What I'm likely to find...

Wonders of the Universe - order to chaos

The new Prof. Brian Cox series, Wonders of the Universe, began last night. And it sparked a lot of questions for me and got me thinking. And, since those thoughts aren't really appropriate elsewhere, they're going here! Hello! Sorry for not being around much or being in touch. Life is going in a few different directions.

Anyway, Wonders... the main point of the first episode was that time flows in one direction and that direction is oblivion. Pretty much. Everything tends towards chaos. Order breaks down and things decay. Merging together to form amorphous nothingness.

Low entropy eventually becomes high entropy. Low entropy being ordered, yet fragile.

So the example Prof. Cox used was a sandcastle he built. An ordered form. What will happen to that sandcastle is obvious - it will eventually break down, through winds or any other force. It will tend towards a big ol' pile of sand.

The idea was that the Universe began with low entropy, very ordered (was it really?) and, as we move through time, it moves towards high entropy. Like a sandcastle falling apart.

The big question not asked in the show, however, was this - if everything breaks down and physical laws all point towards that chaos, where did that initial order come from? As Prof. Cox tweeted after the show, "the origin of low entropy in the universe at the big bang is probably THE biggest mystery in cosmology." As far as I know, the current thinking is that the Universe just spontaneously came into being.

Prof. Cox likes to use Earthly examples to illustrate his points, like the sandcastle. Firstly, it makes things easier to understand and, secondly, the same laws often work here and out in the Universe. Or at least versions of those laws. But, man, I can't think of any time I have heard of anything spontaneously coming into being. Physicists may have examples. They're not common, I'm sure.

But Prof. Cox, without bringing it up, presented a very easy answer to the question - where did that low entropy come from? At least in the ordered way he presented it.

You see, while the Universe may well tend towards chaos, order is created every day. Every second. Right now, raw materials are coming together into new ordered shapes. Because we make order out of chaos. Consciousness tends towards order. We build boxy houses, sleek cars, clothes, arcade machines. While the Universe conspires to destroy those things, we strive to make them. We create order.

In building a sandcastle, Prof. Cox presented an Earthly example of just how low entropy situations are created.

A conscious mind takes chaos, and puts order to it.

Is this a God post?! Well, you see, the whole God thing leads the thought off in a whole other direction. The problem with a God is this - the people being vocal about a god, pretty much no matter who they are, seem to present God as an all-knowing, ever-present being. They present the idea of 'intelligent design'. And the atheists and scientists pull this apart - if it's so intelligent, how come we have an appendix? How come the world is a complete shithole? What the hell kind of god allows that?

I come down on the side of the scientists on this. This isn't about some divine being.

But... that doesn't mean there wasn't some creator of sorts. He/she/it could be long gone/dead/uninterested/absent parent. It doesn't mean a conscious mind didn't initially create those original conditions that have eventually led to the clearly imperfect us.

Is the idea that the Universe was actively created unlikely?

Look around you. Most of what you see was actively created. I have spent most of my life creating worlds. Every time you go and see a movie, you're seeing a created world. Every computer game and programme is a created world. What you're reading this on right now has been created. We create. Order from chaos. We tend towards order.

And look at what we can create now compared with what we could create just a few hundred years ago. How does the world of Tron Legacy compare with a play put on in a field? How does Sim City compare with a porcelain doll?

Give us a few thousand years. What then will we be able to create? Whole worlds? Easily. Whole Universes? Given the time, I don't see why not. Whether the Universe was created or not, we're going to be doing it ourselves soon. If we can do it, not only does it not seem a stretch that someone else could do it, it seems pretty arrogant to think otherwise.

Brian Cox made a sandcastle. He showed the answer. It seems so obvious.

I wonder what he'd think if he knew it made me a believer in a creator?

Is that a faint smile?

It's Christmas!

Hope everyone who has made their way to this fairly inactive blog has a wonderful Christmas! Or whatever holidays you celebrate. Or don't. It's fine just to wish you some wonderful days, I think. Happy Friday and Saturday all!

Unless you don't recognise the traditional week and then it all gets quite difficult.

I think it's been both a great and crappy year for the world overall. Great in that whole systems fell apart economically revealing the fragility and sustainability of systems based on bullshit, truths were revealed that we all suspected and the world has fewer lies today than it did this time last year. Crappy because the worst we suspected has been confirmed and very few seem to be bothered to do anything about it. So the world is a bit more apathetic and hypocritical than this time last year.

But, hey... there's always 2011! The year people take the world back? Or at least consider it? Let's hope so.

Between now and then, however, take the time off. Let yourself off the hook. The world's ills are not your ills. Let them go for a while. And have a lovely holiday time with friends and family. Just enjoy it.

Happy Christmas all!

