Can secular science ever oust religious belief?

[Pyrotex]

Goody. Someone to keep me honest.

Glad to be of service!

Uh, Which laws override entropy on the largest scale? Or are you referring to the thinly disguised revivals of Vitalism that go by names such as "complexity theory" and "self-organization"? I can will my arm to move, and it moves. Science can't explain that. ....

Who said anything about overriding Entropy? :) I didn't. And I'm sure you realize the "99.9%" figure was not intended as mathematical precision.

 

Vitalism, it says here in the HHGG, is the theory or conjecture that living objects (like singing rocks) are distinct from non-living objects (like non-singing rocks) in that they contained a "vital force", or are infused with an aetheric animating spirit that gives them "life". This conjecture has been dismissed as "baseless" and "unnecessary" on all planets in the galaxy, except for Earth, which is still having a tough time coping with the fact of Evolution.

 

Just between you and me, I think Vitalism is a dead horse. Perhaps you agree.

 

As to entropy, you are perhaps referring to Thermodynamics. Or rather, "pulpit thermo", which is the ragingly popular idea (in some circles on Earth) that Thermodynamics absolutely forbids any system from going from a state of disorder to a state of order.

 

As to the concept of "self organizing systems" (SOS), that is far from some ivory tower opium dream as you seem to suggest. SOS are all around us, and have defied explanations for centuries. It is only now that we understand the source of SOS: I shall give a brief summary.

 

Entropy and Thermodynamics most explicitly concern "closed" systems: systems for which there are NO external sources of energy. The Earth is NOT a closed system, for there IS a source of external energy. Clue: go outside at noon on a clear day and look straight up.

 

Take a large number of similar components and have them in intimate contact in a closed system. (say, air molecules) Now observe how temperature averages out, and turbulence slows to zero. Entropy approaches a maximum without ever retreating.

 

Now, open the system. (say, by exposing the components to sunlight). The top layers of components will absorb some energy. Dependent upon the interior laws of these components, they will "react" in a way as to disperse the additional energy and reach equilibrium again. This reaction varies for different kinds of systems. But for our example of air molecules, the reaction is a rise in turbulence and air currents.

 

Why? It is by turbulence and air currents that the system can dissipate the incoming energy. So far so good.

 

What if you pipe in more energy than the system can dissipate? This is the key question.

 

One of two things may happen. The system may discorporate. Blow up, tear apart, discombobulate, go away, vaporize, die, go to that great junkyard in the sky.

 

Or, the system, or some part of it, may experience a saltatory leap to a new metastable state (a dissipative structure), which manifests as a local gain in order (local loss of entropy) at the expense of a global increase in entropy. This new metastable state enables the system to dissipate vastly larger amounts of energy.

 

Atmospheric examples are tornadoes and hurricanes. Ordinary turbulence and winds are limited to about 80 MPH. But in a highly ordered tornado, windspeeds can exceed 200 MPH, dissipating one hell of a lot of energy. I mean, the energy equivalent of an atomic bomb every few seconds.

 

What Prigogyn and other cutting edge theoreticians have demonstrated, is that this process is not limited to heat energy or sunlight, or even to physical energy. It also applies to open economic systems, open social systems, open biological systems. It applies to any set of self-similar components that behave in accordance with entropy and equilibrium.

 

Push enough "value energy" through a primitive economic system, and it will develop economic dissipative structures, such as banks, paper money and credit cards. These things can dissipate a LOT more value. It has even been suggested (?) that social organizations such as governments and religions are dissipative structures. Wow. :)

 

These dissipative structures are said to be "self-organizing" though actually, they are driven by the excessive influx of energy. The open system can only discorporate or re-organize to dissipate the excess energy; at sufficiently high energy levels, there is no middle ground.

 

At the extreme end of this concept is the consideration that "life" is a dissipative structure of sorts, initially dissipating chemical energy in the so-called primordial soup.

 

Vitalism has no explanatory power. It's just "magic". This new theory of dissipative structures does have explanatory power, and is certainly not vitalism under a new name.

 

Now... whether this new concept can hold its own against all the criticism and debate that any new "science" is subject to, is open to question. I think we will just have to wait and see. I'm betting that this new concept will survive and become accepted "fact" in the near future.

[InfiniteNow]

Entropy and Thermodynamics most explicitly concern "closed" systems: systems for which there are NO external sources of energy. The Earth is NOT a closed system, for there IS a source of external energy. Clue: go outside at noon on a clear day and look straight up.

