organisms from these exotic places are very similar to any other ones found elsewhere, hence all likely have the same origin. In addition, no free floating organic compounds (aside from decay byproducts) have been found there to suggest ongoing abiogenesis. And, aside from the simplest molecules, no spontaneous transitions from x-sigma to (x+1)-sigma bio complexity has ever been observed around these deep vents either.
    5. Of course life does not violate 2nd Organisms do conform to 2nd law when they decay as soon as they die. In addition, as observed by Erwin Schrödinger, “the increase in entropy from turning our low-entropy food into our high-entropy waste is greater than the local decrease in entropy from making the well-ordered structures within our bodies”. Nothing special so far – a refrigerator does the same: creates a zone of low-entropy while the entropy of the whole system increases and for as long as it’s fed energy.
    6. Randomness can theoretically account for any bizarre occurrences including Paley’s watch and F. Hoyle’s 747 in baby steps if enough time is given. But no such event was ever observed. In addition, breaking down the unattainable complex system into a combination of simpler components, each with higher probability of occurrence makes it no easier as the probabilities of all subsystem have to be multiplied to get back to the complex final assembly.
    7. Some claim that life itself prevents abiogenesis by ingesting all intermediate molecules spontaneously formed, but this can be easily prevented in sterile labs. In addition, all complex intermediate molecules observed outside of cells are due to decomposition, not abiogenesis.
  11. “Evolution” corollary number 1. If abiogenesis is impossible as an undirected, natural process, then whoever is responsible for abiogenesis is also responsible for the biologic landscape past and present, therefore “evolution” is also impossible as an undirected, natural process.
  12. “Evolution” corollary number 2. It is easy to verify that nothing ever “evolves” in the nonliving nature. Life is said to be “just chemistry”. These two combine to: nothing “evolves” in the living either. Solar systems, geographical features, fluid eddies, chemistry, snow flakes, etc. all go through their life cycles, and all are different from each other, but the life cycles of the newer entities are no more “evolved” than the life cycles of the ancient ones.
  13. “Evolution” corollary number 3. Presumably, “evolution” has not ended. And if ongoing, then one must see the normal distribution of the different transitioning organisms (the intermediary), just as we would see if abiogenesis were true. If humans evolved from monkeys and “evolution” is ongoing, then humans must still be in transition especially since the human population is one of the largest of all mammals and, the more individuals, the more “evolving” opportunities. The older Darwinists replied with a hierarchy of races. But that reply is not only fashionably repugnant, but also false and, amazingly, contrary to [at least] the Abrahamic religions that have always known better.
  14. In conclusion, abiogenesis is nothing more than the decay process running backwards, therefore easily visualized, yet impossible according to the second law of thermodynamics. In other words, “evolution” is nothing more than imagination run wild. Expecting abiogenesis to be within reach if only the proper forces and chemical compounds were added is as wrong as expecting the broken egg to come back together if only the proper sequence of forces were applied to the broken pieces.

 

Summary:

  1. A spontaneous process cannot revert spontaneously.
  2. Mixtures will never ever spontaneously separate per second law.
  3. Decreasing entropy is not the reverse process of entropy increasing and also much more complex.
  4. Once in equilibrium, a “primordial soup” does not change spontaneously.
  5. A “primordial soup” cannot generate life even if energy is applied due to dynamic equilibrium.
  6. If natural processes were capable of generating life, the environment would be full of intermediate bio-compounds.
  7. Apart from life itself, the complex molecules of life are nowhere to be found in the universe.
  8. Abiogenesis experiments belong to the Reverse Engineering category of processes.
  9. Miller–Urey style abiogenesis experiments are ill conceived, hence doomed from the beginning.
  10. Abiogenesis unique event conflicts with the “no miracles” clause of materialism.
  11. Even if entropy allowed abiogenesis, the laws of life do not follow from any priors (physics, chemistry, mathematics).
  12. “Evolution” corollary number 1 – no abiogenesis, no “evolution”.
  13. “Evolution” corollary number 2 – no “evolution” in the inert and “life just chemistry”, then no “evolution” in the living.
  14. “Evolution” corollary number 3 – no intermediate “evolving” entities, no “evolution”.
  15. Being a decay process running backwards, abiogenesis is as impossible as a broken egg being reconstituted by the “proper sequence of forces”. “Evolution” is also nothing more than imagination run wild.

 

(*)R. Penrose “The Emperor’s new mind”; PBS SpaceTime “The Misunderstood Nature of Entropy”; Sean Carroll “From Eternity to Here”, etc.

Links:

Abiogenesis: The Faith and the Facts

James Tour: The Mystery of the Origin of Life

Chirality, Maillard – caramelization, characterize the structure at every step:

https://compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/10-critiques-of-miller-urey-experiments-and-abiogenesis/

https://creation.com/why-the-miller-urey-research-argues-against-abiogenesis

https://evolutionnews.org/2014/06/squeezing_the_l/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21422282

Entropy of a box of molecules

https://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/4-ideal-gas-containing-n-molecules-box-volume-v-box-two-equal-parts-volume-v-2-weight-numb-q43308678

Black holes entropy

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2253472/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution#Cumulative_distribution_function

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/07/05/no-the-laws-of-physics-are-not-the-same-forwards-and-backwards-in-time/#7eacd84561ec

http://entropysite.oxy.edu/

http://physics.bu.edu/~redner/211-sp06/class-engines/class25_secondlaw.html

https://www.quora.com/How-quickly-is-the-entropy-of-the-sun-changing

https://www.thoughtco.com/how-many-atoms-in-human-cell-603882

https://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-Modern-Physics-Sean-Carroll/dp/1598038699

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elements_abundance-bars.svg – abundance in the solar system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteinogenic_amino_acid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gene_synthesis

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-physics-theory-of-life/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissipative_system

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/the-cosmic-origins-of-uranium.aspx

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/radiation-and-health/naturally-occurring-radioactive-materials-norm.aspx

https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/exploring.html

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/7/2555

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/bigpicture/

610 thoughts on “Entropy forbids Abiogenesis & Evolution

  1. Allan Miller:

    CharlieM,

    Using standard evolutionary thinking, all these vital interdependent adaptations in each case will have been somehow ‘stumbled upon’ and ‘cobbled together’. How lucky is that!

    No luckier than having some Intelligence that just kinda knows what conditions the frogs ‘must’ face, makes sure their genomes are poised to make the necessary changes without excessive disruption elsewhere, and then makes the changes, all by means mysterious. If we’re trading “why, dat’s crazy talk” lampoons, that is.

