Is there anyone who understands entropy and also believes humans can create a sustainable world?
Discussion
*raises hand*
If the most powerful people in our society were not actively increasing entropy then we'd be just fine.
Entropy is gonna do entropy, regardless.
It really makes a big difference whether you believe in a one shot big bang model or a continuous/stable model whether entropy is increasing or not.
I think that entropy is at a constant ratio, just as matter is at a constant ratio with space. Observations of the far distant universe are consistent with the idea that there is a constant ratio of entropy.
So the seeming chaos of the world in our immediate vicinity is not the natural state.
But you are free to be pessimistic if you want to. Just don't expect anyone to like your doomsaying.
If you can falsify the second law of thermodynamics in any way, including cosmic observations, I would encourage you to go for it.
Not sure “create” is the best word to use for this question.
🤝🧡
You think the world is already sustainable?
The planet is. Humanity isn't. As it was always meant to be. But, in regards to your original question regarding entropy: no, probably not.
The planet is 4.5 billion years old and will be swallowed by solar expansion and crushed into nuclear fusion plasma in 5.0 billion years.
In planet years (like doggie years), Earth the planet is a 40 year old woman.
I agree.
I'm sorry, but what are you trying to elaborate on with this statement. Simply that the Earth has a long time left in it's lifespan or that humanity may have alot of time to see a reduction in entropy? Or something else?
I’m saying “sustainability” isn’t a thing.
It’s a weird abstract idea that does not exist anywhere in reality. Instead everything is a race.
Aaahhh! Ok. I see. Then we were on the same page. That's what I was alluding to in my comment below. I also agree. Sustainability hasn't reached passed conceptual stages. I've been wondering for years if humanity's inherent sense of competition will lead us to becoming an interplanetary species or to our doom. I mean, we've only gotten more destructive. 🤷♂️
Let's let evolution do it's thing.
"To me, the human move to take responsibility for the living Earth is laughable - the rhetoric of the powerless. The planet takes care of us, not we of it. Our self-inflated moral imperative to guide a wayward Earth, or heal our sick planet, is evidence of our immense capacity for self delusion. Rather, we need to protect ourselves from ourselves." - Lynn Margulis
I highly recommend reading all of her works! 👍
Yes, seems accurate.
There is something deeply pathetic about people who will be dead in 15 years trying steer the destiny of a planet.
All your best efforts are but noise.
Personally, I think people like that are just terrified of feeling worthless to society. It's just rather ironic, in a sense because all their efforts to create some kind of legacy lead to them being hated by the people they claimed they were trying to help.
Can't stop the earth from getting blown to smithereens. Let the planet do what it has to.
Theoretically, humans, if they were good, could create a world that would last quite a while before the sun destroys the planet. However, humans aren't good. If I didn't believe in the Christian Gospel, I wouldn't have much hope for the world.
Earthlings have an appointment with Sol’s fury in 1 billion years.
If the descendants of humanity are to escape that fate, how big of a window do people feel we have before humans lose dominion over the means to escape?
Lol, there is only equilibrium, and temporary, effortful, futile, struggles against it.
Second law of thermodynamics refutes this.
One of us is misunderstanding? Let’s assume it’s me. With time, the entire universe will be formless, and temperature uniform, yes? We insulate, we build, we pump, and we create gradients of thermodynamic inequality at great cost, for a short time, but ultimately the moment our efforts stop…..pea soup at a few Kelvin above absolute zero. Do I have it wrong?
Have you watched Journey to the End of Time?
No, I was hoping to converse with personal understanding. I think trading other people’s understandings and perspectives of scientific theories and laws is trite.
Well at what point is it formless?
That’s not a state that is achieved.
I assume that entropy ensures that eventually all matter in the universe disassociates into constituent parts, with dissimilar atoms equally spaced from each other across the entire universe, all imbued with some equal distribution of energy in the form of uniform heat slightly greater than absolute zero. Any body or form is order, and order of any kind takes energy to maintain, as it is a concentration of matter and energy, as you kindly stated, the second law of thermodynamics states that higher orders of energy and organization necessarily diffuse over time to lower areas of energy and order until equilibrium is obtained. Such is entropy.
But at that point there is no time, that’s the end, so no medium through which it can be sustainable.
Sorry for the super obtuse trap.
Yeah, I guess I have no reason to think time stops universally, likely it stops for me at the cessation of life providing processes. Obtuse is one correct word I suppose, hidden agenda is another. 😒
The question is always "over what timeframe?"
When most people talk about sustainability they're barely talking about a few generations. They're just not really capable of imagining things like the sun's red giant stage or the inevitable heat death of the universe.
They can barely think past their own grandkids.