(December 4, 2012 at 1:59 am)Undeceived Wrote:hmmmm mass is a requirement for entropy? I thought it was energy and energy transfer...(December 3, 2012 at 6:50 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Why does it require a cause?You have to start with something. For molecules to become more disorderly over time, there must first be ordered molecules--one concentrated, unpolluted mass of energy. Without matter, there is nothing on which to measure entropy. To say entropy exists without time and matter is like saying momentum exists without an object--it's impossible. Entropy is a ruler drawn over the already physical universe. So how does that physical universe come to be?
Every system tends naturally to a state of maximum entropy. No cause necessary.
Illustration:
Where do we get the bricks?
How about super strings or something else that has energy but no mass?
And the big-bang is just the tipping point when the increase in entropy allows the formation of the Higgs boson and, thus, mass and all other known particles.
(December 4, 2012 at 1:59 am)Undeceived Wrote:I can conceive the plus infinity easily, or at least something that's close to it... just carry on with your version of the second law and, at infinity, you have zero available energy, and all energy trapped in equilibrium states of maximal entropy.(December 3, 2012 at 6:50 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Infinity is not a natural concept? How so?
Unofficial, but good explanation:
http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/What%20is%20infinity.htm
Infinity is not natural because it cannot be observed. If you focus at the farthest star, for example, how do you know there isn't another one beyond it? And if you find nothingness beyond, you know the stars have bounds and are not infinite. In a closed system, everything theoretically has limits, we just don't know what they are. But regardless, if entropy trails back into infinity on the timeline, part of it will not be in our universe--that part is supernatural.
Another potential issue is that of change into infinity. All changes require causes. If entropy increases perpetually, there is a constant chain of reactions with no apparent initial action. Infinite regress. That is why most scientists agree that for an object to be eternal, it must be unchanging. Things that change eventually break down.
Why would the negative infinity be that much more complex?
At minus infinity, we get zero entropy and maximal energy availability.
We arbitrarily put the t=zero anywhere we choose.... The Big-Bang is a good candidate.
Do recall that all this is pure speculation. The "before the big-bang is considered a singularity" where the known laws of physics break down. My guess is as good as any... and I may come up with other different guesses.... but I don't think they can be proven, any of them. They just have the merit of avoiding the inclusion of a magical deity that theists like to impose on our gaps of knowledge.