    You are looking at things from the perspective of human wisdom, limited as we are in time and space. But even these days humans are capable of consciously manipulating genomes with a view to the future. I am proposing that animals have a group wisdom which is far superior to individual human wisdom. Individual wood frogs may be relatively lacking in intelligence, but what if they form part of a group which as a whole is highly intelligent. Individual frogs are a microcosm of this macrocosmic group in the same way that our bodily cells are a microcosm of which we as individuals are a macrocosm?

    It is very noticeable that modern thinking allows speculation about infinite or multi-universes as long as they are seen as being on a equal footing with the our familiar universe. But what about higher dimensions? If we take our guide from mathematics, an infinity of one dimension would be a single dimension at the next higher level. For instance three dimensional space can be said to consist of an infinity of two dimensional planes. And so a multiverse may likewise be a unitary higher dimension. What we see as a multiplicity of independent beings may very well be a unity on a higher level. The x axis which bisects a sine wave produces a multitude of single points but the wave is still a unity.. Some of us see through a glass, darkly, some of us see just shadows on the wall.

    Maybe it is worth considering that there are more things in heaven and Earth, Dusty, than are dreamt of in your philosophy 🙂

    So perhaps the thought should be considered that all of the reality we think we know, including our own being, exists in this higher dimension whether we are aware of it or not. And it’s possible that the intelligence behind the attributes of these frogs comes from this higher dimension. This intelligence would be well capable of producing living physical bodies that can survive in these extreme environments

  2. CharlieM,

    Maybe it is worth considering that there are more things in heaven and Earth, Dusty, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

    Right back atcha, Chas.

    Problem is, what you are doing is literally dreaming up philosophy. If your justification for a position is ‘well, maybe its mechanism is Something We Don’t Understand Yet But One Day Will’, that does nothing to persuade one that your woo has substance. You kind of jumped the shark with the stuff about frogs and livers!

    You are adopting a stance nicely lampooned in Douglas Adams’s Parable Of The Puddle – as if there is No Way to get to adaptation without it, somehow, being Willed. But that is untrue.

    It is simply not necessary to go to the trouble of postulating anticipatory and manipulative Intelligence as the basis of all organismal adaptation – particularly if its only job is to get past your resistance to the idea of things being ‘cobbled together’. You replace the superficially absurd by the deeply absurd, if that’s its task. It explains nothing, by pretending to explain everything.

  3. Allan Miller: Other than that, you pound the Miller-Urey nail ad nauseam. That’s it. That’s the whole of abiogenesis research, which should have had a result by now, according to you.

    That’s the only “result”. And it’s still being pushed – not by me – but by your side. Obviously there’s nothing better out there.

    Allan Miller: Your arguments against abiogenesis are also arguments against anabolism, if you did but know it.

    False. You can’t just take something only the living does and extend to the inert. Prove anabolism in the inert.

    Allan Miller: You insist, with grotesque cluelessness, that coupled reactions cannot create a net negative ΔG.

    False statement.

    Allan Miller: Whether local entropy decrease happens does not depend on the percentage of energy dissipated! All it requires is that some is dissipated.

    You’re completely lost in your own incoherence. Your initial claim was that, in a system, entropy can decrease even when 100% of the energy is dissipated. That is completely false and stupid as proven. Admit it and move on!

    Allan Miller: I reckon the fridge works harder with the door open than with it closed, however many litres of water are in it. You don’t, it seems.

    It works harder because it makes LOTS of ice that melts instantly because of the open door. Which you don’t see and ignorantly think it’s not happening. Haha. And you’re so badly confused you mix two different experiments. Wow!

    Allan Miller: Leave honey in a cupboard with the lid on at constant temperature, you still get crystals. That’s spontaneous.

    Retard statement showing utter ignorance. With no consideration for what happened before and actually drove the crystallization.

    Allan Miller: It’s not the molten form, but it’s definitely a liquid.

    Stop mumbling and admit you were wrong.

    Allan Miller: This is an important fact about entropy: it’s not intrinsic.

    Are you SURE? Boltzmann thinks otherwise! Haha.

    Allan Miller: They aren’t. This is just a Litany Of Wrong, with added chest-beating.

    Show your experimental evidence for fluctuations in equilibrium. You CAN’T because I’m right and you’re wrong! Haha.

    Allan Miller: You write against it, then fall victim to it. So you don’t even listen to yourself. Example follows shortly.

    Hahahahaaaa! Broken chemical bonds when you crack an egg!
    Hahahaaaaaa! Broken chemical bonds mean higher entropy!
    Right answer, wrong reason.

    Haha. No, I’m not going to argue against the ‘order’ metaphor. The thing you ‘write against’.

    You’re not making any sense. Again. But you think you got something there, so I would be curious to see what exactly you think you got… and to deflate your balloon.

    Could it be your incorrect generalization from broken egg chemical bonds to ALL chemical bonds? That’s it, right? Sooo stupid. Haha.

  4. Nonlin.org: Obviously there’s nothing better out there.

    Sure there is!

    I’m sure whatever you believe about the origin of life is scientific and therefore testable. Right?

    So, let’s have it.

  5. Entropy: P.S. The results of the Miller-Urey experiment were complex chemicals built from simpler ones. That’s anabolism.

    That is NOT anabolism. Look it up! BTW, that experiment was done by the living Miller and Urey… even if almost brain dead.

    I know little monkeys go bananas for nuts or nuts for bananas, whatever. Either way, they can’t control themselves, so shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously more than occasionally by humans.

    OMagain: b) It neatly disproves your specific claim that simple molecules cannot come together to form more complex molecules.

    NO. You don’t know the origin of those molecules. And FOR SURE they didn’t “come together” because they don’t in the lab either. They are caused by something.

    OMagain: Therefore if we define Abiogenesis as “simple molecules come together to form complex molecules and cells” and we define amino acids as complex then Abiogenesis has been observed.

    You can’t define abiogenesis into existence. It means “inert to life through undirected processes”, not what you want.

    DNA_Jock: What, precisely, is the claim that you are volunteering?

    You can’t follow the thread?!? WTF. This:

    Nonlin.org: DNA_Jock: nonlin knows things about the system that are not true (specifically, that the energy is always evenly spread amongst individual atoms).

    Only at equilibrium.

