Entropy

[Carbon]

When did entropy (decay) start? In the beginning, at creation or at the Fall?

 

[makesends]

When did entropy (decay) start? In the beginning, at creation or at the Fall?

My personal opinion is that it started with creation.

 

[CrowCross]

When did entropy (decay) start? In the beginning, at creation or at the Fall?

Depends on the entropy.

If a piece of fruit fell from the trees in the center of the garden...would it rot?
How about radio active decay?
....though I do think mans genetic make-up....DNA... began to decay after the fall....look at us now.

 

[John Bauer]

When did entropy (decay) start? In the beginning, at creation or at the Fall?

Likely within 10⁻³⁶ to 10⁻³² seconds after the Big Bang.

 

[CrowCross]

Sometimes God stops entropy...Deut 29:5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet.

 

[fastfredy0]

Entropy is just a subset of our observations of what God is doing in regard to His creation. We put a label on what He does so as to organize things and help us makes guesses what will happen next on the assumption God doesn't change the way He operates often.

 

[Carbon]

My personal opinion is that it started with creation.

I agree

 

[Carbon]

Depends on the entropy.

Okay

If a piece of fruit fell from the trees in the center of the garden...would it rot?

A piece of fruit? What do you think?
I believe even if a whole piece fell, it would rot.

How about radio active decay?
....though I do think mans genetic make-up....DNA... began to decay after the fall....look at us now.

 

[Carbon]

Likely within 10⁻³⁶ to 10⁻³² seconds after the Big Bang.

Agree

 

[CrowCross]

Okay

A piece of fruit? What do you think?
I believe even if a whole piece fell, it would rot.

I don't. A piece of fruit is designed to rot...and return to the dust where it supples the soil with nutrients...then the seeds can grow and produce more fruit tree.

 

[John Bauer]

Depends on the entropy.

Any of them. It matters not. Thermodynamic (heat flow from hot object to cold object), statistical (gas expanding to fill a room), cosmological (overall energy distribution of the universe), etc.

Any finite, physical system composed of matter and energy—such as the garden of Eden—must obey the second law of thermodynamics if it's to exhibit coherent causal order and energy flow. Without entropy gradients (differences in potential energy), no work could be done: no photosynthesis, metabolism, or sensory activity. If Eden was warmed by the sun, that's energy moving and thus entropy. If Eden had green plants, that's photosynthesis and thus entropy. If Adam and Eve could eat food, that's digestion and thus entropy.

And so on.

If there were no entropy in Eden, there would be no life in Eden. The Fall introduced moral disorder, not physical laws.

 

[CrowCross]

Any of them. It matters not. Thermodynamic (heat flow from hot object to cold object), statistical (gas expanding to fill a room), cosmological (overall energy distribution of the universe), etc.

Any finite, physical system composed of matter and energy—such as the garden of Eden—must obey the second law of thermodynamics if it's to exhibit coherent causal order and energy flow. Without entropy gradients (differences in potential energy), no work could be done: no photosynthesis, metabolism, or sensory activity. If Eden was warmed by the sun, that's energy moving and thus entropy. If Eden had green plants, that's photosynthesis and thus entropy. If Adam and Eve could eat food, that's digestion and thus entropy.

And so on.

If there were no entropy in Eden, there would be no life in Eden. The Fall introduced moral disorder, not physical laws.

I agree. I liked this part...."The Fall introduced moral disorder, not physical laws."

All though the earth is groaning.

 

[makesends]

I don't. A piece of fruit is designed to rot...and return to the dust where it supples the soil with nutrients...then the seeds can grow and produce more fruit tree.

Sounds like you are both saying the same thing.

 

[CrowCross]

Sounds like you are both saying the same thing.

One might be able to argue that entropy was increased???

 

[makesends]

One might be able to argue that entropy was increased???

—at the fall, I suppose you mean? Sin's use of it, I suppose, but that is more than I can analyze in my current state of mind. Still on my first cup of coffee.

 

[makesends]

As if I had the intelligence and knowledge to post concerning something I never did understand, the thought comes to me today, with a certain definition of entropy I just heard, that of "Entropy is the universe keeping score of every tiny rearrangement". No, that's poetic but not the only thing they said: "It really counts how many possible rearrangements exist."

