While watching a great video dark-lord posted in this thread called The Illusion of Time, there was a part regarding entropy, and how the universe has been spiraling into disorder ever since the order present before the big bang. Giving examples such as an orderly wine glass, when falling, breaks into a million pieces resembling disorder. The posit is, how is this disorder? Yes in the sense that the glass can no longer form the limited purpose its previous shape suggested, but it now gives it opportunity to become something else, and order and disorder are incredibly subjective things to attempt to quantify. Another struggle in the video is regarding the 'arrow of time', and the idea that entropy and time can technically 'move' forwards and backwards. These thoughts suddenly triggered a memory I had of some music I found back when I was struggling with alcohol addiction and deep in underground hip hop, a duo by the name of Algorhythms. I won't post all the lyrics, but here are some highlights with the phrase that spurred this post in boldface type:

The song is found here, if anyone is interested

I'm just a decent lyricist, who had a peak experience
so now I think in circles, and speak in pyramids
two thousand six, same s%#&, different century
killing me how people still believe the myth of entropy
write my own equations, spiral spoken language
the rapping session backwoods legend, broke and famous
drop a random flow that burns a perfect Mandelbrot
crop sign, drop rhymes for the fans at home
lately I've been tripping off the math that I see
patterns in trees, 'cuz everything is fractals to me
And I live with the proof go broke spitting the truth
[...]

If I start at the beginning and I end it when it's finished
can I explain the Universe in less than seven minutes?
dig it...I was born obsessed with dinosaurs and outer space
and that's the reason that I'm speaking how I sound today

[...]
lifes different now, I used to be a kid with doubts
denied the visions and blocked the signals out
lost connection in all directions
and forgot each breath has been a pretty awesome blessing
but it's all perception, a million mixed messages
keep your mind moving and your fingertips sensitive

If I start at the beginning and I end it when it's finished
can I explain the Universe in less than seven minutes?
dig it...I was born obsessed with dinosaurs and outer space
and that's the reason that I'm speaking how I sound today
grew up sleeping late, reading strange comic books
so every time I let my mind go, my mom was shook
but now today, I found a way to twist the digits back
and if you can't see it, so be it, I can live with that...


Anyways, now that that's out of my system, does anyone have something to shed here, additional information, previous realizations? Who's defining the order here, humanity? Is the universe outside of the dimension of time actually realigning itself to the state before the Big Bang? Let's get this party started

I think I see where your problem is; and that is in your definition of disorder. Whereas disorder is a particularly subjective term (e.g. a broken glass might be seen as a well-ordered intruder trap, a piece of art, etc) in everyday life, in physics moving towards disorder is defined as the move towards a thermodynamic equilibrium.

Hi

>> Giving examples such as an orderly wine glass, when falling, breaks into a million pieces resembling disorder. The posit is, how is this disorder? Yes in the sense that the glass can no longer form the limited purpose its previous shape suggested, but it now gives it opportunity to become something else, and order and disorder are incredibly subjective things to attempt to quantify.


Yeah, I think disorder is a funny term to use. I think the point is that high entropy states are easy to produce where as low entropy states are hard to produce. So, when you imagine a wind blowing over a desert, the sand quite naturally forms into dunes. A dune is a high entropy state. But sand is unlikely to be blown into the form of a sand castle. Its not impossible, there is nothing outlawing such an occurance in principle, but its highly unlikely. A sand castle is a very low entropy state for sand.

The universe tends towards high entropy just because systems with high entropy are statistically more likely.

Wow, those really helped explain it to me, I looked into what you both explained. So now that this concept of entropy is understood, as humans we seem to be drawn towards low entropy states, as we live in our world of 90 degree angles, manicured lawns, and ordered desk drawers. It seems that this whole mode of communication we are using now - computers, wireless technology, the internet, servers, keyboards - very low entropy. If the universe seeks to move towards high entropy and we are constantly carving out our piece of low entropy, this seems that there is a separation between our desire and the probability of the universe. How can this be if we are made up of atoms of the universe?

To increase entropy in a system you need to inevitably cause some analogous decrease in entropy somewhere else, in such way that the net entropy of the whole universe decreased.

Life itself is an highly organised low-entropy system, but to maintained as such it is required that it generates shit loads of entropy somewhere else. Think of a living thing that, to maintain its low entropy feeds onto some food but ultimately the eaten food will mostly be converted to thermal energy, which is a highly entropous. And when the living thing dies it will start decomposing, or it entropy will be increasing in other words.

So entropy-wise, everything we do so far rhymes with the universe (as if it could be otherwise, but anyway )

I think I see what your saying.

it seems odd that something that is of the universe seeks to buck the trend of the universe.

I suppose the fastest flowing rivers can have upstream eddies. Such eddies are still part of the river, obeying the same fundamental laws that draws the rest of the water downstream.

We're really talking about statistical trends. Low entropy states are less likely but roll the die enough times and they are sure to happen now and then, and since the big bang there has been plenty of time to roll those dice. Whats more, nothing is low entropy relative to the big bang itself. Everything is chaos relative to that singularity.


Another qualifying thought is that many contemporary cosmologies posit an infinite multi-verse in which universes spring in and out of existence ad infinitum or the universe continually splits to accommodate every possible quantum eventuality. In an infinite universe everything that can happen, does happen and happens an infinite amount of times. So, no surprises that we find ourselves in a universe where something has happened. Still the ratio of hum drum high entropy universes to exciting mind filled low entropy universes no doubt vastly favors high entropy.

You both are helping. So what you're both saying makes a lot of sense, trying to pull the two quotes that summarize it the most:

Infundibulum



Mistletoe Minx



I think the part my mind still isn't getting is, is how statistics can be used in an infinite universe. Statistics would have to imply a set of numbers, as far as I understand, but if we exist in infinity then I can't conceptualize statistics. So if the universe has a pull towards high entropy then it seems we are consciously seeking to balance this to a low entropy state... Is this a goal, to bring about thermodynamic equilibrium in our universe to return to the point before the big bang? And if it is a 'point' outside of time, and we are dealing with quantum physics, this point can occur at any point in space time, and can potentially be done by a singular person, if the equilibrium occurs at the correct moment? Also, if we are in infinity then how can our universe move towards a high entropy state, it still doesn't makes sense, because in order for that to occur there must be a low entropy state growing as well, and if we exist as conscious creators of low entropy and this current world is pulling towards high entropy maybe we have to figure out how we, as humans, can find the low entropy state that is apart from but intimately related to our high entropy existence? Grr, this is not coming out how I want, but it's the best I can do at the moment.

And thanks for being willing to discuss this with me!

Take it all with a grain of salt!

Life Vs. Entropy

I think the universe is in ongoing tango between singularity and chaos. And we are the effect of low entropy proceeding to singularity after a big bang. Until next bang

theoretically, another big bang won't happen, until after a big crunch.

Big crunch won't happen because the expansion due to dark energy exceeds the pull of gravity between galactic clusters.

then there won't be another big bang.

this big crunch happened because the expansion due to dark chocolate exceeded the pull of gravity between crisped rice clusters



Singularity. Nice concept to bring up.