Soliders of Order

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by esoterik appeal, Nov 26, 2005.

  1. esoterik appeal h. pylori Registered Senior Member

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    this one has been rattling around for awhile...

    thermodynamics #2 says that entropy will always increase in a closed system. barring the divine, the universe is the ultimate closed system. and not only that but it's expanding, aiding in the system's descent into chaos.

    people who subscribe to this picture of the universe- of which i am one- see the ultimate fate of the universe as a gradual heat death. everything crumbles into an energetic soup a minute fraction of a degree above absolute zero.

    amidst this bath of chaos, ordered systems emerge, but none can totally escape the flow of entropy, save one... life.

    life's sole aim is to propagate itself in hopes of combating the relentless tide of entropy. evolution does this fairly well. at the very least it keeps pace with the cosmological slide towards chaos. evolutionary milestones occur at about the same pace as geological ones, which are only slightly faster than cosmological ones.

    that is until intelligence evolves. all life has intelligence, but after a certain threshold intelligence surpasses evolution's mechanisims of propagation, and begins to shape its own destiny.

    cut to the beginning of the 21st century here on Earth. we are standing on the doorstep of a dramatically different era of human history. our technology, the mechanism that surpasses evolution's abilities, is about to open up unprecedented access to the raw materials and energies contained within our universe. this access provides us with the most powerful tool possible to outpace chaos, and sustain an environment in which we can literally live forever.

    thus, wielding our sword of intelligence, and sharpening its edge with technology, we are the Soldiers of Order. it is our duty to battle chaos, in order to make certain that our universe doesn't become a failed experiment, but a flourishing habitat for any and all kinds of life.

    and before anyone says it: yes, someone's been reading Kurzweil, but these thoughts of mine stirred well before that. he did me the great service of laying a technical framework, as well as helping on some philosophical issues.

    thoughts?
     
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  3. Light Registered Senior Member

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    I subscribe to the same thought of heat-death for the universe.

    Entropy ultimately cannot be beaten. We are not Soldiers of Order, we are merely Passing of the Guard.
     
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  5. esoterik appeal h. pylori Registered Senior Member

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    so "Life" is ultimately meaningless?
     
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  7. Light Registered Senior Member

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    To someone who has some form of religion, no. To an atheist, absolutely.
     
  8. esoterik appeal h. pylori Registered Senior Member

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    how can anyone be an "atheist" when so many questions remain unanswered?

    do you not agree that the universe seems to be working out some kind of all-encompassing calculation? how could heat-death solve any problem?

    are you suggesting that that is the ultimate solution to this universe?
     
  9. Light Registered Senior Member

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    I honestly do not know. It seems to me that would be the bleakest outlook of all and completely pointless. You'll have to ask one - there are several here.

    That most likley IS the case. Why must it "solve" anything in the way you seem to mean? Cannot it be just something like a very complex clock that will eventually run down? In that event, it's "solution" would be to have finally acheived a state of rest.

    No, I would never be so bold as to pretend I know the answer!! That is a position reserved for fools.
     
  10. esoterik appeal h. pylori Registered Senior Member

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    the only way a clock can run down is if it is run by a fool, and i don't think that is the case for our universe. it is a system that will either be acted upon by a counter-chaotic force, or not.

    it seems to me that we (humankind) are counter-chaotic, simply because the order of complexity is increasing in our global civilization.

    our planet will first start to lose its entropy and from there our computational ability will spread throughout the galaxy and then the universe.
     
  11. Light Registered Senior Member

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    One cannot "loose" entropy, it is the most natural of all processes. And since we have only a finite amount of energy available and cannot reverse entropy except on a very local basis and for a limited amount of time, how to you suppose we will eventually become what overcomes it? We are intelligent, yes, and gaining additional knowledge continually, but that in no way make us omnipotent.
     
  12. esoterik appeal h. pylori Registered Senior Member

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    i suppose we can reclaim lost energy and matter from entropy with the proper level of technology, some of which we now possess. and in the future this process will be nearly perfect.

    i never claimed we would be omnipotent, and we couldn't reach this level of knowledge, unless the universe were no longer computable.
     
  13. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    How does entropy not being 'beatable' render life meaningless?
     
  14. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    I think this interpretation comes from mutual non-understanding between many believers and atheists concerning what 'meaning' actually is.
     
  15. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    It's a common behavior of believers to substitute lack of knowledge / understanding with attractive fantasy. Atheists tend to avoid substituting unknowns with something else.
     