If that's entropy, then it is only what we have said to begin with. What can happen always happens. What doesn't happen could not, (as evidence demonstrates. We have no other evidence—only ignorance.) That entropy is our description for the devolvement into what seems chaotic to us is all it is. WE see organization vs disorganization, so we consider chaos to be a question of chance—not because we are lazy, (though we are), and not because we are ignorant, (though we are), but because we don't like to say, "I don't know."

Entropy, if that definition is accurate, can count only actual rearrangements.

 

[makesends]

Murphy's Law is supported by history. If something can go wrong, it will. If it does not, it could not.

If something can happen, it will. If it could, it did. Anything more is speculation—not physical law.

 

[John Bauer]

As if I had the intelligence and knowledge to post concerning something I never did understand, the thought comes to me today, with a certain definition of entropy I just heard, that of "Entropy is the universe keeping score of every tiny rearrangement". No, that's poetic but not the only thing they said: "It really counts how many possible rearrangements exist."

If that's entropy, then it is only what we have said to begin with. What can happen always happens. What doesn't happen could not, (as evidence demonstrates. We have no other evidence—only ignorance.) That entropy is our description for the devolvement into what seems chaotic to us is all it is. WE see organization vs disorganization, so we consider chaos to be a question of chance—not because we are lazy, (though we are), and not because we are ignorant, (though we are), but because we don't like to say, "I don't know."

Entropy, if that definition is accurate, can count only actual rearrangements.

What you seem to be saying is roughly this: “When physicists say entropy counts possible rearrangements, they are smuggling in hypothetical states that never actually occur. But all we ever really know is what does occur. So entropy should refer only to actual physical changes, not unrealized possibilities. The rest is just our way of talking about apparent disorder because we do not know enough.”

That is more or less intelligible. But it is confused, and for several reasons.

Here is just one of those reasons: The problem is that once you say “entropy can count only actual rearrangements,” you have ceased talking about entropy in the standard thermodynamic or statistical-mechanical sense. You have replaced it with a running history of events. But entropy is not a historical ledger of what has already happened. “Possible” here does not mean “all of them eventually happen,” but rather “physically available under the conditions of the system.” So the fact that some rearrangement never occurs doesn’t mean it was never possible in the relevant sense.

Nor is entropy merely our label for what seems chaotic to us. Our language may be approximate, and popular descriptions are often sloppy, but entropy is not reducible to aesthetic impressions of “organization” versus “disorganization,” still less to ignorance dressed up as science. It is a real feature of finite physical systems as they undergo energy transfer, work, and equilibration.

That is why the original question is not answered by redefining entropy into a historical ledger of actual rearrangements. If Adam and Eve ate, metabolized, moved, and lived in a finite material environment, then entropy was already operative. The Fall introduced sin and death as judicial and moral realities; it did not create the basic thermodynamic conditions of creaturely existence.

Brief aside: There is also a deeper theological issue underneath the exchange. You and Freddy both seem intent on safeguarding divine sovereignty by reducing scientific description to mere human labeling. But that move is unnecessary. One can say that entropy is a real created feature of the world and also that it is one of the ordinary means by which God governs creation. Those claims are not in tension.

 

[makesends]

What you seem to be saying is roughly this: “When physicists say entropy counts possible rearrangements, they are smuggling in hypothetical states that never actually occur. But all we ever really know is what does occur. So entropy should refer only to actual physical changes, not unrealized possibilities. The rest is just our way of talking about apparent disorder because we do not know enough.”

That is more or less intelligible. But it is confused, and for several reasons.

Here is just one of those reasons: The problem is that once you say “entropy can count only actual rearrangements,” you have ceased talking about entropy in the standard thermodynamic or statistical-mechanical sense. You have replaced it with a running history of events. But entropy is not a historical ledger of what has already happened. “Possible” here does not mean “all of them eventually happen,” but rather “physically available under the conditions of the system.” So the fact that some rearrangement never occurs doesn’t mean it was never possible in the relevant sense.

Nor is entropy merely our label for what seems chaotic to us. Our language may be approximate, and popular descriptions are often sloppy, but entropy is not reducible to aesthetic impressions of “organization” versus “disorganization,” still less to ignorance dressed up as science. It is a real feature of finite physical systems as they undergo energy transfer, work, and equilibration.

