$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cheRand', 'M')aybe so, if you're just talking about consumption. Metabolism IS genetically-influenced. If you look at cultures with persistent famines and die-off, you find stuff today like obesity and diabetes in those same cultures today in the "fat" times. Nature is narrowing the diversity of responses to changing conditions--- slicing off both ends of the range curve using conditions of starvation and conditions of excess over the generations. Or, to look at it from a different perspective, Nature is testing for capability to survive both ends of the feast-famine spectrum.
(Am I off-topic? Metabolism is organism-level thermodynamics, right?)
PeakOil is You
THE Entropy Thread (merged)
Re: <>
by pilferage » Mon 17 Oct 2005, 05:26:37
I suppose it's just like any other form of energy storage, so sure, the processes that alter our food in order to store it are organism-level thermodynamics. Do you know what the distribution of metabolism types with respect to population is? I'm wondering if there's a nice bell curve in there. Also, how do you measure metabolism?
"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. "
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Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
by MonteQuest » Wed 02 Nov 2005, 22:54:36
Error messages from the economy
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')cience's second law of thermodynamics - which predicted my chaotic heap of broken computer pieces - also predicts that when a system of any kind gets complicated you have to pour in energy and effort to maintain the complexity. It correctly predicts that all organized systems eventually break down and become disorganized again. Everything from a house to a human body, from a bag of sugar to a spaceship, obeys this law. Time eventually makes organized things turn back into formless mush, and the best we can do is pump in increasing amounts of energy to hold the inevitable decay in check for a while.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')cience's second law of thermodynamics - which predicted my chaotic heap of broken computer pieces - also predicts that when a system of any kind gets complicated you have to pour in energy and effort to maintain the complexity. It correctly predicts that all organized systems eventually break down and become disorganized again. Everything from a house to a human body, from a bag of sugar to a spaceship, obeys this law. Time eventually makes organized things turn back into formless mush, and the best we can do is pump in increasing amounts of energy to hold the inevitable decay in check for a while.
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Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
by Doly » Thu 03 Nov 2005, 08:32:11
Monte:
Oh, nooooooooo, not again!!!!!
Why do you have to mix your popular science ideas about entropy with everything???
Haven't enough people explained to you that you haven't got it right? Why can't you just leave the subject alone?
Have you noticed that the above article was NOT written by a scientist? The fact that your mistakes are shared doesn't mean that they aren't mistakes.
Once again: Entropy on the Earth is, in fact, slowly decreasing, thanks to the sun, which is a source of low entropy. Eventually (millions of years) it will increase again. But that doesn't worry us now, does it?
I seriously doubt that the effect of technology in our world makes a blip in the total amount of entropy on Earth. If it has some measurable effect, it will have more to do with agriculture and farming than with burning fossil fuels. The amount of fossil fuels that we burn is negligible in comparison with the amount of land we cultivate. And the way I see it, if you calculated the difference between the entropy of the Earth ten thousand years ago and now that it's cultivated, it could go either way. Don't tell me that there's less biodiversity: that doesn't count at all for entropy calculations. The amount of entropy has more to do with the type of molecules of the plants we cultivate in comparison with the rest and the density of vegetation now and then. It might well be that a field of wheat has less entropy than a forest, in which case, our technology has globally decreased entropy.
Do you get it? No, I'm sure you don't.
Oh, nooooooooo, not again!!!!!
Why do you have to mix your popular science ideas about entropy with everything???
Haven't enough people explained to you that you haven't got it right? Why can't you just leave the subject alone?
Have you noticed that the above article was NOT written by a scientist? The fact that your mistakes are shared doesn't mean that they aren't mistakes.
Once again: Entropy on the Earth is, in fact, slowly decreasing, thanks to the sun, which is a source of low entropy. Eventually (millions of years) it will increase again. But that doesn't worry us now, does it?
I seriously doubt that the effect of technology in our world makes a blip in the total amount of entropy on Earth. If it has some measurable effect, it will have more to do with agriculture and farming than with burning fossil fuels. The amount of fossil fuels that we burn is negligible in comparison with the amount of land we cultivate. And the way I see it, if you calculated the difference between the entropy of the Earth ten thousand years ago and now that it's cultivated, it could go either way. Don't tell me that there's less biodiversity: that doesn't count at all for entropy calculations. The amount of entropy has more to do with the type of molecules of the plants we cultivate in comparison with the rest and the density of vegetation now and then. It might well be that a field of wheat has less entropy than a forest, in which case, our technology has globally decreased entropy.
