Expert: Austin Cline - 1/4/2006

Question
I hear what you are saying as regards to the law not applying before the universe came into being (for that matter, I won't ask anybody where all that "stuff" came from), but once the Big Bang happened, why wouldn't the law apply to everything coming together, life forming, reproducing (I won't ask how many millions of years that took) forming ever more complex life forms?

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Followup To
Question -
Thank you for getting back to me.
I've read statements by scientists that the universe will eventually come to an end because of that law. Did you ever hear of such a thing? To me, at least, it's incomprehensible how on one hand the universe will disintegrate according to that law, yet somehow it came into existence in spite of that law. Any comments?
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Followup To
Question -
Hi,
I was following the exchange with one of the other experts here, and I was hoping for some clarity, but it didn't help. So I was wondering if you can clarify to me what the atheistic position with regard to the second law of thermodynamics is. Namely, does the law contradict evolution by chance (i.e. more and more complex structures developing over time) or not?
Thank you.
Answer -
I don't think that you can say that there is any "the" atheistic position on anything. The only thing all atheists have in common is disbelief in gods. Everything else is up for grabs.

That said, there is arguably a "typical" atheist position, if we consider atheists who are familiar with science and debates about evolution. It would be: no, there is no contradiction.

1. The 2LoT only applies to closed systems. The Earth is not a closed system. Ergo, the 2LoT is not a barrier to increases in complexity here.

2. Even if the Earth were a closed system, the 2LoT doesn't prohibit temporary, localized increases in complexity. All that is required is that, over the long term, entropy increase. Thus, while the universe is a closed system, it's not a problem if there are temporary and localized decreases in entropy (like on our planet).
Answer -
"To me, at least, it's incomprehensible how on one hand the universe will disintegrate according to that law, yet somehow it came into existence in spite of that law."

It isn't thought that the universe will "disintegrate." Instead, it's thought that the universe may enter heat death - reach absolute entropy and absolute zero.  Another idea is that it may collapse back in on itself.

The 2LoT is a function of space, time, and causality. In other words, it's a function of our universe. Because of this, it isn't a condition on the *origin* of the universe. I know that this may be difficult to wrap your mind around (nothing personal - this is a difficult concept to grasp), but at the origin of the universe, there was no time, no space, no causality, and no natural laws. There was no Second Law of Thermodynamics.

No matter what sorts of restrictions the 2LoT places on events *in* the universe, that has no applicability to the universe *as a whole* (or the origin of the universe). The same is true of every other natural law. One consequence of this is that it may be impossible to speak about a "cause" of the universe. A "cause" implies a context of space, time, and causality which didn't exist. A "cause" of the universe may be as coherent as saying that something is "north of" the universe.

That doesn't mean that math can't be used to describe the origin of the universe, just that our notions of cause & effect, linguistic concepts, may simply not apply.  

Answer
"...but once the Big Bang happened, why wouldn't the law apply to everything coming together, life forming, reproducing (I won't ask how many millions of years that took) forming ever more complex life forms?"

1. I don't think that the laws of physics, as we understand them, applied for the first fraction of a second - that  doesn't sound like long, but a lot happened then.

2. Once things got going then, yes, the 2LoT applied. However, as I noted earlier, it doesn't prevent temporary and localized decreases in entropy. Given the age of the universe and how much longer it may continue, "temporary" is quite relative.  What seems like an eternity to us is but a micro-instant to the universe.

You might find this helpful, especially the bit on gas clouds:

http://atheism.about.com/od/evolutionabiogenesis/a/entropy.htm

This, too, might interest you:

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/225406.htm