So... you're saying that birds and clouds and leaves in trees power the earth? :)

[Pyrotex]

So... you're saying that birds and clouds and leaves in trees power the earth? :shade:

... ... yeah. right. spot on, InfNow. Way to go. Now, get out of my way, kid, you bother me.

 

;)

[HydrogenBond]

To begin I am a scientist with interests that extend into religion and try to look for compromises between the two. In this particular post, I am going to play the devil's advocate and pose the question "can religion ever oust science?"

 

Science is very important, but in everyday life, it is not science that has the most impact on people, but technology, i.e., engineering. For example, a precocious 3-4 year old can turn on a state of the art plasma wide screen and then channel surf or he/she can turn on a computer and find their Nickolodeon or Disney site on the web. They know little if anything about science, but are nevertheless able to utilize technology. If science never existed for them they could still live at the pinacle of technology. The engineers have designed these technologies to buffer people from the need to know the intricacies of science, by creating interfaces that work even for those without scientific training. The vast majority of the people in any country, are thereby able to enjoy the fruits of technology without ever needing to know much in the way of the science that makes it work. This includes religious people.

 

For example, if it was required that a person needs to know all the bio-chemistry and anatomical considerations that go on in side them, before they are allowed to use an aspirin for a headache, very few people would be able to use aspirin. This tough science is cut out of the picture for most people, and if its understanding was never required of people and was purged from knowledge, it would not change their ability to pop an aspirin for a headache.

 

If we take this further, when a biologists looks through a microscope, they do not need to know the physics of optics and semi-conductors, nor the intricacies of materials, to be able to operate the microscope. Just push this button and look through here. Typically, one group of science specialist do not see any reason to learn the details of science that is outside their range of interests. If we required a biologist to know the sciences that go into a microscope, so they can service and even advance the state of the art, before they could use it (science is very important, not just certain sciences), very little biology work ever be performed.

 

In fact, if one listed the top 20 areas of science and asked anyone of the specialists which of these 20 are actually needed to perfom their tasks, each may be able to point to maybe 5. The other 15 would not be considered important enough to where they should be forced to go to school another 6-8 years to do their job. If we add all the data together, using these numbers, the data would say that, when surveyed, 75% of the responses across the board said all 20 science are of little use, since all the science would get about 75% useless rating from scientists in other fields of study, if require to learn them to do they asks. This is actually an example of using the miracle of statistics to get a result that defies common sense.

 

The thing that religion and science have in common is that they are the two bookends of knowledge, with one religion often not seeing the value in other religions, just like specialty science may not see the merit of learning science that does not benefit them. If one did the same type of survey of the top 20 religions/denominations, one would receive similar results, where religious buffs usong one specialty would see little use in other religions, if force to learn them to be able to do their job.

 

The engineers and technologists buffer the majority from the vigors of science, such that only simple science is any is needed by the majority to function in a technical culture. This includes the science specialists, who would see no reason to be force fed science knowledge they would never use or do not need to get their job done. In the case of religion, philosophy is sort of analogous to engineering and that it brings together the ideas for many religions to buffer people from needing to know all the intricacies from all the religions.

 

Just like the engineer who often has to cross the boundries of science to make the design simple and functional for the layman who doesn't see the need to learn all the science intricacies, the philosopher crosses the boundries of various religious thought and ideals to formulate a simple set of principles that people can live by, without having to learn all the intricacies of religions. If we were to get rid of these two bookends of knowledge, i.e., science and religion, and only depend on the engineers and philosophers to maintain what we have, life would go on as usual, with little direct impact. But on the other hand, it would stop in time and never evolve further. We need the two bookends of knowledge, using the benefits of engineering and philosophy, to push the frontiers of science and religion, so that engineering and philosophy can keep evolving the majority toward the future.

 

Just like technology has advanced science so it can advance technology, philosophy has advanced religion so religion can advance philosophy. Science works on the human mind as its perimeter, i.e., objective sensory data, while religion advances human nature by working at the core of humans, i.e., human nanture. Engineering and philosophy offer a bridge that connects the two, with most humans living on the bridge between the bookends of knowledge, sometimes going closer to one or two of the bookends of knowledge.

[BibleBeliever]

Or, the system, or some part of it, may experience a saltatory leap to a new metastable state (a dissipative structure), which manifests as a local gain in order (local loss of entropy) at the expense of a global increase in entropy. This new metastable state enables the system to dissipate vastly larger amounts of energy.

