Dave Roberson wrote: "With this type of process in mind, I think that the choice of system boundaries become critical."
Yes, system boundaries are of primary importance! Let me cut-n-paste from one of my postings: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg66744.html -------------- I had the opportunity to work with some competent scientists during grad school at the Atmospheric Sciences Center of the Desert Research Institute. it was a wonderful experience, and I would occasionally drop in and chat with a few of the chemists and physicists. Often our conversations drifted to 'fringe' topics like LENR; most were quite open to the possibility, actually. One of the research chemists, Bill Finnegan, had a major gripe with the way they teach science. He asked me to grab a book off his shelf (it was a college text on Thermodynamics), asked me to open it to the Preface, and read it out loud (it was only two paragraphs). I don't remember the section verbatim, but the whole point he wanted me to learn was that there is a **qualifying phrase** which all the Laws of Thermodynamics BEGIN with, especially, the first and second (CoE and increasing Entropy); that phrase is, "IN A CLOSED SYSTEM." <you know the rest> Dr. Finnegan's gripe was that all too often that simple, but all important, phrase was not emphasized enough to make it stick in students' minds. It makes a big difference in their mentality once they get into actual research. And I will continue to remind this Collective of that all important fact. We know about and can easily measure various kinds of energy, but that does not mean that we are aware of and can measure ALL forms of energy. Hence, when someone adamantly relies on CoE, saying that such and such is impossible since it would violate CoE, they are not a scientist in my mind. The good scientists are always very careful with the wording they use, and 'always' and 'never' and 'impossible' are seldom if ever used by them; instead, they use phrases like 'very unlikely', or 'highly improbable'. Those are the minds that were taught proper thermodynamics. Improperly taught science slowly results in scientific dogma. --------------------------- So yes, local violations of the laws of thermo are possible, but when the system boundaries are properly defined, those violations will *likely* disappear. -Mark From: David Roberson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 03, 2012 8:06 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Vo]:The Fallacies of Darwinian Evolution - Basic Definitions Jojo I think that your statement that no random process can increase the information content of a system is too broad. The formation of a crystal from a vat of molten material seems to be a system that takes the random motion of the hot atoms as its input and then a directing force leads to the final crystal structure. Entropy is increased for the overall system by the release of heat of fusion, but the local region becomes less random. With this type of process in mind, I think that the choice of system boundaries become critical. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Jojo Jaro <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, Aug 3, 2012 8:55 am Subject: Re: [Vo]:The Fallacies of Darwinian Evolution - Basic Definitions Yes, That is why I say Darwinian Evolution is dead, a totally discredited and fallacious idea. Darwin did not know about DNA, genes, cell structures, RNA and others. Had he known the structure of DNA for instance, he would have concluded that slow random mutation can not explain the existence of DNA. Why, because random mutation can not explain the existence of "Information" within our DNA. There is no random process that will result in an arrangement that increases the Information Content of a system. Random processes results in entrophy, and entrophy is the opposite of Information and order. But I am getting ahead of myself. I will discuss DNA information in a future post. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Terry Blanton" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, August 03, 2012 8:45 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:The Fallacies of Darwinian Evolution - Basic Definitions > Recent discoveries show that Darwin's ideas were an over > simplification of genetics: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml > > T > >