Do you get it? No, I'm sure you don't.
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Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
by MonteQuest » Thu 03 Nov 2005, 10:04:55
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', 'M')onte:
Oh, nooooooooo, not again!!!!!
Why do you have to mix your popular science ideas about entropy with everything???
Haven't enough people explained to you that you haven't got it right? Why can't you just leave the subject alone?
Have you noticed that the above article was NOT written by a scientist? The fact that your mistakes are shared doesn't mean that they aren't mistakes.
Once again: Entropy on the Earth is, in fact, slowly decreasing, thanks to the sun, which is a source of low entropy. Eventually (millions of years) it will increase again. But that doesn't worry us now, does it?
I seriously doubt that the effect of technology in our world makes a blip in the total amount of entropy on Earth. If it has some measurable effect, it will have more to do with agriculture and farming than with burning fossil fuels. The amount of fossil fuels that we burn is negligible in comparison with the amount of land we cultivate. And the way I see it, if you calculated the difference between the entropy of the Earth ten thousand years ago and now that it's cultivated, it could go either way. Don't tell me that there's less biodiversity: that doesn't count at all for entropy calculations. The amount of entropy has more to do with the type of molecules of the plants we cultivate in comparison with the rest and the density of vegetation now and then. It might well be that a field of wheat has less entropy than a forest, in which case, our technology has globally decreased entropy.
Do you get it? No, I'm sure you don't.
Oh, nooooooooo, not again!!!!!
Why do you have to mix your popular science ideas about entropy with everything???
Haven't enough people explained to you that you haven't got it right? Why can't you just leave the subject alone?
Have you noticed that the above article was NOT written by a scientist? The fact that your mistakes are shared doesn't mean that they aren't mistakes.
Once again: Entropy on the Earth is, in fact, slowly decreasing, thanks to the sun, which is a source of low entropy. Eventually (millions of years) it will increase again. But that doesn't worry us now, does it?
I seriously doubt that the effect of technology in our world makes a blip in the total amount of entropy on Earth. If it has some measurable effect, it will have more to do with agriculture and farming than with burning fossil fuels. The amount of fossil fuels that we burn is negligible in comparison with the amount of land we cultivate. And the way I see it, if you calculated the difference between the entropy of the Earth ten thousand years ago and now that it's cultivated, it could go either way. Don't tell me that there's less biodiversity: that doesn't count at all for entropy calculations. The amount of entropy has more to do with the type of molecules of the plants we cultivate in comparison with the rest and the density of vegetation now and then. It might well be that a field of wheat has less entropy than a forest, in which case, our technology has globally decreased entropy.
Do you get it? No, I'm sure you don't.
I am afraid you don't get it.
Do you maintain that as a system gets complicated you don't have to pour in energy and effort to maintain the complexity? Stop pouring in the energy through-puts and see how fast the paint peels.
We can't maintain our complexity with cheap fossil fuels.
And once again, for the millionth time, this is not about the thermodynamic equillibrium with space!
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
by MrBill » Thu 03 Nov 2005, 10:51:23
Interesting posts. Good points & counterpoints. Just some of my own ramblings...
1 - peak oil is a geological fact
2 - peak oil is not an economic fact other than to say the economy will look different beyond hydrocarbon depletion than it does now
3 - do we mourn the disappearance of great cities & ancient societies before us? No.
4 - will anyone mourn the passing of suburbia? Only those affected directly, but afterwards? No.
5 - economics & finance don't matter as people keep telling me. is it useless concepts of paper IOUs and zeros & ones. smoke & mirrors as some would say.
6 - therefore when oil is gone and value is destroyed, does it matter?
7 - we will still have all the matter on earth as energy is neither created nor destroyed, we just won't have the hydrocarbons in their current form
8 - as someone said somewhere else, we can put cows in those big box stores like the ancients converted defense walls into cathedrals and vice versa
9 - will people die? yes, they always have
10 - will the natural world mourn the passing of the human race? No.
