Posted by JustMe [Felicity] on April 03, 1999 at 02:35:10 {Ed9c7782HMeyTkGBtHIUOJmDKI0QM2}:
In Reply to: Common Sense Argument posted by WW on April 02, 1999 at 12:59:17:
::Second Law - The Law of Increasing Entropy
:1.Law Explained - Things have become less ordered, and more random. The entropy has
increased. In any system [without outside help] entropy increases (becomes less ordered).
:2.Law
Applied - The universe had a beginning. The fact that it [the universe] is running down,
becoming more random and less ordered points to a state where it was more ordered and with
less randomness. It had a beginning. That points to
the universe not being eternal, but at some
point being created.
You might like to read some of the material on chaos and complexity theory to gain an understanding of the limits of the second law. In fact, one of the originators of chaos theory, Ilya Prigogine, was a Nobel Prize winner for his work in thermodynamics. To quote him (from 'Order Out of Chaos', written with Isabelle Stengers),
"We now know that far from equilibrium, new types of structures may originate spontaneously. In far-from-equilibrium conditions we may have transformation from disorder, from thermal chaos, into order. New dynamic states of matter may originate, states that reflect the interaction of a given system with its surroundings."
Such findings have been take a lot further by others recently, so that the limits of classical thermodynamics have been revealed by Prigogine and others (Murray Gell Mann, Stuart Kaufmann, etc.), just like the limits of classical dynamics were exposed by Einstein. So I'm sorry, but yoru arguments are incorrect and out of date.
Just Me