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Peter Revill

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Could life be a catalyst to help accelerate the entropic process of the universe?

Sean Carroll suggested that energy in to earth from sun is sent back out again as entropy. Please could someone confirm if this has been demonstrated? My point is that if energy is being converted to entropy or another form of energy as a consequence of having been in contact with earth, has anybody tried to quantify the contribution of life to this conversion process? how does life stack up against other forces driving the arrow of time?

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    Debra Smith 200+

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    Aug 22 2012: What I have to add might not even be relevant but here goes. The above reminds me of the gnostic writings. Apparently early people at the same time as Christ, did not like his gospels so they wrote their own trying to account for life as they saw if. They thought that the whole point of human life was to escape suffering because life was about suffering (I think they called it LUSH) which was the food of the particularly nasty critters who set themselves up as gods for mankind. I hope I remember this right, I studied it a long time ago and your idea above just reminded me of it.

    It also sounds a bit anthropromorphic.
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    Budimir Zdravkovic 20+

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    Aug 22 2012: A person is an organizational machine, so throughout life a person who goes about organizing his life should in principle create more entropy than if he were just a random molecules floating about since low entropy always occurs at the expanse of higher entropy. But this doesn't tell us about the kinetics of the process which defines catalysis. In a process that involves catalysis the catalyst doesn't change this is the only way we can truly compare a catalytic vs non catalytic process otherwise there is no standard of comparison. If the catalyst changes then the catalyst becomes part of the process. This makes the process a whole different process and the catalysts ceases to be a catalyst. You can compare the catalysis of two processes only if the processes occur under identical thermodynamic conditions if the catalyst changes in the process the two processes are not under the same conditions. So you see since life eventually dies it is part of the process and it cannot be a catalyst.
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    edward long 100+

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    Aug 21 2012: Mr. Revill,I don't think it is accurate to consider entropy to be a form of energy or a process. Entropy is a measure of randomness in a large collection of atoms, molecules and other particles, aka matter. The effect of Time on such a collection is seen in the tendancy to always move toward disarray, toward higher randomness, toward higher entropy. Am I correct? Thank you!

    • Steve C

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      Sep 4 2012: "measure of randomness" seems like an oxymoron.
      Then again, "whole system" also seems like one.
      How do you or we define "system"? How do you look into the sky and define a cloud as looking like a horse? How do you define that cloud of electrons you're sitting on?
      If the effect of time always moves things toward higher entropy, then how do planets coalesce out of interstellar dust?
      It seems that scientists carefully pre-choose where to set the starting-line, to be in their intellectual favor. "We'll call THIS a "thermodynamic system" ...so now we can watch it go entropic!"
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        edward long 100+

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        Sep 4 2012: I'm no scientist. My impression is that the word "entropy" is actually applicable to thermodynamics. It is often used in other applications to represent the idea that a broken item (egg, window, rack of billiard balls, etc.) does not, by natural progression, reassemble to its pre-broken state. Stuff wears-out, it doesn't become newer as time passes. Things tend toward disarray. What looks like an example of decreasing entropy is not truly such. A lizard grows a new tail and that looks like decreasing entropy, but the SYSTEM of life dictates that the lizard eventually dies and returns to dust. IF planets do coalesce from Hydrogen and Helium into orbs the SYSTEM still dictates that they will eventually de-coalesce. Entropy says the effect of Time eventually overrules any apparent effect to the contrary.
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