Cells and entropy

Red blood cells are alive in all sense but reproduction. The lost nuclei and DNA of the red blood cell, when these are extruded, are dead in the water. This tells us what is really alive in the cell. The DNA is virtual while the cell body is actual in terms of life. This is because of the molecular capacitance of the cell body compared to the virtual templates of the DNA.

In terms of virus, they are also virtual, and need an actual cell to be alive, just like the DNA. The red blood cells lost their own machinery for reproduction and therefore canot help virus either.

If you begin at the DNA, the cell needs to add energy to make RNA on the DNA. It then needs to add energy to make protein from RNA. Based on an energy hierarchy, the DNA is at lowest potential. The natural flow of energy is from higher to lower, which implies from the living part of the cell to the DNA. This allows cells to react to the environment in real time.

When red blood cells lose their DNA, they also lose their lowest potential energy well. This keeps the cell at higher potential. This plays a role in their important job exchanging oxygen and CO2. It might help keep the iron in hemoglobin in an excited state.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Contrary to the randomness of evolution that is taught, evolution has a sense of direction. The way to prove this is connected to entropy. According to physics the entropy of the universe is increasing. But the entropy of life is decreasing as it evolves.

In engineering, entropy is connected to the irretreviable energy due to inefficiency. The more inefficient, the more entropy since there is more irretrievable energy going into entropy. Biological systems are very efficient, with this efficiency progressing over time. This means entropy is lowering.

Entropy cannot lower over billions of years with a random system, since a random system will follow the direction of increasing.

This idea of lowering entropy is consistent with Darwin's theory of selective advantage and natural selection, since natural selection means most efficient; lowest entropy.

As a practical example, combustion in the presence of O2 will form CO2 and H2O and will generate heat and entropy. Metabolism does the same thing, but recovers most of the energy in the form of ATP, which can be used for biological work. This process lowers the entropy relative to the combustion since there is less irretrievable energy.

Evolution has been giving misinformation about random, since lowering of entropy can only occur if there is a strong sense of direction. Random will not allow entropy to lower over the long term as expressed by life. Good thing I didn't fall for the random illusion but stuck to my guns.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

You know, if you had even the slightest clue as to what you're talkng about your posts could be interesting and informative.
As it is, you don't, so your posts are neither.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

The only think that is random about evolution is that mutations are random with respepect to their fitness. Other than that, evolution is a process. It has direction and velocity.

 

I finally figured out how to explain my gut feeling for a conceptual inconsistency within modern evolutionary theory, that I have been attributing to entropy. This concern is not creationism, but it is a logical checks and balance for theory that is not logically consistent.

When I think about Darwin's theory of natural selection and evolution, his model is hard to refute since it is simple and fits the data. I give Darwin two thumbs up. The problem, I finally figured out, had to do with genetic assumptions that were added as an addendum decades later.

Darwin's model describes a sense of direction based on what he called natural selection. Natural selection is not random but can be inferred by observational patterns, which is how Darwin formed the theory in the first place. The theory came from consistent observational patterns. For example, if we had a short neck and long neck giraffe, we can predict the long neck version will have the selective advantage. This prediction is not based on throwing dice, but has a common sense order that Darwin called natural selection.

The order that Darwin suggested is based on a biologist's version of the theory of entropy. In engineering, entropy is connected to inefficiencies and wasted energy that is irretrievable, when making and designing machine. Selective advantages is based on biological efficiency and minimal wasted energy. The long neck giraffe uses less energy to feed, while the short neck has to jump up and down, which is less efficient resulting in a higher entropy state. I agree with Darwin since he defined a useful version of entropy appropriate to biological machines (life). Natural selection means efficiency which means the lowest entropy path is preferred. This is also true about machines, with more efficiency and less entropy, better. Machines evolve from the best.

That being said, since more efficient is the fundamental direction of evolution, this also implies that during evolution, life moved in the direction of lowering entropy states. Going from simple RNA replicators to complicated replicators with bells and whistles to make the base pairing faster and more accurate, was implicit of more efficiency, less wasted motion and lower entropy.

