buddhasbellybuttonfluff Posted May 5, 2010 *crickets chirping*  Hopefully I didn't scare everybody away with a too difficult topic and poor presentation. Continuing anyways...  In the list of conservation laws there is a division between exact and approximate conservation laws. For the sake of this discussion I will argue that the exact conservation is a valid tendency that cannot be violated. (You are, of course, encouraged to argue contrary.) The approximate conservation, on the other hand, provides a way of descend not unlike the thermodynamic entropy: the condensed primal forms dilute into lesser essences. I wonder if there's another reversal taking place for conscious living, but currently I'm uncertain how it manifests.  I would say that for the sake of symmetry there must be distinct laws concerning the uplift of spirit that complement the regulated downdrift of matter.  One = fundamental energy conservation; the creation is in balanced harmony Yin = fall of matter; entropy degrades sustainable organization and condensed energies are dispersed Yang = rise of spirit; consciousness may access qi and other so-called "supernatural" feats  Blessings Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
3L3VAT3 Posted May 5, 2010 yea, while i don't pretend to grasp all the scientific implications... i remember hearing about the descent of spirit into matter, and the ascent of matter into spirit... and how it made sense that there had to be something to counteract the entropy of the universe... to prevent a situation where in a trillion x trillion years from now there is no life or movement or heat or nuffin in the entire universe... Â I think it was a Paul Laffoley painting that actually graffed this out... Â Maybe we can see this on a smaller scale in the 'spiritual' impulse to help others out... like instead of everyone just being entirely selfish gene-robots we have spiritual impulses to get us to help others so we're not thrown into utter barbarism... hmmmm.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Creation Posted May 5, 2010 (edited) Hi BBBF.  Did you see this quote on the wiki page for the 2nd law?  "There are almost as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions of it."  It all depends on your view of the ontological status of things like probability, temperature, and entropy.  One viewpoint is that thermodynamics is the science of ignoring all the information you don't need (precise locations of atoms, etc.). In other words, thermodynamics is for agents that only has information about macroscopic variables, and any situation in which said macroscopic variables are sufficient to predict the future values of the macroscopic variables is the domain of thermodynamics. In such situations, there is a tendency toward equilibrium or colloquially "disorder" because that state is overwhelmingly more probable than more "ordered states".  "The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again." -James Clerk Maxwell  In this viewpoint, entropy is not a fundamental physical quantity, so an intelligence capable of operating on the microscopic level will be able to do things that appear to macroscopic beings to be impossible (i.e. decrease entropy). It all depends on what "level" you are operating at. Something that operates at a more refined level will have it's own conception of the 2nd law, that something at an even more refined level will be able to violate.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon  I leave it to you to read between the lines regarding qi as you see fit. Edited May 5, 2010 by Creation Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cloudhand Posted May 5, 2010 yea, while i don't pretend to grasp all the scientific implications... i remember hearing about the descent of spirit into matter, and the ascent of matter into spirit... and how it made sense that there had to be something to counteract the entropy of the universe... to prevent a situation where in a trillion x trillion years from now there is no life or movement or heat or nuffin in the entire universe... Â I think it was a Paul Laffoley painting that actually graffed this out... Â Maybe we can see this on a smaller scale in the 'spiritual' impulse to help others out... like instead of everyone just being entirely selfish gene-robots we have spiritual impulses to get us to help others so we're not thrown into utter barbarism... hmmmm.... Â Â Like your Crow avatar,pan pose is great for spirit vision. Cloud Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Machin Shin Posted May 5, 2010 Â Â Maybe we can see this on a smaller scale in the 'spiritual' impulse to help others out... like instead of everyone just being entirely selfish gene-robots we have spiritual impulses to get us to help others so we're not thrown into utter barbarism... hmmmm.... Bara bar! Nice conversation today? Â The word Barbaric comes from Siamese. It is derived from bara bar which was a greeting that they used when the old chinese explorers found Siam. Â Bara bar! Here come the mainlanders! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
buddhasbellybuttonfluff Posted May 6, 2010 (edited) Hi Creation,  Did you see this quote on the wiki page for the 2nd law? "There are almost as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions of it."  It all depends on your view of the ontological status of things like probability, temperature, and entropy. I knew that these versions indeed depicted the same law within varying conditions and parameters. That's why my commentary likewise implied a very uniform process within a selection of different contextual frames.  I should've made it clearer that only the perspective of application changed.  One viewpoint is that thermodynamics is the science of ignoring all the information you don't need (precise locations of atoms, etc.). In other words, thermodynamics is for agents that only has information about macroscopic variables, and any situation in which said macroscopic variables are sufficient to predict the future values of the macroscopic variables is the domain of thermodynamics. In such situations, there is a tendency toward equilibrium or colloquially "disorder" because that state is overwhelmingly more probable than more "ordered states".  "The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again." -James Clerk Maxwell  In this viewpoint, entropy is not a fundamental physical quantity, so an intelligence capable of operating on the microscopic level will be able to do things that appear to macroscopic beings to be impossible (i.e. decrease entropy). It all depends on what "level" you are operating at. Something that operates at a more refined level will have it's own conception of the 2nd law, that something at an even more refined level will be able to violate.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon  I leave it to you to read between the lines regarding qi as you see fit. Words "order" and "disorder" do not have much relevance without a context. One could even say that equalization of energy and heat makes the world more orderly in respect to uniformity, but I find the perspective of consciousness more meaningful because of its neglected position in the modern, especially scientific, discourse: Living resembles a branching process which constantly keeps reinventing new rules and adaptations. I don't know if this should be called organization, but it seems a very orderly tendency to me.  Maxwell's demon seems a very interesting related concept, but I find it insufficient in regard to what I suggest because it retreats from the more universal or macroscopic level of logic and physics. A famous adage says that the best kept secrets exist right before our eyes, and in this particular instance I call for further observance of our basic premises. Without the subtle gradiation and flux of energy, the process of consciousness could not surely exist, but I consider it the real question whether qi as the inverse of entropy permeates the universe abundantly, correlates with formative consciousness, and affects a measurable impact in the grand scale of things. For example, would the planet Jupiter still appear and operate as we know if the universe lacked qi?  I would also like to thank 3L3VAT3 for introducing me to Mr. Laffoley's art which I find fascinating.  Blessings Edited May 6, 2010 by buddhasbellybuttonfluff Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
3L3VAT3 Posted May 6, 2010 Hi Creation,    I would also like to thank 3L3VAT3 for introducing me to Mr. Laffoley's art which I find fascinating.  Blessings  Indeed, my pleasure! Mr. Laffoley is some kind of GENIUS!! He gets the props! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cueball Posted May 7, 2010 bbbf - that's an interesting idea to speculate on. How would you go about finding out whether Jupiter exists without qi? Could you measure that measurable impact, outside of consciousness? Â I'm not too familiar with the physics, but assuming entropy = devolution of some sort, then certainly you'd like to think some anti-entropic force is in operation. Â Otherwise we're all just rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, which is a sobering thought. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
