Question for agnostics and atheists

[tackattack]

I'm new, but I'm trying to find some answers and hopefully you guys/girls can help.
I know this is kind of a broad question but,

What is the general view of the average atheist regarding reality as it pertains to causality or just reality generally? Thanks!

-Dave

Shit happens

something I unequivocably can agree with

No, the second law is valid only for isolated systems with constant heat energy. In the case of our universe the heat energy is iple constantly fed by burning stars, which is basically a conversion of nuclear energy to heat energy.

The short answer is that we do not know since we cannot investigate beyond the borders of the visible universe and account for some features on the universe on a cosmic scale. As a result in cosmology there is still debate as to how to interpret the second law. The universe certainly is not like the system that is portrayed in the law. For instance, the universe is expanding, meaning that the number of possible micro states in the universe is increasing just as a result of that. In a system with fixed infinitely hard walls, as intended by the second law, the number of possible micro states is fixed.

so the second law doesn't apply because we can't prove that it's an closed system with constant heat.

Again, there is no loss of energy. Energy is preserved in the universe as we know it. What most closely matches your description is entropy a meausure that expresses the ability of a system to do work, the higher the entropy the less the system is capable thereof.

yes that's my definition of entropy. So let's define the universe. It is the total of space and the objects occuping them . I know it's an oversimplification, but I'm obviously the lowest common denominator here. It includes things outside our current perception based on statistics and science, but hopefully will be observable in the future. The walls are not definable because we only give walls to things we can emphatically prove, hence no known begining or end. Our enderstanding is that now it is expanding and we have no record of it contracting in our recorded time.Science predicted , based off what we know of entropy, that at some point in the future it will entropy. At some point in the past there was extremely low entropy statistically. That gives us a general idea of when the universe was created. Or is the big bang something that happened somewhere after the universes inception. Close?

No. We are talking of the alleged end of the universe here. Not of its beginning. If you die in a car crash it does not follow that you therefore were born in a car crash. If we conclude that the universe will exist forever, from that it cannot be concluded, that the universe must already have existed an infinitely long time, nor that it only can have existed an finite time up till now.

Do you have a handy reference to the science behind the begining of the universe? I would like to discuss both the start and the end and what's inbetween.

Is a planet a closed system? Isn't it affected by outside gravities and photons? I'm really struggling with the concept of a closed system.

Your phrasing makes it hard to understand you, but here is what I think you mean: since the entropy of the universe is finite it must have a beginning and an end

Let's start with the beginning of the universe. The amount by which entropy of the universe increases per say billion year, might increase in time. In fact to reach a certain finite entropy might take an infinite time. But the general idea of science indeed is that our universe started off with low entropy some 13.7 billion years ago (a conclusion not based on the second law at all).

Now for the end, we haven't reached a state of maximum entropy yet (since there is obvious no thermal equilibrium at the moment) and we don't know if our universe will expand forever. If we rely on our best knowledge we know the universe is 13.7 billions year old now and is in acelerated epansion. Some speculation is about what will happen when the expansion has accelareted so much that the expansion starts to interfere on the atomic and quantum level. Remember, the expansion we're talking about is not the hurling away of fragments and debris from the center of an ordinary explosion, space itself is expanding. Some speculate that this will result in what's referred to as the Big Rip, the structure of spacetime will be ripped apart and possibly result in innumerable fragments that might become daugther universes. So the end of our universe might result in the beginnings of other universes. End of the line: we still don't know and there are no easy conclusions about it from the second law.

What is your opinion on the largest in scope closed system that the second law of thermodynamics applies and why?

Which part of nature is outside the universe??

no part of nature is outside of universe in my opinion.

Then there is no reason to suggests that one is part of the other.

Maybe I should define universe and known universe as as 2 seperate things. Nature is my concept of the laws that are the construct for which things operate within the known universe.

OK, I enjoy debate and on the basis you describe, I welcome it. Good arguments are about the matter of the facts, not about persons and I've tried to stick to the matter. But argumentative debate is not the same as having an argument, I just hope you'll appreciate the difference.

I do and thank you.