The Objective Observer

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Proof of God

• The Collected Arguments for God
• Creationists vs. Atheists
• Beating a Not-So-Dead God...Err, Horse
• Confessing My Sins
• The Scientific Theory of God
• Revelations
• Skipping To The End
• Why Pi?
• The FINAL Proof of God
• The Greek Creation "Myth"
• The Zodiac
• The Science of God
• Ozymandias Strikes Yet Again

So, like any good; or not so good, Catholic, I have to confess my sins. But instead of confessing to a priest, I will confess them to you, the reader. You see, I was a bit disingenuous in my last article, The Scientific Theory of God. Essays work best when you focus on and stick to a single topic so I did some “hand waving” to gloss over a very crucial issue related to Maxwell’s demon.

You see, this is not the first time that this particular argument has been made regarding life violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Now, to my knowledge, it IS the first time that it has been applied to debunk the exorcism of Maxwell’s demon and in this, the essay stands on its own. The existence of an unlimited information storage system that can collect information on its own without outside intervention debunks the “information entropy” arguments of Maxwell’s demon exorcists.

However, there is a critical issue regarding Maxwell’s demon that tends to get muddled up by those that do not know any better. That issue is the definition of the thermodynamic “system”. You see, the classic argument AGAINST life violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics is that life and the Earth are not “closed” thermodynamic systems because energy is received by the Earth; as well as life, on a continuous basis from the sun. Essentially, the argument is that there is no violation because the energy from the sun is simply being converted into “life energy” by living beings. Plants absorb energy from the sun and grow, animals eat the plants, animals eat those animals, etc.

But, I happen to have ACTUALLY studied thermodynamics. Being a classically educated mechanical engineer, it comes along with the territory. And the part of this that is particularly vexing is that everyone gets the system definition of Maxwell’s demon completely wrong. They do the same “hand-waving”, or worse, that I did in my first essay on this topic. Thus, let me clear up this “oh-so-complicated” thermodynamics business.

In thermodynamics a “system” is defined by an arbitrary “boundary” drawn around what is being studied. Whatever is inside the boundary is the “system” and whatever is outside the boundary is the “environment”. What is allowed to pass in and out of this boundary defines what kind of “system” you are studying. There are three types of systems:

• Open – The boundary allows both energy (heat and work) and matter to pass between the system and its environment
• Closed – The boundary allows energy (heat and work) but not matter to pass between the system and its environment
• Isolated – The boundary allows neither energy (heat and work) nor matter to pass between the system and its environment

Now, you can get into subdivisions of systems such as “adiabatic” and “rigid” closed systems but that is irrelevant for the discussion at hand. Also, technically, a system can never be absolutely isolated from its environment due to gravitational attraction. But, again, irrelevant.

So here is the problem with arguments on both sides of the “life violates the Second Law” discussion. They both argue over something that is completely irrelevant. Technically the Earth, and therefore life, IS a closed system; by definition. Yes, the sun feeds the Earth with energy but that is explicitly ALLOWED in a closed system. So, if you discount the occasional asteroid, the Earth, and life, is a closed system; by definition. But, Maxwell’s demon has nothing to do with a CLOSED system. Maxwell’s demon requires an ISOLATED system. The original statement of Maxwell’s demon presupposes two containers of the same gas at the same temperature ISOLATED from the rest of the Universe.

Where or where to find an isolated system? The Earth? Nope. How about the solar system? Nope. How about the Galaxy? Nope. Oh, I know, how about the Universe? Yeah, that works. If we draw our boundary around the entire Universe, we have an isolated system. So, now we have an isolated system of the entire Universe. Thus, the life on Earth represents some tiny little miniscule fraction of all of the energy within the entire Universe. And thus, if the entropy on the Earth decreases without an associated increase in entropy somewhere else in the Universe, then we have our violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It doesn’t matter how small the decrease in entropy is in relation to the system being studied, the Second Law forbids ANY decrease, whatsoever.

So let’s speculate that a big asteroid smacks the Earth and wipes out 80-90% of all life on Earth, or that a “keystone” species goes extinct and takes out the same proportion of life. Dream up any catastrophic event you want. Wiping out a bunch of life represents a decrease in entropy. So where is the corresponding increase of entropy elsewhere in the system? Are we to believe that at the same instant that billions of organisms are being wiped out on Earth that billions of organisms are popping into being someplace else in the Universe? If so, where is the chain of causality? And is this even in any way more believable than speculating about “God”. I have to say, that I would tend to believe in “God” before I believe that a scientifically orderly universe is going to somehow spring a bunch of organisms into being in some remote corner of the Universe to compensate for 90% of life becoming extinct on Earth.

Perhaps the loss of DNA information, an increase in entropy, exactly balances out the decrease of all of those species becoming extinct? No, this is probably not the case, much; if not all, of that DNA information is preserved. They are even collecting dinosaur DNA from Tyrannosaurus Rex femurs nowadays!

So where are we to find this increase in entropy? If scientists speculate that this increase is occurring somewhere in the Universe OTHER THAN Earth, then they are engaging in the same unrealistic and un-provable speculation of which they accuse Creationists. They cannot show any kind of chain of causality that would link a huge decrease in entropy here on Earth to some huge, random increase somewhere other than Earth. And if they speculate that increase in entropy occurred OUTSIDE the system, then that means that there is something outside the ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Mmmmm, could it be…God? Go on, give it your best “Church Lady” impression, you know you want to. I mean, something that exists external to the entire Universe pretty much fits my definition of God.

Thus, we have debunked this entire “open”, “closed”, “isolated” system nonsense and are once again left with the exact same question and conclusion posed in The Scientific Theory of God. Is life on Earth increasing or decreasing in entropy? In particular, during periodic episodes of “mass extinction”, how can scientists account for the huge increase in entropy that would balance out the huge decrease in “life entropy” that would be associated with such events?

I am pretty open minded and I cannot fathom where such an increase in entropy could POSSIBLY come from other than losing all of the associated DNA information, information entropy. But we already know that is not the case. Thus, I am at a loss.

And THAT, boys and girls, is how you prove, scientifically, the existence of God. Easy.