on 31/8/08 8:10 pm, Nick Palmer at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > <<Built into your analysis is the assumption that the _cell_ is somehow > interested in recovering the old-energy because going up down > escalators is the long term mission of a cell. > > A cell does "defy" entropy in the sense that it invests some > energy in searching for new-energy inaddition to producing the things > its needs. > > Harry>> > > Nah, not really. The processes of the cell decreases it's own entropy > (increases it's "order") but at the expense of creating extra disorder > (increasing entropy) in the whole area around its operations. Let's just say > that after the cell has done its thing, its personal entropy/disorder has > decreased by say 2 units.The entropy/disorder of the surrounding area has > increased by, say 10 units.
> Had the cell not been there, the > entropy/disorder of the area would not have increased as much. You cannot be certain of that unless you were somehow controlling the environment to eliminate the possibility of surprises. >The net result of life is that the Universe will end up in heat death >earlier... > This assumes the universe is a finite system which you could view from the outside like God. The early formulators of thermodynamics were trying to understand the dynamics of machines powered by heat. They did not imagine applying the concept of entropy to life, the universe and everything. Applying the concept of entropy to life is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. If you are prepared to take every theoretical implication of thermodynamics as True they will fit, but the result is not pretty. Harry