    If “not true”, all you need is to provide one example of uneven energy spread in an isolated system in equilibrium. Do it!

    DNA_Jock: All I would need to show is a system that is not exchanging energy with the ‘outside’ world and experiences a decrease in entropy, per nonlin.
    [Note: spontaneity don’t enter into it.]
    If only someone practicing nonlin physics had offered up an example of such a system…oh, look:

    No man. EXPERIMENTAL evidence, not an INCOMPLETE theoretical model. Do you know what “experimental evidence” means? Look it up and try to imitate. And the precise claim is “no fluctuations in equilibrium”, not “decrease in entropy” even if these may overlap.

    BTW, Stanford’s Susskind is dead wrong in the first ten minutes. First because of the “fluctuations in equilibrium” claim. Which you have yet to acknowledge. And second and more egregious, for modeling particles in a system with coins and dice. You do know why he’s DEAD wrong on that, don’t you? Do you? No, you don’t. Haha. Clue: for the same reason I cite the Go board model to be wrong in par 1.

    Allan Miller,

    Yada yada… and more nonsense. Or you could have just admitted you were WRONG and I caught your mistake.

  6. Nonlin.org: NO. You don’t know the origin of those molecules. And FOR SURE they didn’t “come together” because they don’t in the lab either. They are caused by something.

    So you believe intelligence put them there? That on random meteors something is going around putting complex molecules there?

    Nonlin.org: ou can’t define abiogenesis into existence. It means “inert to life through undirected processes”, not what you want.

    Your specific claim was that complex molecules don’t form without intelligent intervention. I pointed out they literally fall from the sky.

    That you want to not talk about how you were wrong about that and instead about actual abiogenesis, a step after complex molecules are available (presumably) is par for the course for you.

    But here, let me repeat once more:

    You said:

    Decay: cells and complex molecules break apart to form simpler molecules. Abiogenesis: simple molecules come together (imaginary) to form complex molecules and cells.

    I said:

    It seems that complex molecules are literally falling out of the sky. Did your magic man put them there?

    You said:

    Aminoacids are not life as Miller-Urey sadly found out.

    So again you conflate two things. It’s your claim that complex molecules can’t form without god (presumably). I’m pointing out they are falling from the sky.

    I’m not saying life is falling from the sky.
    I’m not saying that complex molecules = abiogenesis
    I’m not saying these molecules are involved in abiogenesis

    I’m saying you made a simple claim and I proved you wrong. Then you changed what that claim was about.

    This is all documented on this very thread and I’ve repeated it twice now.

    Why don’t you tell me what the origin of these molecules actually is then?

  7. Fun to see nonlin claim that Prof Susskind is “dead wrong” for the first ten minutes. He really should publish this stuff.

    Nonlin.org: If “not true”, all you need is to provide one example of uneven energy spread in an isolated system in equilibrium. Do it!

    I did already, but you lack the basic comprehension to notice.
    Remember, your claim is that, at equilibrium, the energy must be spread evenly amongst the individual molecules. You are claiming that, at equilibrium, ‘fluctuations’ do not occur, viz:

    Nonlin.org: Show your experimental evidence for fluctuations in equilibrium. You CAN’T because I’m right and you’re wrong! Haha

    If you knew anything about reaction kinetics, you would realize that your claims are bogus. Thats why I wrote:

    he sees much lower entropy in small systems than physicists do, because nonlin knows things about the system that are not true (specifically, that the energy is always evenly spread amongst individual atoms). This ‘knowledge advantage’ of his leads to contraventions of the 2nd Law. In other news, it also means Arrhenius was wrong.

    Arrhenius observed an empirical relationship between reaction rates and activation energies. Maxwell-Boltzmann (are these names perhaps familiar?) provided the theory explaining Arrhenius’s results.
    There’s a cool animation here, too. For your entertainment, I screen-grabbed the beginning and the end of the sim, because it illustrates the opposite of “regression to the mean”: over time, the distribution of energies spreads out until, at equilibrium, it conforms with the M-B distribution.
    LOL

  8. Nonlin.org:
    That is NOT anabolism. Look it up! BTW, that experiment was done by the living Miller and Urey… even if almost brain dead.

    You’re contradicting yourself: you’re attempting to imply that it’s not anabolism because it’s not being done by “the living,” only to then contradict yourself and claim that it was done by “the living”.

    Either way, you cannot defeat the point, which is why you so desperately contradicted yourself in one go. Complex molecules were formed from simpler ones, and you know that didn’t happen inside these guys bodies. Entropy didn’t mind, leaving you with no counterargument except for a silly definitional gambit that didn’t go well. Sorry, complex molecules were still formed from simpler ones in an abiogenesis experiment, therefore not against the second law of thermodynamics, and therefore not “reverse-decay.”

    After you’ve weirdly admitted defeat twice, why don’t you just admit that I’m RIGHT and found you WRONG? I mean, isn’t that what you ask from others? Beam in thy own eye and all that?

    🤣

  9. Nonlin.org:
    You can’t define abiogenesis into existence. It means “inert to life through undirected processes”, not what you want.

    Beam in thy own eye and all that: abiogenesis is not what you want either. Abiogenesis is what it is, regardless of your definitional gambits, which, as we have seen, don’t have any effects on reality despite your desires to the contrary.

    Abiogenesis is the origin of life from simpler chemistry and physics, both of which are abundant in processes that have directions. You already admitted defeat in this regard, so don’t pretend otherwise just because you think I’m not looking. That’d be a tad disingenuous.

  10. Nonlin.org:
    I know little monkeys go bananas for nuts or nuts for bananas, whatever. Either way, they can’t control themselves, so shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously more than occasionally by humans.

    Oh, don’t worry. I’m not taking you seriously at all. I’m just having fun with your incoherence and you ability to do worser and worser. I wonder if you have a limit.

    Thanks again for the entertainment.

  11. Nonlin.org: That’s the only “result”. And it’s still being pushed – not by me – but by your side. Obviously there’s nothing better out there.

    Proving the point. “There’s so much abiogenesis research being done that there’d be bound to be a result by now. Why, there’s Miller-Urey … And… And… well, that’s all I can think of, but I bet there’s loads more!”

    False. You can’t just take something only the living does and extend to the inert. Prove anabolism in the inert.

    Missing the point (quelle surprise). If coupled reactions cannot result in an overall negative ΔG, anabolism cannot happen – even in the ‘ert’ 🤣

    Me: You insist, with grotesque cluelessness, that coupled reactions cannot create a net negative ΔG.
    Nonlin: False statement.