 

Atmospheric examples are tornadoes and hurricanes. Ordinary turbulence and winds are limited to about 80 MPH. But in a highly ordered tornado, windspeeds can exceed 200 MPH, dissipating one hell of a lot of energy. I mean, the energy equivalent of an atomic bomb every few seconds.

 

What Prigogyn and other cutting edge theoreticians have demonstrated, is that this process is not limited to heat energy or sunlight, or even to physical energy. It also applies to open economic systems, open social systems, open biological systems. It applies to any set of self-similar components that behave in accordance with entropy and equilibrium.

 

 

Please excuise my ignorance but are you saying here that the energy of the sun will reduce entropy in cirtain non-living systems and thereby move things from disorder to order? The example of an 'ordered' tornado to me seems to give an end result of a lot more disorder than what was there before the tornado struck.

 

Surely all we have here is one form of energy being converted to another form, and entropy continues its onward march.

 

Within open economic systems, open social systems, open biological systems there is life or intelligence to help the order increase, so in these systems the process would be true.

[Buffy]

Please excuise my ignorance but are you saying here that the energy of the sun will reduce entropy in cirtain non-living systems and thereby move things from disorder to order? The example of an 'ordered' tornado to me seems to give an end result of a lot more disorder than what was there before the tornado struck.

You're skipping the step in the middle: compared to normal wind flows, a tornado is *incredibly* well ordered because of the concentration of energy it absorbs. In the process of *expending* this energy, a byproduct is that it disorders nearby systems.

 

Entropy is widely misrepresented usually by ignoring what it really says. I'd suggest you do some research on it--especially with respect to the definition of a "closed system"--before trying to claim that its obviously "wrong."

 

Energy is information,

Buffy

[Pyrotex]

Please excuse my ignorance but are you saying here that the energy of the sun will reduce entropy in certain non-living systems and thereby move things from disorder to order? The example of an 'ordered' tornado to me seems to give an end result of a lot more disorder than what was there before the tornado struck.

Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. The tornado is much more highly ordered than the turbulence around it. AND, in a much larger area around the tornado, disorder is increased even moreso, because the energy-dissipation of the tornado is so violent. Local order increases at the expense of a greater Global decrease in order. Note that this is NOT in violation of Thermo. 3rd Law, because the TOTAL disorder of the system (Local + Global) is still increasing.

Surely all we have here is one form of energy being converted to another form, and entropy continues its onward march.

No. It's not that simple and never was. Yes, entropy increases its onward march, but only if measured over the Global + Local area.

Within open economic systems, open social systems, open biological systems there is life or intelligence to help the order increase, so in these systems the process would be true.

Not as much as you think. Nobody "controls" the stock market, for example, or can even predict it. It is a true chaotic system in quasi-equilibrium between blind economic "forces". Open biological systems generally have NO intelligence working at the organ, cell or sub-cellular level. And THIS is where order increases.

 

Yes, sometimes my work room entropy decreases drastically while I intentionally work to put books back on the shelves in their proper places, and throw out the trash.

 

But "order" can spontaneously arise out of chaotic disorder without intentional intervention. It happens ALL the time, everywhere around us. The trick to it is this: IF you can drive more "energy" through the system than it can dissipate and remain in a state of near equilibrium -- AND IF the system, or any subset of the system, is capable of reordering itself into a new configuration that CAN dissipate the extra "energy" (this is called a dissipative structure) -- THEN pushing extra "energy" through the system will cause the spontaneous creation of a highly ordered dissipative structure, which will dissipate the extra "energy".

 

Though the dissipative structure is itself highly ordered, and represents a spontaneous decrease in entropy, the system as a whole still suffers an increase in overall entropy.

 

Information is energy.

[IMAMONKEY!]

I know this sounds kind of stupid, but what if everyone was to forget about religion for a second or two. Then examine every scientific fact and/or theory... do you think that if we ruled out the possibility of a higher being everything would become more clear? I'm not sure about that.

 

If we could find tangible evidence that could disprove religion, then MAYBE religion would be ousted. but as such we are missing a lot of numbers. We're fitting the puzzle pieces together, but its like a 300,000 piece jigsaw... and we're missing 250,000 pieces.

 

Who knows? Our technology jumps every once in a while. Maybe we'll find a piece or two. ;)

 

Religion seems to be an outlet for a person's desires and problems in life. Praying is for the sake of preserving hope. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it would seem to me that religion is putting faith in hope for the reason being that we have no idea what else to put in since we're missing 250,000 pieces right now.

 

make that 249,999. who knows.. maybe someone just found one. :)

 

Just some thoughts,

 

IMAMONKEY!