This direction of lowering entropy is not consistent with random changes within the DNA, leading the process. If random was leading, there could never be a sense of direction, such as improving efficiency. This does not mean genetic changes cannot be random, just this cannot be the primary drive for evolution, since random has no sense of direction other than repeat periodically like a dice.

If we go to the environment as the source of the potential for natural selection, this also has a problem. According to physics the universe moves in the direction of lowering energy and increasing entropy. These potentials better describe death than the direction of life.

If a tree dies, the energy value of the wood lowers to CO2 and H2O. The higher entropy would be expressed in total irretrevable energy in the form of gases and dust. Since this is going in the wrong direction, this also cannot be the source of selective advantage, efficiency and lowered entropy. Both random changes in DNA and the environment push the wrong way relative to Darwin.

What Darwin saw is life gaining energy, such as growing tree's wood, and lowering entropy, natural selection is increasing efficiency. However, random DNA and laws of physics (lower energy and higher entropy) oppose this. These two potential help via the process of elimination. But neither is the fundamental potential for the direction of evolution via natural selection. Logically this potential(s) needs to lower entropy and increase energy, so life can grow and evolve.

 

Except natural selection does not always select the most efficient forms. For instance, the peacock's tail is not a more efficient use of energy. The giraffe's long neck is not an advantage in a forest. The selection is based on a very complex and interconnected set of forces.

 

The peacocks tail is all about show for mating. If he has the correct tail, the mating process happens quicker; neural efficiency.

The environmental potentials are connected to lower energy and higher entropy. This has more a connection to death than life. In the forest the death factor will eliminate the giraffe since it creates inefficiencies to his design.

Dimmwitta has not evolved to the level of adult discussions, due to brain inefficiencies. His entropy is too high which is why he only able to wasted energy and motion when he participates in discussions.

 

If you understand how the process of evolution results in efficiencies over time, which implies entropy is lowering, this basic observation allows one to infer which things of life have the potential to pull life in this direction.

For example, photosyntheis fixes carbon. The solar energy that would be wasted impinging onto the earth, is converted to stored energy in an efficient way. Although the universe would prefer lower energy, the tree builds more and more energy value as it grows. Life is not concerned about the universe's rules. The tree is not going in the direction of lower energy until it dies.

This is one boundary condition (photosyntheis) moves in the same direction as evolution. It converts wasted solar energy into retrievable energy (wood). This is one of the primary boundary conditions with potential in the needed direction to overcome random DNA and universe potentials so life can evolve.

 

What are you saying that isn't said more clearly in the ToE?

 

If you include the idea of efficiency (entropy) to evolution, this POV then asks what are the sources of potential that can induce this. Like I said, the environment and random changes on the DNA will not favor evolution if these were the primary potentials. They are consistent as secondary variables.

The environment or the laws of physics, lower energy and higher entropy, is more conducive to death than life. As a secondary variable this can weed out the bottom of the curve, by means of lowering efficiency, so can entropy increases. It makes the long neck animal have to work to hard for food.

Completely random DNA will also create more inefficiency than efficiency and could also be used as a potential to weed out. But since these two variables so powerful, you need a powerful potential or two to push in the other direction, since evolution is not about that which is left over, but life pushing forward.

 

Of course they will. Less fit organisms die; more fit ones reproduce. That's all the input from the environment you need.

 

The laws of physics say the universe moves in the direction of lower energy and higher entropy. Before there was life on earth these rules were in effect. Life, as an entity (not its impact) goes in the opposite direction. The tree gains energy value as it grows. This is not random, since it defies the direction of the universe. If the environment was a primary variable, life would have been neutralized right in the beginning; dead in the water, since energy would decrease to zero and nothing would be stored.

Life had to go many stages opposing lowest energy and higher entropy and then continue doing this for billions of years. The existing theory does not explain how this opposing energy direction is possible. It is more about an abstraction called natural, but does not say how it is possible for life can build up energy for billions of years when the universe prefers lowest energy. Maybe you can explain how existing evolutionary theory explains this. That is what I am trying to add.

 

I am not discounting evolution, but trying to make provisions for observations that are not explained by the theory. These are connected to the universe preferring lowest energy and highest entropy. If I kill an animal so life stops, the decay of the animal will follow the direction of lower energy and higher energy. The flesh will rot, dehydrate and oxidize until there is no energy left.