    Ah, so you accept that. That has certainly not been clear hitherto. OK, that being so, coupled reactions are the way out of the ‘spontaneity paradox’. If you insist that non-biological reactions cannot locally decrease entropy due to their ‘non-spontaneity’, spontaneity can in fact be achieved, in principle, by coupling. Therefore the ‘non-spontaneity’ of any individual reaction doesn’t ‘forbid abiogenesis’.

    You’re completely lost in your own incoherence. Your initial claim was that, in a system, entropy can decrease even when 100% of the energy is dissipated.

    And indeed it can, as you would see if you had the mental capacity to follow my breathtakingly clear and concise exposition. Your dispute seems to hang on an equivocation between ‘dispersal’ (Lambert’s term) and ‘dissipation’ (in classical thermodynamics, that fraction of energy that fails to do work). In plain English, they are near-synonyms. But of course, because you speak ‘the language of science’, you reserve ‘dissipation’ for the portion of an original quantity of energy that fails to be converted into useful work. I applaud this insistence on scientific exactitude, and concede the point. 100% ‘dispersal’ /= 100% ‘dissipation’ (If work is done). In a similar spirit, I look forward to seeing you make less of a fucking mess of such concepts as ‘spontaneous’ and ‘equilibrium’. 🤣

    It works harder because it makes LOTS of ice that melts instantly because of the open door. Which you don’t see and ignorantly think it’s not happening.

    Srsly?

    Haha. And you’re so badly confused you mix two different experiments. Wow!

    Perhaps you could describe these experiments concisely and label them 1 and 2.

    Retard statement showing utter ignorance. With no consideration for what happened before and actually drove the crystallization.

    ‘What happened before’ has no place in a consideration of the evolution of an entropic system. It is in a particular state, and moves into another, with either conservation or increase of entropy. What drives crystallisation in that scenario is the loss of heat – the enthalpy of crystallisation.

    Stop mumbling and admit you were wrong.

    You were unclear with your slack use of the term ‘liquid form’. Perhaps ‘molten form’ would have been a better choice. Whatever; crystallisation from a saturated solution is a thermodynamically spontaneous process that results in overall entropy increase.

    Are you SURE? Boltzmann thinks otherwise! Haha.

    Hmmm. Some dead guy? We only have your report for that.

    Show your experimental evidence for fluctuations in equilibrium. You CAN’T because I’m right and you’re wrong! Haha.

    You just had Boltzmann propped up, Weekend At Bernie’s style. Now you want to shove him back in the box? Because that’s where fluctuations come from: probabilistic Statistical Mechanics.

    You’re not making any sense. Again. But you think you got something there, so I would be curious to see what exactly you think you got… and to deflate your balloon.

    Map-territory confusion. When people try to work with a system in which the entire egg is a macrostate and the broken egg one of its microstates, you know they’ve mistaken the illustration for the thing being illustrated.

    Could it be your incorrect generalization from broken egg chemical bonds to ALL chemical bonds? That’s it, right? Sooo stupid. Haha.

    Eggshells are CaCO3. You don’t break any of the bonds in any of those molecules when you crack an egg. It is a physical change, not a chemical one. Sooo stoopid.

  12. OMagain: Why don’t you tell me what the origin of these molecules actually is then?

    I don’t know and more importantly, YOU don’t know. When you find out FOR SURE, not your bullshit belief, we will discuss what that means. Hint: “complex molecules” (aminoacids) means nothing to abiogenesis given Urey Miller already got that far… with a lot of sustained effort specifically target at lowering entropy… which just confirms how difficult it is to lower entropy. QED.

    DNA_Jock: Remember, your claim is that, at equilibrium, the energy must be spread evenly amongst the individual molecules. You are claiming that, at equilibrium, ‘fluctuations’ do not occur, viz:

    DNA_Jock: Arrhenius observed an empirical relationship between reaction rates and activation energies. Maxwell-Boltzmann (are these names perhaps familiar?) provided the theory explaining Arrhenius’s results.

    Sadly (or not), you fail again.

    Note that neither article YOU CITE calls that phenomenon ‘fluctuation’, which is what we’re talking about. That is simply because that is not what ‘fluctuation’ means. And the Arrhenius observation is specifically NOT about equilibrium.

    Read again the OP with a focus on ‘fluctuations’, and remember we’re talking about fluctuations in equilibrium that would spontaneously reduce local entropy and thus lead to abiogenesis. Those are NOT happening. So entropy still forbids abiogenesis.

    Entropy: Complex molecules were formed from simpler ones, and you know that didn’t happen inside these guys bodies.

    “Complex molecules” are not life, so no abiogenesis there. Two guys making some “complex molecules” is trivial and boring. Now, if they made some nuts or bananas, then I could see little monkeys going bananas or nuts.

    Allan Miller: Why, there’s Miller-Urey … And… And… well, that’s all I can think of, but I bet there’s loads more!”

    Then get to work and don’t complain to me for your failure to produce abiogenesis.

    Allan Miller: If coupled reactions cannot result in an overall negative ΔG, anabolism cannot happen – even in the ‘ert’

    Is that a crazy face? Cause it’s so fitting.

    Allan Miller: OK, that being so, coupled reactions are the way out of the ‘spontaneity paradox’. If you insist that non-biological reactions cannot locally decrease entropy due to their ‘non-spontaneity’, spontaneity can in fact be achieved, in principle, by coupling. Therefore the ‘non-spontaneity’ of any individual reaction doesn’t ‘forbid abiogenesis’.

    More crazy talk? “Spontaneity by coupling”?!? WTF?

    Allan Miller: our dispute seems to hang on an equivocation between ‘dispersal’ (Lambert’s term) and ‘dissipation’ (in classical thermodynamics, that fraction of energy that fails to do work). In plain English, they are near-synonyms.

    Right. Let’s defer to some lamprey guy from now on. OR NOT.

    Allan Miller: Perhaps you could describe these experiments concisely and label them 1 and 2.

    Or you could go read. Anyway, you’re playing the lamprey defense.

    Allan Miller: ‘What happened before’ has no place in a consideration of the evolution of an entropic system.

    Before what? Evaporation (or cooling) resulting in crystallization is ONE process and a slow one. I’m not sure how you measure entropy in nonequilibrium.

    Allan Miller: Whatever; crystallisation from a saturated solution is a thermodynamically spontaneous process that results in overall entropy increase.

