From: David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu
[...]
>*If* the bag was to be placed on the
>Earth's surface at rest relative to it, then it *would* have the
>tendency you claim.
Minor quibble. I think this is misleading. If the bag was placed on a solid
flat surface, such as the ground, it would *not* have any tendency to fall.
The general point here is that, in the absence of any forces, a stationary
object's tendency is to remain stationary. It will only start moving in the
presence of a force. In the case of an object on a solid flat surface, there
is an upward force from the surface which balances the downward force from
gravity, so there is no net force acting on the object.
In the case of a bag sitting on the high end of a "teeter-totter" (or
"see-saw" as we call it here), it could be argued, using DNAUnion's
terminology, that the force of gravity, in accelerating the bag downwards,
"overcomes" the bag's natural tendency to remain motionless.
But all this really means is that we can envisage two different situations,
one with no force acting and one *with* a force acting. In the former case,
the bag doesn't move, and in the latter it does. In other words, as David
goes on to say, in a deterministic system such as this, there is no
difference between "tendency" and actual "behaviour". Both are a consequence
of the particular circumstances of the system.
The analogous argument in the case of the SLOT would be that the entropy of
an isolated system has a natural tendency to increase (or remain
constant). This tendency can be "overcome" by making the system
non-isolated, i.e. by providing an environment with which the system can
exchange energy. (Note that this does not by itself mean that the system's
entropy *will* decrease, but only that SLOT's requirement that the
(isolated) system's entropy decrease will no longer be applicable.)
Introducing DNAUnion's terminology of "tendency" and "overcome" only
confuses the argument. It doesn't actually change it.
Finally, as I'm trying to describe the situation in DNAUnion's rather
confusing terms, let me try to use his term "energy conversion mechanism".
Since the SLOT deals only with energy and entropy, I assume that, by "energy
conversion mechanism", DNAUnion means something which "converts" energy into
reduced entropy. Well, the something that does this is the energy-driven
processes that I mentioned earlier, such as chemical reactions. If you want
to go to a lower level of explanation, then it's the primary physical
(nuclear) forces which cause chemical reactions. DNAUnion probably wants to
know *which* chemical reactions are (or might be) involved in abiogenesis.
Well, so do I! But that's outside the scope of the SLOT. It's sufficient, as
far as the SLOT is concerned, to know that there *are* processes which
"convert" energy into reduced entropy.
(I suspect the word "convert" is misleading, because no energy is lost in
the process. But perhaps "free energy" is converted into non-free energy.
Could David please confirm or correct this?)
Richard Wein (Tich)
--------------------------------
"Do the calculation. Take the numbers seriously. See if the underlying
probabilities really are small enough to yield design."
-- W. A. Dembski, who has never presented any calculation to back up his
claim to have detected Intelligent Design in life.
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