On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Terren Suydam <terren.suy...@gmail.com> wrote: > This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... that the > source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way identified > with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with increases > in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and > pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. Damage to the body > (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms of a > sudden increase in entropy of the body. Perhaps this is also true in the > mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also be > characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but this is > pure speculation. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It would be > weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map > pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all.
Hi Terren, Interesting idea, but I can think of a number of counter examples: cold/freezing, boredom, the rush of taking risks, masochism (for some people), the general preference for freedom as opposed to being under control, booze, .... I suspect life is just meaningless from the outside. I'd say that pain and pleasure are fine-tunned by evolution to maximise the survivability of species in an environment that is largely also generated by evolution. It's a strange loop. > Terren > > > On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote: >> >> On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: >>> >>> On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: >> >> >> ... >> >>>> I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is >>>> Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made >>>> my comments >>>> >>>> http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html >>> >>> >>>> >>> >>> Still tilting at that windmill? >>> >>> "A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard >>> conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of >>> aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is >>> more disorder in silver as in aluminium?" >>> >>> Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature >>> of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction >>> electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a >>> mole of Al does. >>> >>> I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. >>> But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy >>> either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is >>> endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but >>> the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are >>> a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower >>> temperature. >>> >> >> You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: >> >> http://www.icr.org/article/270/ >> >> “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is >> contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and >> energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order >> and complexity.” >> >> Do you like it? >> >> Evgenii >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