    False. See above.

    Allan Miller: Nonlin: Show your experimental evidence for fluctuations in equilibrium. You CAN’T because I’m right and you’re wrong! Haha.

    You just had Boltzmann propped up, Weekend At Bernie’s style. Now you want to shove him back in the box? Because that’s where fluctuations come from: probabilistic Statistical Mechanics.

    Let’s see: did I ask for EXPERIMENTAL evidence? Check. Did you provide EXPERIMENTAL evidence? Fail!

    Allan Miller: When people try to work with a system in which the entire egg is a macrostate and the broken egg one of its microstates, you know they’ve mistaken the illustration for the thing being illustrated.

    Huh?!? Do try to make sense.

    Allan Miller: Eggshells are CaCO3. You don’t break any of the bonds in any of those molecules when you crack an egg. It is a physical change, not a chemical one.

    Do you mistake eggshells for eggs again? That old trick, huh? Works every time on the ignorant. Haha.

  13. This discussion is going in wider and wider circles.

    Back to basics:
    1. Entropy lowering is way harder than entropy increasing
    2. Abiogenesis, if there were such a thing, would lower the entropy dramatically from the base molecules to cell
    3. If abiogenesis were true, it would happen like decay, but in reverse. At least end-to-end but also most of step-by-steps.
    4. No evidence of abiogenesis in nature. Can’t be done in the lab beyond aminoacids which is pathetic. Meaning there’s a loooooong way to go.
    5. Equilibrium static/dynamic is a bitch.
    6. EVEN IF you get the cell, the laws of life won’t follow from any math, chemistry and physics we know.

  14. Nonlin.org: Note that neither article YOU CITE calls that phenomenon ‘fluctuation’, which is what we’re talking about. That is simply because that is not what ‘fluctuation’ means. And the Arrhenius observation is specifically NOT about equilibrium.

    If I call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
    It matters not what ‘fluctuation’ may or may not mean. And of course Arrhenius applies at equilibrium; the whole point was to understand the relationship between the equilibrium constant and the rates of the forward and reverse reactions. You should probably read the opening paragraph of the wiki article I linked to, if you are able. The fact is that nonlin physics is not consistent with observed reality, whereas the physics of Lienhard and Susskind is. Nonlin physics is not even internally consistent, which is a dead give-away 😀
    It is experimentally verifiable that, at equilibrium, individual molecules have a distribution of different energy levels. If nonlin’s socialist physics were correct, then chemical reactions would not occur at all below a threshold temperature, then suddenly and dramatically increase to near maximal values. That’s not what happens, silly.

    Read again the OP with a focus on ‘fluctuations’, and remember we’re talking about fluctuations in equilibrium that would spontaneously reduce local entropy and thus lead to abiogenesis. Those are NOT happening. So entropy still forbids abiogenesis.

    No we are not. This is word salad. To highlight one of many errors in your thinking, no-one thinks that abiogenesis could occur at “equilibrium”. You are confusing “equilibrium” with “steady state”. Impress us all and show that you understand the difference…

  15. Allan Miller: So the fridge works harder when the door is closed than open

    YES! You see, the fridge is part of Nature. And Nature knows what it wants. And who you are to say what Nature desires?

  16. Allan Miller: It’s a measure of the capacity to disperse energy, or, the same thing, to do work.

    Entropy is a MEASURE. It’s not a FORCE. It does not CAUSE things to happen, nor does it PREVENT anything from happening.

    Can you be CONSISTENT in your application of this insight?

  17. Allan Miller: Are you sure the resistance of wood frogs to freezing is all down to their being amphibians;

    LoL! Are you sure that your resistance to freezing is all down to being your being whatever you are? How would you know?

  18. Allan Miller: Qualitatively, we have a contest between ‘missing info’, ‘order’, ‘unavailability of energy to do work’ and ‘energy spreading out’.

    Who cares, really? Science and Truth? Hilarious.

    There is no such thing as objective Truth, There is no such thing as objective scientific Truth. Science is not a search for anything that even remotely resembles Truth.

  19. Mung: Entropy is a MEASURE. It’s not a FORCE. It does not CAUSE things to happen, nor does it PREVENT anything from happening.

    Can you be CONSISTENT in your application of this insight?

    Don’t really know what you’re trying to say, but I’ll try!

  20. Nonlin.org: Then get to work and don’t complain to me for your failure to produce abiogenesis.

    So you concede the point; there has not been enough abiogenesis research done to settle the question. Excellent. Baby steps.

    More crazy talk? “Spontaneity by coupling”?!? WTF?

    Perhaps you need to learn what ‘spontaneous’ means in reaction kinetics? Now you’re apparently going back on what you appeared to accept. Therefore, your view of reaction kinetics ‘forbids’ anabolism. QED.

    Or you could go read.

    Can’t be arsed to reconstruct your ‘experiments’ from the thread history. You can’t express them in 2 sentences, not my problem.

    Before what? Evaporation (or cooling) resulting in crystallization is ONE process and a slow one.

    Evaporation is not the only way to get to the saturation point of a solution. It doesn’t matter which mechanism achieved it, and what the hell ‘slow’ is doing there I don’t know. When at saturation point, either history will do. All that matters is the accessibility of a higher-entropy state from that point.

    Huh?!? Do try to make sense.

    No speakee English?

    Let me try a question: Do you think a broken egg is a microstate of an unbroken one?
    Or another: quantify the entropy change on breaking an egg. Nothing drastic; just tapping it on the edge of a bowl. Don’t forget to account for all the inputs and outputs.

    False. See above.

    True. See above.

    Do you mistake eggshells for eggs again? That old trick, huh? Works every time on the ignorant. Haha.

    What’s the reaction when you ‘break chemical bonds’ in breaking an egg then, O Wise One? CaCO3 -> ???? Or does some reaction happen to the contents on exposure to air? If so, what?

  21. Mung asks:
    Does he even know how nonsensical his claims are, and why?

    “heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body”

    Why not, oh master of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics?

    Well, as I noted on the previous page, because that is how we define “hotter”. But if you actually want to have a conversation about thermodynamics, at some point you will need to state what YOU think, and why. So far, my prediction is holding up.

  22. Nonlin.org:
    “Complex molecules” are not life, so no abiogenesis there.

    Complex molecules from simpler ones is anabolism, nice try though.

    Nonlin.org:
    Two guys making some “complex molecules” is trivial and boring.

