Re: 2nd law of thermodynamics

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 95-11-09 15:11:57 EST, ArtSippo@aol.com writes:

> We must not confuse thermodynamic order with other
>levels of order such as the Dewey-Decimal system or the integral number
line.
> They are not the same.  For example, when I had a house (before I was
>married), there were books strewn all over the floor and furniture in piles.
> They were not alphabetized and ended up in the piles just because I put
them
>there and they didn't move unless I moved them.  After a while with no
>specific plan of my own a pattern emerged.  There was a clear path from the
>front door to the couch, the TV, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom.
> The books I consulted most often were on the tops of the piles and closer
to
>the couch or the bed.  Technical books tended to collect around the couch
>while fiction clustered around the bed absed on my reading habits.
> Occasionally I would have to hunt for a particular book in the morass or
>move a pile of books to get to another part of the room but for the most
part
>the house was ordered to my everyday needs without much effort on my part.
> Essentially, the 2nd Law had ordered my house completely apart from any
>deliberate or conscious system of my own.  The house was not "disorderly."
> In fact, for my needs it was properly ordered.

Right. This is natural selection at work in your house.

>Living system are organized in this same way.  They are not "alphabetized"
>(ie. teleologically ordered) but "spontaneous" (ie. phenomenologically
>ordered).  That is why William Paley's "watchmaker" analogy from the 19th
>Century is so very wrong.  Watches do not assemble themselves.  If you find
>one in the road, you know that sometime,somewhere, someone (ie, a
watchmaker)
>had to assemble it.  Organisms though DO assemble themselves and do not
>require a "maker."  All they need are parents and are thus the product of
>unskilled labor.  If you find a child playing in the road you do not assume
>the existance of a child factory with an assembly line.  Rather you look for
>her mom and dad.