That is why the original question is not answered by redefining entropy into a historical ledger of actual rearrangements. If Adam and Eve ate, metabolized, moved, and lived in a finite material environment, then entropy was already operative. The Fall introduced sin and death as judicial and moral realities; it did not create the basic thermodynamic conditions of creaturely existence.

Brief aside: There is also a deeper theological issue underneath the exchange. You and Freddy both seem intent on safeguarding divine sovereignty by reducing scientific description to mere human labeling. But that move is unnecessary. One can say that entropy is a real created feature of the world and also that it is one of the ordinary means by which God governs creation. Those claims are not in tension.

Perhaps I should have continued what I started to do, to start a new thread instead of jumping into an old existing one. I didn't really intend it to relate directly to the OP and its following posts, but to deal directly with entropy as a subject, and even that, only as concerning some thoughts that came to me related to what I quoted. To me, it is very much a theological subject; but then, so is everything else.

I understand entropy to be, very roughly, disorganization (in several forms/ways) or physical dispersion in its many causes/contexts. I don't dispute that is observable fact. In fact, it is ironically one of the necessary things that contributes to the myriad causes of all the things (many intersecting) chains of causation. As at least one physicist is credited with claiming, "Everything affects everything else." It, as chaos theory claims, acts in chaotic (unpredictable by us) manner, but always within bounds. Entropy's entrails come together and fly apart to spread around and rejoin differently all day long. (How some imagine that to equal actual uncaused freewill is beyond me. (I'm currently involved with good ol' Bling on that other site, as we speak. "Limited freewill". Aaargh!)) But I digress.

Anyhow, my post was commentary on something I heard, not a treatise on entropy as such, but more on the way people think about such things, and how even entropy (particularly chaos) is not outside God's control and intention.

 

[John Bauer]

Perhaps I should have continued what I started to do, to start a new thread instead of jumping into an old existing one. I didn't really intend it to relate directly to the OP and its following posts, but to deal directly with entropy as a subject, and even that, only as concerning some thoughts that came to me related to what I quoted. To me, it is very much a theological subject; but then, so is everything else.

I understand entropy to be, very roughly, disorganization (in several forms/ways) or physical dispersion in its many causes/contexts. I don't dispute that is observable fact. In fact, it is ironically one of the necessary things that contributes to the myriad causes of all the things (many intersecting) chains of causation. As at least one physicist is credited with claiming, "Everything affects everything else." It, as chaos theory claims, acts in chaotic (unpredictable by us) manner, but always within bounds. Entropy's entrails come together and fly apart to spread around and rejoin differently all day long. (How some imagine that to equal actual uncaused freewill is beyond me. (I'm currently involved with good ol' Bling on that other site, as we speak. "Limited freewill". Aaargh!)) But I digress.

Anyhow, my post was commentary on something I heard, not a treatise on entropy as such, but more on the way people think about such things, and how even entropy (particularly chaos) is not outside God's control and intention.

So, you are effectively saying, “We should not speak of entropy in ways that suggest an autonomous realm of randomness outside divine sovereignty and providence.” Fair enough. On that point, of course, you’re right.

The problem is that your earlier claim—that entropy “can count only actual rearrangements”—still does not follow from that concern. One can deny autonomous chance while affirming that statistical mechanics speaks in terms of possible microstates consistent with a macrostate, or without denying divine intention. The unpredictability is ours, not God’s.

And you are still sliding between distinct categories. You move from entropy as a physical concept, to chaos as unpredictability-to-us, to theological providence, and then back again as if these were interchangeable. They are not.

Nothing about entropy, probability, or chaos places anything outside God’s control. But it still does not follow that entropy “counts only actual rearrangements.” That step confuses providence with the definition of the term. The indeterminacy is epistemic for us, not metaphysical for God.

The real issue is not whether God controls entropy. Of course he does. The issue is whether the physics must perforce be reformulated so that only actualized states count. That is where you overreach. Divine sovereignty does not eliminate modal language from creaturely description. God ordains not only actualities but also possibilities, counterfactuals, means, and probabilities as elements within the created order.