    It wasn’t two guys, it was a system with simple molecules subject to electric bursts. The guys had no intention of building molecules, the guys wanted to see if complex molecules would from under those circumstances. They didn’t know if that would happen.

    Nonlin.org:
    Now, if they made some nuts or bananas, then I could see little monkeys going bananas or nuts.

    Please stop calling yourself a monkey. How can you expect me to respect you if you don’t respect yourself? I know you’d go nuts and bananas if the experiments went that far, you already went nuts and bananas just to try and deny complex molecules from simpler ones. Since that didn’t work, you’re trying to move the goalposts by hand-waving something you first said was “impossible” because of “Nonlin’s laws of thermodynamics.” Sorry, it happened under Miller-Urey conditions, it happens under many more conditions, some even forming more interesting molecules, and there’s nothing you can do against reality. Sorry. Reality and science trump Nonlin’s laws of thermodynamics. That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s going to stay no matter how much shit you want to fling around in your tantrums.

    Why won’t you save further embarrassment and just admit that I’m right and you’re wrong? Beam in thy own eye and all that?

  23. Nonlin.org:
    1. Entropy lowering is way harder than entropy increasing

    Nothing to do with abiogenesis.

    Nonlin.org:
    2. Abiogenesis, if there were such a thing, would lower the entropy dramatically from the base molecules to cell

    No, it would not lower the entropy, it would make use of the energy gradients to go from base molecules to the incipient replicators, thus entropy would increase, not decrease.

    Nonlin.org:
    3. If abiogenesis were true, it would happen like decay, but in reverse. At least end-to-end but also most of step-by-steps.

    If end-to-end is all that matters for your “definition”, then to be consistent you’d have to call your own development “reverse-decay.” Definitional games don’t magically transform into a problem for abiogenesis. Sorry. definitional games are just that: definitional games. This has caused you lots of ridicule, but you just won’t let go. I wonder if you have any sense of shame or decency.

    Nonlin.org:
    4. No evidence of abiogenesis in nature. Can’t be done in the lab beyond aminoacids which is pathetic. Meaning there’s a loooooong way to go.

    No evidence of abiogenesis in nature? Look around you! The planet is filled with life! That life must have started at some point. It wasn’t always there.

    Sure, there might be a loooooooooong way to go to understand how it happened. So what?

    Nonlin.org:
    5. Equilibrium static/dynamic is a bitch.

    For you it is. Another of your definitional games to try and deny that things happen, despite you been alive and all. It’s a spectacular failure, but you just won’t let go mistaking any kind of equilibrium for thermodynamic equilibrium and thus attempting to deny that things do happen, unaware that you’re denying your own existence.

    Nonlin.org:
    6. EVEN IF you get the cell, the laws of life won’t follow from any math, chemistry and physics we know.

    This, as cryptic as it sounds, has nothing to do with thermodynamics, entropy, abiogenesis, etc. At best, if there’s anything to it, it would have to do with your inability to think beyond abject reductionism. If so. stop calling yourself Nonlin, and call yourself “AbsolutelyLinear”

  24. DNA_Jock: If I call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
    It matters not what ‘fluctuation’ may or may not mean.

    It kind of does. A lot.

    Furthermore, go check the cause of Brownian motion. As far as we know, it is driven by external interactions, therefore it doesn’t “arise” spontaneously in equilibrium. That’s why you can increase it with heat and pressure.

    And these Brownian motion nonuniformities – which are definitely NOT fluctuations as shown – cannot be harnessed (let alone spontaneously happening) for any entropy lowering as needed for abiogenesis.

    DNA_Jock: The fact is that nonlin physics is not consistent with observed reality, whereas the physics of Lienhard and Susskind is.

    BTW, I finally got through Susskind’s lecture. Did you like when he told you entropy is the measure of YOUR ignorance? And that entropy can be infinite? Haha. What an ugly mess? Mixing information with physics! And towards the end he launches another bomb: Shannon didn’t know about entropy? WTF? Of course I checked and guess what, that’s total bullshit. The word entropy is in his paper!

    There’s a batch of “physicists” that you see a lot in the media of which Susskind is a great example. Maybe smart, but probably 90% Cali hippy gurus of bullshit philosophy and only 10% scientists. No wonder you’re falling head over heels for them.

    DNA_Jock: It is experimentally verifiable that, at equilibrium, individual molecules have a distribution of different energy levels.

    I already said that Lienhard’s model is bullshit and definitely not related to anything experimental. Now you’re mixing that with the experimental Brownian motion in hope of scoring some cheap points. No such luck. We both know that one is not a true model of the other or of anything real.

    DNA_Jock: To highlight one of many errors in your thinking, no-one thinks that abiogenesis could occur at “equilibrium”.

    Some time ago, YOU were the one saying fluctuations can happen in equilibrium (and NO, I am not back searching for that pearl). And why wouldn’t you? That is the current understanding of entropy. Only it’s dead wrong! And yes, it was in the context of abiogenesis and the products of the Maillard reaction.

    As far as equilibrium, the point was quite clear: there are several equilibria, NONE conducive to sustained entropy reduction on the scale needed for abiogenesis (par 4 & 5). And the whole universe is almost always in one of these forms. The only place where you can seek abiogenesis is in some catastrophic transformation or intelligent intervention. And to go from simple molecules to the cell, it takes a LOT of transformations that human intelligent intervention CAN’T currently do. So forget about catastrophic events too. QED. Confirmed experimentally by the utter lack of intermediate compounds (yes, yes, bacteria ate your homework, I got it).

  25. Allan Miller: So you concede the point; there has not been enough abiogenesis research done to settle the question.

    Yeah, sure “not enough”. But now that you’re on the case… Haha.

    Allan Miller: Perhaps you need to learn what ‘spontaneous’ means in reaction kinetics? Now you’re apparently going back on what you appeared to accept. Therefore, your view of reaction kinetics ‘forbids’ anabolism.

    I don’t find any support for your “Spontaneity by coupling” and even less for “entropy reducing” such thing. So “crazy” it is.

    Allan Miller: Evaporation is not the only way to get to the saturation point of a solution. It doesn’t matter which mechanism achieved it, and what the hell ‘slow’ is doing there I don’t know. When at saturation point, either history will do. All that matters is the accessibility of a higher-entropy state from that point.

    You’re not making any sense. Again.

    Allan Miller: Let me try a question: Do you think a broken egg is a microstate of an unbroken one?

    No. Entropy has increased.