11 - if man disappears and his footprint along with him, will new species theoretically reproduce, mutate and create new species? over time quite likely
12 - does oil in the ground have any economic or useful value? No. the value added comes from extracting it and using it.
13 - will it matter to the world's survival when all the oil is depleted? No. It has been buried for millions of years and no one missed it until now.
14 - will the future look like the past? No.
15 - will it be better or worse? For whom? That depends on decisions made today. It could be universally better or universally worse or there may be some winners & some losers.
16 - Is it somehow natural that I should be capable of communicating with people all over the world in real-time using a series of zeros & ones? No.
17 - will it matter when I can no longer do this? No.
18 - will oil & its products become more expensive as they become scarcer? Expensive compared to what? we already said economics & finance are simply an illusion - smoke & mirrors.
19 - does it matter if energy alternatives cost 10X current sources of energy? No. If there is no alternative there is no alternative.
20 - will we use the cheapest alternatives first? Most likely.
21 - Can we affect the outcome or it is cast in stone? A little bit perhaps, but we cannot control everything with our big brains and our understanding of a small bit of the universe around us
1 - peak oil is a geological fact
2 - peak oil is not an economic fact other than to say the economy will look different beyond hydrocarbon depletion than it does now
3 - do we mourn the disappearance of great cities & ancient societies before us? No.
4 - will anyone mourn the passing of suburbia? Only those affected directly, but afterwards? No.
5 - economics & finance don't matter as people keep telling me. is it useless concepts of paper IOUs and zeros & ones. smoke & mirrors as some would say.
6 - therefore when oil is gone and value is destroyed, does it matter?
7 - we will still have all the matter on earth as energy is neither created nor destroyed, we just won't have the hydrocarbons in their current form
8 - as someone said somewhere else, we can put cows in those big box stores like the ancients converted defense walls into cathedrals and vice versa
9 - will people die? yes, they always have
10 - will the natural world mourn the passing of the human race? No.
11 - if man disappears and his footprint along with him, will new species theoretically reproduce, mutate and create new species? over time quite likely
12 - does oil in the ground have any economic or useful value? No. the value added comes from extracting it and using it.
13 - will it matter to the world's survival when all the oil is depleted? No. It has been buried for millions of years and no one missed it until now.
14 - will the future look like the past? No.
15 - will it be better or worse? For whom? That depends on decisions made today. It could be universally better or universally worse or there may be some winners & some losers.
16 - Is it somehow natural that I should be capable of communicating with people all over the world in real-time using a series of zeros & ones? No.
17 - will it matter when I can no longer do this? No.
18 - will oil & its products become more expensive as they become scarcer? Expensive compared to what? we already said economics & finance are simply an illusion - smoke & mirrors.
19 - does it matter if energy alternatives cost 10X current sources of energy? No. If there is no alternative there is no alternative.
20 - will we use the cheapest alternatives first? Most likely.
21 - Can we affect the outcome or it is cast in stone? A little bit perhaps, but we cannot control everything with our big brains and our understanding of a small bit of the universe around us
The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
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Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
by Doly » Thu 03 Nov 2005, 11:49:42
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Do you maintain that as a system gets complicated you don't have to pour in energy and effort to maintain the complexity?
')Do you maintain that as a system gets complicated you don't have to pour in energy and effort to maintain the complexity?
"Effort" is not a physics concept. "Complicated" isn't clearly defined in physics. Things that you may think as complicated, like a computer, have less entropy than things you may think as simpler, like a steam locomotive. So your premise that high tech needs lots of energy is fundamentally flawed.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Stop pouring in the energy through-puts and see how fast the paint peels.
1) Painting is about as complex as raining from the point of view of physics. From the point of view of entropy, the act of eating an apple is more significant than the act of painting a wall.
2) The speed at which paint peels depends on the nature of the paint and the nature of the surface. The energy it takes to repaint is pretty much the same in all cases. In fact, high-tech paint may catch on much better than cheap paint.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')We can't maintain our complexity with cheap fossil fuels.
That may or may not be correct. But if it happens to be true, that has absolutely nothing to do with entropy and lots to do with things like our current energy-wasteful lifestyle. High tech is not necessarily high energy tech. But you have convinced yourself of that, and use your misunderstanding of thermodinamics to justify it.
