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Just a Question

Started by Egor, February 13, 2012, 08:24:10 PM

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Egor

I have an innocent... ;D...question: Do the laws of physics represent order or chaos? (I'm assuming we all agree that if something is not chaotic, then it is orderly).
This user has been banned so please do not expect any responses from him.

Whitney

I think the laws as they are currently understood indicate that out of chaos came order.

Davin

I don't think they represent either, what they represent are clearly defined in the law, like the "law" of gravity represents gravity. I have not yet seen any law of order or law of chaos.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Ali

I don't understand the question.

"Laws" are our attempt to codify and explain natural phenomena,  so I would say that our "laws" by definition are an attempt to illustrate order.  (Any natural law, not just physics.)  But I'm not sure if that is what you're asking.

Egor

Quote from: Whitney on February 13, 2012, 08:35:51 PM
I think the laws as they are currently understood indicate that out of chaos came order.

I'm not even sure I can imagine true chaos, but certainly a chaotic system would remain chaotic. How could order emerge from chaos? I mean lets take a song, and from a billion possible frequencies, we put together notes, beats, timing, chords, that comes from our conscious ability. But the consciousness preceeds the order. Wouldn't we have to say the same for the laws of physics?
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Egor

Quote from: Ali on February 13, 2012, 08:53:36 PM
I don't understand the question.

"Laws" are our attempt to codify and explain natural phenomena,  so I would say that our "laws" by definition are an attempt to illustrate order.  (Any natural law, not just physics.)  But I'm not sure if that is what you're asking.

I see what you're saying. You're saying that there reall isn't any laws of nature, we just ascribe laws in order to describe what happens in nature. Except you have the entire scientific community that would disagree with you. For instance, gravity seems to behave the same everywhere all the time, that's how the laws are "discovered."
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Ali

#6
Quote from: Egor on February 13, 2012, 10:30:07 PM
Quote from: Ali on February 13, 2012, 08:53:36 PM
I don't understand the question.

"Laws" are our attempt to codify and explain natural phenomena,  so I would say that our "laws" by definition are an attempt to illustrate order.  (Any natural law, not just physics.)  But I'm not sure if that is what you're asking.

I see what you're saying. You're saying that there reall isn't any laws of nature, we just ascribe laws in order to describe what happens in nature. Except you have the entire scientific community that would disagree with you. For instance, gravity seems to behave the same everywhere all the time, that's how the laws are "discovered."

That's not really what I'm saying.  What I'm saying is by definition, "law" implies order, not chaos.  If it were "chaos" we would not be able to write a law to predict it and explain it.  For example, if sometimes the earth rotates around the sun and randomly sometimes it rotates around the moon, and sometimes randomly it rotates around one of the other planets, and sometimes it just stands still (randomly) and there was no pattern to it, we wouldn't really be able to write a law about it.  Hence, the fact that the laws exist imply that the world is orderly, and not chaotic.  But I don't know if that is actually what you were getting at or asking.

history_geek

#7
Quote from: Egor on February 13, 2012, 10:27:15 PM
Quote from: Whitney on February 13, 2012, 08:35:51 PM
I think the laws as they are currently understood indicate that out of chaos came order.

I'm not even sure I can imagine true chaos, but certainly a chaotic system would remain chaotic. How could order emerge from chaos? I mean lets take a song, and from a billion possible frequencies, we put together notes, beats, timing, chords, that comes from our conscious ability. But the consciousness preceeds the order. Wouldn't we have to say the same for the laws of physics?

I think the forming of a star system would be a rather good example of order arising from chaos.

This link seems to explain it rather well:
http://novan.com/solar.htm

Edit:

Also, another example might be the birth of our moon. Originally it was a smaller planet, that early in the history of our solar system collided with the early earth, that was not completely solid, and in fact part of the Earths core was merged with the Moon. Eventually the gravitational pull of the two objects balanced somewhat, and what once was a planet became the Moon. But it doesn't stop there. The length of days has been measured to have changed over the history. At one point Earth had a day cycle of about 22 or so hours. That was because the Moon was closer to us then it is today. It is slowly moving away from Earth, and within the next few million years it will have escaped the gravity all together.

Man, if only had the brains to be an astronomer or a cosmologist...
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C Clarke's Third Law
"Any sufficiently advanced alien is indistinguishable from a god."
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace:
Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothése - I do not require that hypothesis[img]http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/a/4eef2cc3548cc9844a491b22ad384546.gif[/i

Whitney

Quote from: Egor on February 13, 2012, 10:27:15 PM
How could order emerge from chaos?