    What exactly do you think you’re doing? Probing of filling your learning gaps?

    Allan Miller: Or another: quantify the entropy change on breaking an egg.

    I suppose one could do an experiment to measure the change in entropy. Not the absolute value. And no calculations – it’s too complex and variable.

    Allan Miller: Don’t forget to account for all the inputs and outputs.

    Haha.

    Allan Miller: What’s the reaction when you ‘break chemical bonds’ in breaking an egg then, O Wise One? CaCO3 -> ???? Or does some reaction happen to the contents on exposure to air? If so, what?

    CaCO3?!? Haha. Stop asking stupid questions.

    Entropy,

    Oh no! Incoherent little monkey is hyperventilating. Oh well.

  26. Nonlin.org:
    Oh no! Incoherent little monkey is hyperventilating. Oh well.

    Don’t panic! I know I’ve been devastating your incoherent bullshit too easily, but no need for you to hyperventilate. The solution is simple: admit that I’m right and you’re wrong and you’ll feel better.

  27. He does seem to have lost the plot even more than usual. I am enjoying the fact that, when I introduced him to Susskind’s first video, I made the wisecrack that “Actually, keiths and I are probably the only people who will agree with everything he says…” which Allan spotted as a reference to the Entropy-is-a-measure-of-our-ignorance-school that keiths and I have defended against the Dispersalists and Claussians.
    Allan and I had a playful banter on the subject; I finished by noting “Using entropy as a measure of ignorance helps to explain nonlin’s counting problem:”
    Soooo, with that background, nonlin’s

    Did you like when he told you entropy is the measure of YOUR ignorance?

    Why, yes, I sure did. I’ve been saying that for years.
    He really cannot keep up.

  28. Allan Miller:

    CharlieM,

    Maybe it is worth considering that there are more things in heaven and Earth, Dusty, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

    Right back atcha, Chas.

    Problem is, what you are doing is literally dreaming up philosophy. If your justification for a position is ‘well, maybe its mechanism is Something We Don’t Understand Yet But One Day Will’, that does nothing to persuade one that your woo has substance. You kind of jumped the shark with the stuff about frogs and livers!

    The fact that some people don’t understand does not rule out the possibility that some might understand. The fact that you don’t see a particular connection does not mean that there is no connection.

    You are adopting a stance nicely lampooned in Douglas Adams’s Parable Of The Puddle – as if there is No Way to get to adaptation without it, somehow, being Willed. But that is untrue.

    Adams’ puddle is a very limited being. It has no knowledge of the inner nature of that which it is composed. If it had paid heed to, or been capable of comprehending, the Ancient Greek aphorism “know thyself”, it would have understood the properties of water and would have realised that its existence was transitory. Who or what exactly is your puddle supposed to represent?

    It is simply not necessary to go to the trouble of postulating anticipatory and manipulative Intelligence as the basis of all organismal adaptation – particularly if its only job is to get past your resistance to the idea of things being ‘cobbled together’. You replace the superficially absurd by the deeply absurd, if that’s its task. It explains nothing, by pretending to explain everything.

    Direct fiddling with the DNA is not necessary for creative intelligences to produce extreme variation in organisms as can be seen by looking at domesticated forms. We have a good idea of how intelligence works, at least we should have, because, being human, we are creative intelligent beings.

    I was going to say more but in order to avoid taking this thread off topic any further than I already have, I’ve continued what I was going to say here.

  29. DNA_Jock: Allan and I had a playful banter on the subject; I finished by noting “Using entropy as a measure of ignorance helps to explain nonlin’s counting problem:”
    Soooo, with that background, nonlin’s

    Did you like when he told you entropy is the measure of YOUR ignorance?

    Why, yes, I sure did. I’ve been saying that for years.

    Only problem is: Susskind speaks TO YOU, not to me. As you so readily admit. He even tells you YOUR entropy is infinite. You know what that means in guru-speak.

    Alan Fox: What is funny about ?

    Maybe Allan can explain?

  30. Alan Fox: It was your HaHa, nonlin. Only you can explain your remarks.

    Aye, calcium carbonate is one of the more amusing compounds. Nonlin’s mum avoided karst regions for that reason – can’t contain his amusement. And – she says – for fuck’s sake don’t show him an egg!

  31. Allan Miller: Alan Fox: It was your HaHa, nonlin. Only you can explain your remarks.

    Aye, calcium carbonate is one of the more amusing compounds. Nonlin’s mum avoided karst regions for that reason – can’t contain his amusement. And – she says – for fuck’s sake don’t show him an egg!

    It’s the idea that egg = eggshell = CaCO3. Those blatantly incorrect ideas are very funny indeed. Go see for yourself.

    But then again, it’s not like more is expected from those that think crystallization is spontaneous and that abiogenesis is some sort of crystallization. To not speak of those that think entropy is somehow related to “information” despite no “information particle” ever.

  32. Nonlin.org: Those blatantly incorrect ideas are very funny indeed.

    Hmm!

    Eggshells

    I’m not spotting the humour.

    Can nonlin explain what is funny about calcium carbonate and eggshells?

  33. Alan Fox: Hmm!

    Eggshells

    I’m not spotting the humour.

    Can nonlin explain what is funny about calcium carbonate and eggshells?

    From your OWN link: The chicken eggshell is calcium carbonate crystals, which are stabilized by a protein matrix
    Do you think the protein matrix is NOT part of the eggshell? If so, you’re wrong.

    This is the same mistake “evolutionists” make when they assume a cell membrane is just a vesicle.

  34. Nonlin.org: Do you think the protein matrix is NOT part of the eggshell?

    FFS!
    An eggshell consists almost entirely of calcium carbonate. But the structure (and equally fascinating, its evolution) is a thing of beauty. The fact you can keep chickens, gather their eggs and just gently clean the shells and then keep them fresh, unrefrigerated for three weeks or so. A miracle of design, no?

  35. Nonlin.org,

    Crack an egg, you are not breaking chemical bonds. Even if you bring protein into it. It’s like saying your barber is breaking chemical bonds when cutting your hair. He isn’t. Scissors are massively larger than keratin molecules; the side of a bowl is blunter still. You’re fracturing intermolecular forces.
    Nonlin.org,

    But then again, it’s not like more is expected from those that think crystallization is spontaneous and that abiogenesis is some sort of crystallization. 