But if it is alive, life pushes in the opposite direction. This push is occurring all through evolution pushing in the direction of lower entropy efficiency and higher energy (growing). The adult can walk with more efficiency (lower entropy) that the child, since growth also lowers entropy and increases energy.

 

Really? So how does the formation of quartz crystal fit in to your rather odd idea of entropy.

What the hell, lets try again. A tree does not defy the direction of the universe. It is really really simple. A tree is not 100% efficient at converting the suns energy, so entropy increases. The entropy increase is slowed as compared to the solar energy just moving unimpeded into space, but only slowed.

wrong

that is because your idea is a strawman. Evolution does not explain how planes fly that does not make evolution wrong.

Energy storage goes against the direction of the universe? Really? So the moon goes against the direction of the universe? The sun heats up the rocks on the moon and this thermal energy is stored in the rocks. So what the moon is alive?

According to your confused ideas crystals somehow go against the direction of the universe. Hell even the formation of a star goes against your understanding of entropy.

You are floundering and you always flounder when you try to say that evolution or life goes against the direction of entropy.

 

And the quartz crystal gains order as it forms, and the snowflake becomes more ordered as it descends. A great many things "buck" entropy, not just life.

It doesn't need to. Lots of things oppose entropy.

 

In engineering, entropy is a measure of inefficiency, in the sense of wasted energy that is irretrievably lost. We add energy to a motor, we get out work, and entropy. The more efficient the process is the less entropy it will create.

When I say life is lowering entropy I am normalizing against a standard. I am not saying it is making negative entropy. That is why I used the term efficiency. Unless it was 100% efficient there will be entropy. But 95% efficient has less entropy that 60% efficiency. If enzymes and cells go from 60% efficiency to 80%, entropy is lowering relative to each other.

Relative to evolution, you contend that life is getting more inefficient as it evolves since you content entropy within life is going up.

As far as life and energy, life is all about making organic compounds. Within these compounds contain potential energy. The cell does not just digest, but it also builds energy value within its structures as it grows.

The moon is an inanimate object subject to the sun shining or not. It does not convert the warmth of the sun, into internal atomic reorganization that stores potential energy and allows it to grow. Each day the same sun is not shining on something that has more and more energy value day after day until it has more energy that the daily amount of sun.

A snowflake will lower entropy. This is driven by energy lowering since the formation of the crystal will give off energy. With life not only it is growing and gaining energy (as measured in a calorimeter), it is also lowering entropy. This is unique to life.

 

. . and occasionally become oil, which means a lot of energy left.

 

One of the problem I sense is we are not agreeing on the definition of entropy. I used the engineering definition. In the past I have used other definitions. Maybe it will be easier if someone else picks the definition, and I will use that. I found that it does not make any difference to me. This might help overcome the communication barrier.

The way I see it, life gets more efficient over time as it evolves. Natural selection is all about efficiency in some sense. Evolution it is also about survival, since death will cause entropy to increase drastically.

 

@wellwisher --

When you're discussing science it's usually best to use the scientific definitions of terms. It's very easy to use a different definition and then claim that everyone else got it wrong, hence why such straw man arguments are so popular. And while you may not like it, engineering isn't a science, nor does it have much relevance to biology other than the way biologists phrase their questions.

 

@wellwisher --

Just caught this one,

You're wrong here. Peacock tails don't do a damn thing to the mating process but make it happen. A longer, more beautiful tail means that it will happen more frequently, but the process remains the same. And actually, one could make an argument that a longer tail would actually reduce mating efficiency as it would take more energy to do the same amount of work that a peacock with a shorter tail could do with less energy. So it's wasteful, extremely wasteful, and it hampers survivability besides that(it makes it a lot easier for a peacock to be noticed by predators and harder for them to escape). The only benefit it does have, which is why the trait survives to this day, is that females are more willing to mate with a male that has a long tail.

This sort of thing is what biologists call a positive feedback loop. Your "entropy model" just can't cope with all of the variables that biologists have to take into account, hence why none of them would ever use it.