purpose (Re: Disproving...)

[Guest guest]

>

<<Of course, the whole " perfect universe " thing is quite a quandary. Change

just one of the physical laws of the universe, such as the number of

macro-dimensions or the constant of gravity, and you've got yourself a

universe with no life in it at all. Because of that astounding fact, I tend

to be slightly theological in my views, although by no means a supporter of

any sort of creationism.>>

I've never had any problem accepting the Anthropic

Principle. Basically, the universe is as it is (including

such diverse things as distance from Earth to the Sun, and

values of fundamental physical constants) because if it

weren't like that, we wouldn't be here. It has to be

finely adjusted to allow life, because otherwise there

wouldn't be conscious beings around to wonder about it.

<<My views on the " purpose " of life is that life is a entropic engine,

designed to accelerate the speed of entropy.>>

I don't exactly understand what you're saying here.

Certainly, the second law of thermodynamics is used (in a

rather inane way) as an objection to biological evolution.

A living being grows by decreasing the entropy within

itself. This in no way contradicts the second law, which

applies only to *isolated systems*. An isolated system

is one that exchanges neither matter nor energy with its

surroundings. We take in low-entropy food and shit out

high-entropy waste. On the scale of the biosphere, it

certainly isn't an isolated system either: we're getting

energy to the tune of 1300 W/sq. m at the top of the

atmosphere from a certain nearby G2 main sequence star.

Doug