    Misrepresentation is a sign of desperation. Crystallisation is spontaneous, typically, depending of course on temperature and (for solutions) concentration and nucleation capacity. When these transitional conditions are met, you don’t add energy to make it happen, you take it away. It seems foolish to deny this, but that hasn’t stopped you so far.
    Here, for example, is a paper from 1909 on the subject – simply the first hit on a Google of ‘spontaneous crystallisation’.

    And, I wasn’t arguing that abiogenesis was some sort of crystallisation; the subject simply arose in a more general discussion about entropy and order. Go read, I believe you are fond of saying.

  36. The art of the ‘gotcha’ is alive and well. Because an eggshell is ‘only’ about 97% calcium carbonate, nonlin’s interlocutors have been shown to have egg on their faces. Fancy me asking about the major solid component! What was I thinking?

    So yes, reactions of CaCO3 are but one candidate for the ‘breaking of chemical bonds’ that supposedly take place when an egg is cracked. So, if nonlin could just pause his victory dance for a moment, we can now learn which bonds actually are broken. Over to nonlin…

  37. Nonlin.org:
    But then again, it’s not like more is expected from those that think crystallization is spontaneous and that abiogenesis is some sort of crystallization. To not speak of those that think entropy is somehow related to “information” despite no “information particle” ever.

    Nonlin.org:
    This is the same mistake “evolutionists” make when they assume a cell membrane is just a vesicle.

    Who would know what “evolutionists” think, and whether what they think is wrong, if not some creationist like Nonlin, who cannot read anything out of creationist propaganda, unless it’s wikipedia, and even that not so well.

  38. Alan Fox: An eggshell consists almost entirely of calcium carbonate.

    Allan Miller: Crack an egg, you are not breaking chemical bonds. Even if you bring protein into it. It’s like saying your barber is breaking chemical bonds when cutting your hair. He isn’t. Scissors are massively larger than keratin molecules; the side of a bowl is blunter still. You’re fracturing intermolecular forces.

    You dug yourself a deep ugly hole and are NOT making it to China. Better stop digging. CaCo3?!? Haha.

    And you can guarantee there won’t be any chemical bonds broken when the egg breaks? Not ONE?!? Hmm, I’d like to see your experiment. Perhaps some of the proteins that hold together CaCo3? Some absolutely have to break. Think.

    And even if intermolecular bonds are not strictly chemical (in the court of law), they do contribute to the entropy increase. Which is what this is all about.

    Allan Miller: Crystallisation is spontaneous, typically, depending of course on temperature and (for solutions) concentration and nucleation capacity.

    Not what spontaneous in general means. But I see [some?] chemists made their own definition, probably out of ignorance.

    Allan Miller: When these transitional conditions are met, you don’t add energy to make it happen, you take it away.

    Wrong. There are at least two methods – both require energy when the WHOLE process is considered:
    1. evaporation crystallization – the solvent is removed by heating the solution until the solvent is evaporated
    2. cooling crystallization – use a fridge that also requires energy (oops).
    Else, your room temp unsaturated solution never crystallizes in a hermetically sealed container.

    Allan Miller: And, I wasn’t arguing that abiogenesis was some sort of crystallisation; the subject simply arose in a more general discussion about entropy and order.

    Someone did. This is not a “general discussion”. It is about how entropy forbids abiogenesis. So focus on the massive entropy decrease needed to get from molecules to the cell and how that is NOT possible in an undirected scenario. Not even human-directed currently. Fig 1 is self-explanatory and very clear on this.

    Some little monkey has a point: being just a collection of mindless chemicals, “evolutionists” cannot possibly think, let alone be logical which is obviously immaterial (logic that is). That explains a lot.

  39. Solidification requires a fridge, apparently.
    Wow!
    I am curious about this “massive entropy decrease needed to get from molecules to the cell and how that is NOT possible in an undirected scenario”
    But let’s talk eggshells:
    I go into a Yorkshire hen house, take an egg from under a chicken, step outside, and drop the egg on the ground, breaking it.
    Has the entropy of the eggshell increased, or decreased?
    [Justify your answer by estimating the change in configurational entropy of the eggshell — a ballpark order of magnitude estimate is fine.]

  40. Nonlin.org,

    You dug yourself a deep ugly hole and are NOT making it to China. Better stop digging. CaCo3?!? Haha.

    Yes, CACO3. I know it’s the most hilarious of molecules, but still …

    And you can guarantee there won’t be any chemical bonds broken when the egg breaks? Not ONE?!? Hmm, I’d like to see your experiment. Perhaps some of the proteins that hold together CaCo3? Some absolutely have to break. Think.

    You first. Some ‘absolutely have to break’? I’d like to see your experiment. If you’re talking about fracturing a solid, it’s going to take the line of least resistance – intermolecular forces are much weaker than chemical bonds. It’s like sticking a few paper links in a metal chain and thinking that, occasionally, a metal link ‘absolutely has’ to break when you tug on the ends or whack it with a stick.

    And even if intermolecular bonds are not strictly chemical (in the court of law), they do contribute to the entropy increase. Which is what this is all about.

    Fuck me, that’s almost a concession. I’ll take it.

    Allan Miller: Crystallisation is spontaneous, typically, depending of course on temperature and (for solutions) concentration and nucleation capacity.

    Nonlin: Not what spontaneous in general means. But I see [some?] chemists made their own definition, probably out of ignorance.

    Since you claim to speak ‘the language of science’, we can dismiss what it means ‘in general’. In chemistry (and surely chemists are permitted a view on both entropy and abiogenesis?), it relates to the difference in free energy between initial and final states. This is not restricted to chemistry, either.

    Allan Miller: When these transitional conditions are met, you don’t add energy to make it happen, you take it away.

    Nonlin: Wrong. There are at least two methods – both require energy when the WHOLE process is considered:
    1. evaporation crystallization – the solvent is removed by heating the solution until the solvent is evaporated
    2. cooling crystallization – use a fridge that also requires energy (oops).

    Wrongo. The prior history is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if saturation is reached by removing solvent, adding solute or lowering temperature. And it doesn’t matter if a particular temperature is reached in the interior of a fridge – by ‘adding energy’ – by being placed somewhere cool, or it becoming cool in the immediate surroundings.

    Else, your room temp unsaturated solution never crystallizes in a hermetically sealed container

    Not sure what you are arguing against here. An unsaturated solution won’t crystallise, while if you put a saturated solution in a perfect insulator, you stop the energy departing. Which is exactly what I said – “you don’t add energy, you take it away”. The insulator stops it dispersing.

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