[Pyrotex]

I know this sounds kind of stupid, but what if everyone was to forget about religion for a second or two.... We're fitting the puzzle pieces together, but its like a 300,000 piece jigsaw, and we're missing 250,000 pieces....but it would seem to me that religion is putting faith in hope for the reason being that we have no idea what else to put it, since we're missing 250,000 pieces right now....!

Well, I think you just found another piece! :)

 

I don't think religion will ever be ousted by science, because religion is so simple, certainly no more complicated than a Swiss Army Knife, and science is so... well... so scientific. Except for the first few chapters of "Introduction to The Simplest Beginnings of Elementary Science", science is Rocket Science. It's Calculus and the Fourth Order Analytical Geometry of Non-Euclidean Phase Spaces.

 

Who wants to delve deeply into that, except for us Geeks? Evolution is NOT simple, folks! It's the Orbital Mechanics of Biology, Integrated Over Deep Time. There ain't no "hope" in there folks. Knowledge and understanding, yes. Hope, no.

 

For most folks, bless their hearts, Swiss Army Knives and Hope is as complicated as they want to deal with.

[Rade]

Suppose a form of human life that lived forever--what need religion ? To oust religion one must oust fear of death.

[BibleBeliever]

Thanks for clarifying the point about Entropy, it seems a little knowledge is dangerous. I will search it out and study it more.

 

"Information is energy", "Energy is information", I really don't see this, surely information comes from intelegence (though I guess you'll say DNA in info and comes from random mutations over millions of years).

 

I can see how order can come from an expression of energy, like when the sea goes out and there's lovely ripples left on the sand, but if I saw the words 'I love Scott' written on the beach I wouldn't think twice that it came from a human. Is it possible that too much order has to come from external intelegence?

 

To put it another way in a couple of hundred years will the scientists of the day show people Mt Rushmore, and use it as evidence for evolution, how wind, rain and erosion over time created a remarkably lifelike sculpture in the side of a mountain.

 

There is a difference in information and order, but where do scientists divide the two?

[Pyrotex]

Thanks for clarifying the point about Entropy, it seems a little knowledge is dangerous. I will search it out and study it more.

"Information is energy", "Energy is information", I really don't see this...There is a difference in information and order, but where do scientists divide the two?

Forget Mount Rushmore. That ain't gonna happen.

 

Cybernetics is the field of science that relates information theory to thermodynamics. Entropy becomes the inverse of the amount of accessible information in a system, i.e., the amount of "order". So information becomes loosely identified with order. But order is equatable to the amount of available energy in a system. Therefore, information = energy and vice versa.

 

You are confusing information with linguistic representations of communication, like the writing on the beach. A natural mistake. A better example would be the sun-warmed waves crashing on the beach, and a cold layer of sand 20 meters underground. The temperature difference could be used to generate electricity with thermo-couples. This available energy is a measure of the "order" or "information" in the waves/sand system.

 

Yes, I know it is very abstract and hard to handle, but that's the way it is. :D

[BibleBeliever]

So information becomes loosely identified with order. But order is equatable to the amount of available energy in a system. Therefore, information = energy and vice versa.

 

Not trying to be argumentative but why would you say that information is loosely identified with order and then say that information = energy? I agree that;

 

Order = Energy

 

and even

 

loosely identified information = Energy

 

but to use a term that a lot of people understand and re-aply it after subtly changing it's meaning brings confusion, this is how politicians work to get people to believe what they're saying.

 

Maybe we could clarify the definition by stating that

 

information = communication

 

as one is useless without the other.

 

(maybe equals is not the right term, inseperable would be better)

 

Or would I be better starting a new thread?

[InfiniteNow]

Maybe we could clarify the definition by stating that

 

information = communication

 

as one is useless without the other.

 

(maybe equals is not the right term, inseperable would be better)

 

Or would I be better starting a new thread?

 

Yes. :D

[Pyrotex]

Not trying to be argumentative but why would you say that information is loosely identified with order and then say that information = energy? I agree that;

Order = Energy... but to use a term that a lot of people understand and re-apply it after subtly changing it's meaning brings confusion, this is how politicians work to get people to believe what they're saying....?

Okay, my bad. I was a bit sloppy in my presentation, mainly because it has been a lot of years since I studied this. Mea culpa.

 

I would like to say one thing, and that is "information" in thermo and cybernetics is NOT communication. That may be its common usage in non-scientific conversations, I agree. But in these two highly technical fields, "information" is a measure (one of several measures) of how much "order" there is in a system. It takes more information to describe an ordered system than it does a random system.