Under the information-based view of entropy a heat death universe would have high entropy because it would take a large amount of information--a great many bits--to capture it. One would have to say where each bit of material is. Since each bit is more or less randomly located, there is no way to compress that information. On the other hand, if all matter were compressed into a single point, it would take very little--very few bits--to record that state of the universe.
-- Russ On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 3:41 PM, glen e. p. ropella < [email protected]> wrote: > Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky wrote circa 10-07-16 06:53 PM: > >> Another confused old guy, But there was something called Planck's Distance >> that said that two atoms could not get any closer under normal >> circumstances >> without enormous forces yet Bose condensates are literally superimposed >> indistinguishable atoms albeit identical. From my meager metallurgy days. >> >> So there seems to be some kind of stand off between the two. >> > > Right. I think the admission of an "entropic force" (distinct from the > non-causal measurement problem pointed out by Russ in the other thread) as a > force says something about the _agility_, instability, or sensitivity to > perturbation of the system being studied. > > A completely "disordered" heat death (I assume) is a completely stable, > robust equilibrium. So, although we'd say it has maximum entropy, it's > actually quite orderly, as it were. > > On the other hand, as Nick put it, all the matter in the universe lumped > into a singularity, which (again, I assume) would mean minimum entropy, is > also quite orderly. > > So, I suppose it's important to remember that entropy is _purely_ a > relative term... a way of relating one system to another (or two systems to > the third they become when mixed). If there's only a single system, then > the term "entropy" is meaningless. > > If all this rhetoric flows well, then an entropic force is a statement > about the difference between the degrees of freedom (wiggle room) between > two sets of configurations, _assuming_ some/any microscopic force doing the > wiggling (brownian motion, heat, diffusion, particle-mediated fields, ... > whatever). In particular, it shows up when the space of configurations is > not totally well-mixed. I.e. when some regions of the configuration space > have lots of well-connected "points" and other regions are isolated in > whatever sense that matters to the hypothetical/unspecified microscopic > force. > > This would all make the conclusion that black holes are _not_ singularities > perfectly reasonable. The death of a black hole would just be the system > walking that rare/difficult path away from the well-connected region of > configuration space out to the ill-connected region of the configuration > space of normal space-time. That rare path could happen by a vanishingly > rare chance (assuming the hypothetical/unspecified microscopic force is > stochastic at all) or due to a bias in the microscopic force that makes the > path more likely (e.g. more heat, more mass, more energy, whatever). > > All this would mean is that a mostly ill-connected universe, sparsely > populated by (dynamically evolving) gravity wells keeps the universe in a > dynamic equilibrium somewhere between heat death (chaos) and one big lump of > condensate (order). (Sorry... I've been brainwashed by Langton. ;-) > > Lets really bend the rules here and speculate that all that we have >> defined >> is a figment of our biological failures. We are always making assumptions >> that we can think, when we might just be spinning old neurons that make us >> feel good about ourselves. Kind of like a little too much beer and the >> girls >> start looking better and better as the night proceeds. With Much regret in >> the mornings. Perhaps our intelligence is much less than claimed and not >> even an emergent phenomenon at all. While everything else is. >> > > Heh, all I can say to that is "So what?" ;-) I already _know_ that all my > thoughts are flawed and, likely, mere self-gratification. And, being the > self-centered bastard that I am, I tend to think that other people are like > me and that all their thoughts are flawed and, likely, just their own > self-gratification. (That's why the myth of the free market is so > attractive to me.) > > But you can choose to play the particular game. Or you can choose to hang > out on the balcony smoking cigars with the misfits while others play the > game at the kitchen table. I'm just making a small attempt to play the > game... or perhaps learn enough about the game to know I wouldn't have any > fun playing it. When I get tired, bored, or lazy, I'll quit. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