Take a chaotic system where the elements making it up have their own ways of attracting to other objects and eventually you end up with an ordered system.  I think Hawking did an illustration of this in his Into the Universe series http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Into-the-Universe-with-Stephen-Hawking/70211618  If you have Netflix you can watch it.

Egor

Quote from: Ali on February 13, 2012, 10:40:20 PM

That's not really what I'm saying.  What I'm saying is by definition, "law" implies order, not chaos.  If it were "chaos" we would not be able to write a law to predict it and explain it.  For example, if sometimes the earth rotates around the sun and randomly sometimes it rotates around the moon, and sometimes randomly it rotates around one of the other planets, and sometimes it just stands still (randomly) and there was no pattern to it, we wouldn't really be able to write a law about it.  Hence, the fact that the laws exist imply that the world is orderly, and not chaotic.  But I don't know if that is actually what you were getting at or asking.

Oh no; that's exactly what I'm getting at.
This user has been banned so please do not expect any responses from him.

Egor

Quote from: history_geek on February 13, 2012, 11:56:33 PM

I think the forming of a star system would be a rather good example of order arising from chaos.

This link seems to explain it rather well:
http://novan.com/solar.htm

Edit:

Also, another example might be the birth of our moon. Originally it was a smaller planet, that early in the history of our solar system collided with the early earth, that was not completely solid, and in fact part of the Earths core was merged with the Moon. Eventually the gravitational pull of the two objects balanced somewhat, and what once was a planet became the Moon. But it doesn't stop there. The length of days has been measured to have changed over the history. At one point Earth had a day cycle of about 22 or so hours. That was because the Moon was closer to us then it is today. It is slowly moving away from Earth, and within the next few million years it will have escaped the gravity all together.

Man, if only had the brains to be an astronomer or a cosmologist...

Yeah, but I'm wondering how they could possibly know that? See italics. But that's not really important. What is important is that you think the forming of a star system is an example of order emerging from chaos. Let's say that's true. How could it happen? Chaos is chaos; or did it just magically happen?
This user has been banned so please do not expect any responses from him.

Egor

Quote from: Whitney on February 14, 2012, 12:49:32 AM
Quote from: Egor on February 13, 2012, 10:27:15 PM
How could order emerge from chaos?

Take a chaotic system where the elements making it up have their own ways of attracting to other objects and eventually you end up with an ordered system.  I think Hawking did an illustration of this in his Into the Universe series http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Into-the-Universe-with-Stephen-Hawking/70211618  If you have Netflix you can watch it.

I don't have Netflix. But I think I see what you mean. My only thing is that gravity (or at least the way it acts) is part of the laws of physics. I'll tell you, it's not that chaos bothers me--it's that order or a dynamic that causes order could emerge from chaos.

Take a Jackson Pollock painting, for instance. Is it chaos or order? He said that he denied the accident. He said he was part of nature. Of course he's referring to his consciousness.

I mean, it's got to freak you out a little: The very science you rely on to sanctify yourself from the religious is utterly dependent on order. If chaos is at the root of things. Science has no validity. In other words, science can't study chaos. It can't really even study the cause of order. Wouldn't you agree?
This user has been banned so please do not expect any responses from him.

Tank

Here comes the 'fine tuning' argument.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Whitney

I am not bothered at all by the idea of order from chaos...  If the universe emerged from pure chaos that then became orderly because of how objects tend to attract to each other then that would mean we simply couldn't study how the universe works past a certain point.  Not having knowledge of something doesn't bother me and shouldn't bother anyone...lots of things we can't know now and lots of things we likely can never know.

Quote from: Egor on February 14, 2012, 05:44:19 AM
he very science you rely on to sanctify yourself from the religious is utterly dependent on order.

I have NEVER claimed that I an somehow sanctified over religious people...any religious person could accept reality just as well as I can without giving up their core belief).  Stop applying blanket ideas to me, and others, just because you believe we all think a certain way.  Stuff like this is why you don't get along well with anyone.


Whitney

Quote from: Tank on February 14, 2012, 08:28:10 AM
Here comes the 'fine tuning' argument.

Yup...been expecting it since the OP. (Or perhaps the first cause argument)

Considering that some of us said it's all ordered and some of us went with chaos I guess we suck at setting the groundwork for the argument....