Thursday, May 10, 2007

Why the second law of thermodynamics cannot be used as an argument for the existence of a supreme being

From Wikipedia:

Complex systems

It is occasionally claimed that the second law is incompatible with autonomous self-organisation, or even the coming into existence of complex systems. The entry self-organisation explains how this claim is a misconception.

In fact, as hot systems cool down in accordance with the second law, it is not unusual for them to undergo spontaneous symmetry breaking, i.e. for structure to spontaneously appear as the temperature drops below a critical threshold. Complex structures, such as Bénard cells, also spontaneously appear where there is a steady flow of energy from a high temperature input source to a low temperature external sink. It is conjectured that such systems tend to evolve into complex, structured, critically unstable "edge of chaos" arrangements, which very nearly maximise the rate of energy degradation (the rate of entropy production).

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