  16. JoeTheMan Registered Senior Member

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    "I think this interpretation comes from mutual non-understanding between many believers and atheists concerning what 'meaning' actually is." -CrunchyCat

    Well... what's meaning, then? There's a couple ways I can see it: we can talk about meaning in relation to sentences, look into the semantic meaning (the meaning of the words) and the pragmatic meaning (the intention behind the utterance.)

    Meaning in relation to works of visual art and music are similar--we can focus on individual elements and try to determine their meaning in isolation (the 'semantic' meaning) or in their relation to the whole (the 'pragmatic' meaning.)

    The meaning of a natural phenomena can be similarly analyzed: the 'semantic' meaning would be the phenomena taken in isolation. Any natural phenomena observed without reference to the context or circumstances is devoid of meaning; it is by reference to these experiential frames that we construct meaning out of external, natural reality. But by examining these interrelations, some apparent, some hidden, we have already engaged the 'pragmatic' meaning of the phenomena, which is nothing more than its connection with other events.

    I think the 'meaning' of the universe is similar-- the individual elements, taken singly, have no intrinsic meaning (this is the foundation of atheism) but taken altogether, the whole of existence is so fundamentally interrelated that human minds cannot help but make the leap to assigning a meaning to something so extremely complex and yet unexplainable. It defies reason that an explanation should be impossible, so in spite of lacking a clear and precise explanation of the meaning, the 'believers,' in contrast to atheism, assign the universe as a whole a definite meaning, even though they too say it cannot be absolutely defined and, even more damaging, may be subjective.
     
  17. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    The relationship of 2+ variables
     
  18. JoeTheMan Registered Senior Member

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    "Nothing can totally escape the flow of entropy, save one... life. "

    Not even life totally escapes the flow of entropy if we buy the second law of thermodynamics. Life is just a temporary reversal of the order-to-chaos relation, kind of a whirlpool spinning opposite the current of time which always increases chaos. We can only increase local order at the cost of a greater universal increase of disorder--it all must balance out in the end, say the "rules".

    As scientifically rigorous as the formulation of the laws of thermodynamics are, I think they lead to a rather pessimistic philosophy. Strictly *nothing* can overcome them completely or conclusively until we find chinks in the armor of entropy.
     
  19. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    it is the typical folly of western man steeped in his religion of materialism, that he believes his purpose is to 'save te universe'----it is a modern equivalent of te Mayans who believed that by blood sacrifice they too could maintain te universe!

    actually Nature, which includes universe as continuum is Intelligent. it doesn't NEED 'help' because it IS INtelligenc~ing, or cosmosing..........this doesn't rule out a death of the universe, but where ther is death there HAS to be life....ypu cannot have one witout the other

    This universe, Nature, your life, animal, insect, rock....all life and death is FULL of Meaning, hich also embraces mindsets who believe universe is meaning-less. Fullness overflowing with Meaning. such is ecstasy
     
  20. fess Registered Senior Member

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    People are so incredibly egotisticle. We are a few generations away from living in trees and peeling bananas with our feet. A bit later, we decided the world was flat and the center of the universe. We are the universe, not separate from it. Entropy is working on us. We have such a microscopic, parochial view of the universe, that to think we have any insight or are even capable of an insight into the 'meaning' (whatever that is) of the universe, is the height of ego. Many people even believe that there is a human-like god-creature that created the universe and that he (I guess he has male genitalia) doesn't shave and has a long beard and sits and somewhere and feels emotions.
    The universe has evolved to the point where it has become aware of itself (us). These points of awareness have evolved a universal view to help them deal with the disturbing fact that they are transitiory and will cease to exist in the not too distant future.
    In other words, you are a flash in the pan, get over it. It's not very comforting but look around you. Life inevitably ends in tragedy. You become slower, weaker and more stupid as you age. You eventually lose everything you have and everyone you love.
    Bleak?...yes, but anything else you believe is just fantasy.
     
  21. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    That's a very interesting way to express things. THe universe (reality) has points of self awareness.
     
  22. nameless Registered Senior Member

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    Every 'self' another 'point of 'self'-awareness'?
     
  23. esoterik appeal h. pylori Registered Senior Member

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    so basically, the universe sees you as a point of ever-decreasing order; no matter what your effect on your society.

    get real. unless you commit suicide, then you contribute to the whole of human society, which will ultimately expand to the far reaches of the cosmos.

    read some kurzweil...
     

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