Is Space Wasteful or do we live in a Goldilocks universe?

[T_aquaticus]

@Kendel

I remember sitting in Mrs. Connor’s chemistry lecture in 11th grade, when I was 16 or 17, and experiencing a powerful emotional reaction, when she introduced the 2LoT. I proved that it didn’t take a genius to figure out the implications.

Some creationists have a really strange view of the 2LoT, and it is sometimes interesting to see what their beliefs would look like in the real world. For example, some have claimed that entropy simply didn’t exist in the Garden of Eden, which has some rather terrible effects. First, if the 2LoT didn’t exist then none of your biochemistry would work. There would be no direction to any chemical reactions, so you couldn’t digest food, flex muscles, or anything really. If you stood next to a fire it wouldn’t heat you because energy wouldn’t spread out. Random parts of the atmosphere would turn fiery hot or deathly cold for no apparent reason. Life just can’t exist without the 2LoT.

[Kendel]

I’ve heard some of the most fanciful speculation in the church narthex, treated as indisputable. I’m grateful to have been ruined early for YEC by my naturalistic science education. It’s old; it’s rudimentary; I’ve forgotten most of it. But it was done seriously and honestly. Still, I know plenty of people (even a few relatives), who had similar upbringings, education, etc and have followed YEC. There are clearly some different influences in our lives, although I’m not sure what.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

And yet unlike most other laws of physics, 2LoT is a consequences of math and logic rather than some condition of the physical universe. In other words, I don’t see how it is possible to even imagine a material universe where 2LoT does not hold.

But the real problem I am having is trying to understand what they think that would even solve? I mean beside just a signpost in their rather general rejection of all science and rationality. The only thing I can think of is to suppose that nothing in the Garden of Eden was even material but instead totally spiritual. But this is beginning to sound very very much like Gnosticism – even more than their sort of Christianity does already.

[Kendel]

@mitchellmckain

what they think that would even solve? …. The only thing I can think of is to suppose that nothing in the Garden of Eden was even material but instead totally spiritual. But this is beginning to sound very very much like Gnosticism – even more than their sort of Christianity does already.

I think the “problem” they’re trying to solve is based in the interpretation of the creation stories in Genesis that allows for absolutely nothing related to death, such as decay or “decay”, of any kind. This one-way, irreversable loss of energy and increase of entropy is seen by them as decay, that is death. And the way to get around that is to assume fundamental changes the laws of physics. It’s easy!

It’s hard to insist that all the areas of one’s thinking are perfectly integrated (beyond deconstruction), while trying to integrate an anachronicstic interpretation of an ancient philosophical world view with contemporary grasp of physics, chemistry, biology and whatever else I’m missing, that are based on observation, testing, to-this-point reliable modeling, mathematics and the like.

I think far more rudimentary things are at play here than gnosticism, although that may be a symptom. I propose fear.

[T_aquaticus]

@mitchellmckain

And yet unlike most other laws of physics, 2LoT is a consequences of math and logic rather than some condition of the physical universe. In other words, I don’t see how it is possible to even imagine a material universe where 2LoT does not hold.

Maxwell’s Demon was an interesting attempt at getting around the 2LoT.

Which reminds me of Morton’s Demon:

When I was a YEC, I had a demon that did similar things for me that Maxwell’s demon did for thermodynamics. Morton’s demon was a demon who sat at the gate of my sensory input apparatus and if and when he saw supportive evidence coming in, he opened the gate. But if he saw contradictory data coming in, he closed the gate. In this way, the demon allowed me to believe that I was right and to avoid any nasty contradictory data. Fortunately, I eventually realized that the demon was there and began to open the gate when he wasn’t looking.
The Talk.Origins Archive Post of the Month: February 2002

@mitchellmckain

But the real problem I am having is trying to understand what they think that would even solve? I mean beside just a signpost in their rather general rejection of all science and rationality. The only thing I can think of is to suppose that nothing in the Garden of Eden was even material but instead totally spiritual. But this is beginning to sound very very much like Gnosticism – even more than their sort of Christianity does already.

I think it gets tied up in their misapplication of the 2LoT to genetics. They claim that species must get worse (i.e. less fit) over time because the 2LoT demands it. In order to shield A&E from this problem they try to keep entropy out of the garden.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

Fits well with my suggestion in another thread that “demons” and “delusions” are two different names for the same thing.