Oh, but if you do find yourself dwelling on the world, please consider making a donation to the defense fund of Bradley Manning, the soldier suspected of leaking confidential documents. He is being treated hideously and is being punished without even a verdict yet. If he is innocent, he needs all the help he can get. If he is guilty, well... if he is guilty, the man is a hero, putting his conscience above blind orders and has done the world a favour. Either way, he needs support. I have donated and wish Bradley Manning as happy a Christmas as he can possibly have under the conditions he is being kept in.

Where is the reaction to Wikileaks?

No, I don't mean hailing Julian Assange as the new messiah or, alternatively, calling for him to be murdered in cold blood. I mean, beyond the weird Cult of Assange thing that's going on.

Wikileaks, for a large part, isn't telling us stuff we hadn't already suspected. You could go as far as to say that most of it we already knew. But there's 'knowing' something and it going on somewhere far away and maybe it's real and maybe it's not, and there's 'knowing' something as in it is out there in the open and in your face. Wikileaks is making the former into the latter.

And, for me, it pretty much makes the entire Western world a hideous place of hypocrisy, lies and heinous crimes.

In our name.

They are our governments. Our corporations. We live in their countries. We buy their products. We work for them. They pay our wages and we pay their taxes. We support it. And now we can't even pretend not to know about it. We are now accomplices if we do not make a stand.

And I find it hilarious that some condemn Wikileaks for this. Call for them to be shut down. Call for the death of Assange. Really? Calling for someones death because they had the balls to get the truth out there?! Because they got your crimes out in the open? Because they make it harder for you to pretend this shit doesn't happen. Makes a mockery of every working day in the Western world. Freedom? Nope, we don't have that. Morals? Not a fucking chance. We'll make people disappear and torture them with no problem. Funny too that a big deal was made of that one German who was taken and held without trial or due process because it turned out he was the wrong guy. Even if he was the right guy, it's STILL WRONG!

And I say a big deal was made of it but only within the limited press reporting on the leaks.

No arrests have been made. Except for Jesus 2, Julian Assange, who I'm really suspect about altogether but that's a separate issue. Where is the real reaction? The outrage? The arrests for crimes that have come out in the open with these cables?

Where is the reaction?

As far as I'm concerned, these leaks simply make real what most of us suspected. And what that does is make a complete mockery of the Western world. Not just the US. Every country. Hell, not even just the Western world. The whole thing. It's a mess. A complete utter joke. These governments have outlived their usefulness. The corporations should be torn down. This entire society should be allowed to fall apart so it can build something new.

Something better.

For the people. Not for the money. Not for politics. Not for pure evil. For the people.

Just the people.

Lost At Sea

Had some really great news over email - Susan (see earlier post) is out of hospital. Sounds like she has been through the wars but she is out and with her family (though not yet with her beloved cat). Get well soon, Susan! There has been a hole in blogland without you.

As for me, healthwise, I'm fine and feel I should be very grateful for that. I say fine but who knows what time bomb I have under my skin. With bailouts, IMFs and various aimlessness, things all feel a bit bleak.

You know you need something else in your life when you're going to the toilet just for something to do...

Any Irish people?

I don't know if I have any Irish people at all who pass by the blog but, if I do, you'll know all the crap going on at the moment. You're probably sick of it. For those who don't know, the gist is this:

The country is down the crapper. The banks got us down the crapper and the government pushed us right in there by then pouring money into the banks - paying private debt with public money. Now, the government is looking to get funds from the IMF, which will cripple the country, and make the poor, the young and the middle classes pay for those bank debts and new IMF debts while destroying the economy. The current government will be voted out in January, and yet they are being allowed lock us into this crap so the next government can't do a thing other than bitch about how the previous government got them into trouble.

And they'll do it because Irish people have a nasty habit of just accepting shit and moaning about it in the pub.

Don't accept it.

It's not too late. It doesn't have to happen. Every economist on the planet says this is not the way to go. Says that there are other options. Politically, there are also other options. The parties could prevent the budget going through and force a general election. If these other options aren't explored, we are screwed. And our children are screwed.

Moaning in the pub is not going to help.

There is a demonstration tomorrow, Saturday November 27th, in Dublin at Wood Quay, 12 noon. It was started by some union I don't support but this is not about unions. It's about every person in Ireland. So please make the effort to get out there and make your voice heard. The people of this country can change it.

Don't let the gobshites chuck a grenade before they leave.

Get well soon, Susan!

Susan Schechter, author of the excellent blog, 'If you're going through hell, keep going', sent me a message to let me know she is in hospital. I don't have many details but there is a post here from one of her friends explaining the situation.

Susan is a regular commenter here, a very good blog buddy of mine and an all-round fantastic person so the news that her kidneys have failed is really alarming. As said on her friend's blog, "26 years on Lithium has taken its toll". Thanks Pharma - you guys rock!

No, really... you don't.

Susan, my thoughts are with you. I'm hoping for a speedy recovery and hope to hear more from you very soon. We need to get you out and back blogging again. Get well soon.