Consiousness and Order (verse, Article)

[Quiddity]

This is something I have been pondering for some time now and do not know if this is new or if I am just repeating an old parallel. But here goes. Bare with me.


In a world that is magnificent and full of incredible detail how do we fit in the human conscious with everything else? What I mean by this is everything (that I can think of at least) wants to move toward order (animals, plants, organisms, societies, etc) and away from disorder. Granted that things do die and are in a disordered state at some point. But my point is that everything WANTS TO move towards order. The fact that hydrogen bonds to oxygen is a WANT of nature. The fact a tree will repair itself if you take an ax and take a whack at it shows that it wants to maintain internal order and not die. Millions of examples can be given but I hope everyone got the gist of what I’m saying. What does this have to do with the human conscious? Be patient, its coming.


Not only do things move toward order but there is a fulfillment/solution of that want. What is the fulfillment of a hydrogen? The fact that it can bond to something else is the
fulfillment/solution. At every level of matter you can see a solution/fulfillment. You can’t be thirsty without water existing. And water does exist.


So things move toward order and have some sort of solution to it. It seems to me (unless someone shows me otherwise) that the human conscious is immune to this. There is no doubt that it tries to move towards order (look at world societies/governments). But where exactly is the solution from a religious or non-religious aspect.


Let me know your thoughts.



~Victor

[Pah]

I'm not sure, Victor, what you mean by "order". But I would decribe chemicals as having properties. Isotopes, though not chaos, do not really reflect order in elements..

[Quiddity]

Originally Posted by Pah

I'm not sure, Victor, what you mean by "order". But I would decribe chemicals as having properties. Isotopes, though not chaos, do not really reflect order in elements..

I'm glad you caught that cause I can see people asking that or misunderstanding what I meant.

Order - arranged so to make preparations for some type of purpose.

As an analogy I see the human conciousness as a blue marble in a sea of red marbles. The red marbles can blue and red. But the blue marble stays blue. It is rather odd to me that the human conciousness would not have sort of solution to it. It can never turn red because there is nothing to bind it.

Hope this clarifies things.

~Victor

[Pah]

Sorry to say, your analogy confused me even more. I would also suggest that purpose is not a property of order. Order seems to me to be a final or beginning state of "whatever".

[Mr Spinkles]

What I mean by this is everything (that I can think of at least) wants to move toward order (animals, plants, organisms, societies, etc) and away from disorder.

Actually, the exact opposite is true. The second law of thermodynamics--which is well supported by years of experimentation--holds that all isolated systems tend to move toward disorder. The reason animals, plants, organisms, and societies become highly ordered is because they are not isolated systems--in other words, outside forces act on them, or energy flows through them. The universe as a whole, however, is an isolated system, and so the only way highly ordered systems like animals, plants, etc. can exist within it is if they increase the disorder of the universe as a whole. Organisms do, in fact, fulfill this role: they absorb the highly ordered energy of the Sun and convert it into more disordered forms of energy (thermal energy, waste chemicals, etc). In computer simulations with lots of small balls and a few big balls bouncing around, the small balls tend to "herd" the large balls into a corner....the corner is thus highly ordered, but this frees up space for the small balls to move around, so the overall disorder of the system is at a maximum.

Why to things tend toward disorder? Simple: disorder is a more probable state than order. So, in effect, ordered systems like organisms are really the consequence of the universe moving to a more probable (disordered) state, not the consequence of anything trying to be more ordered.

[mr.guy]

Originally Posted by victor

It seems to me (unless someone shows me otherwise) that the human conscious is immune to this. There is no doubt that it tries to move towards order (look at world societies/governments). But where exactly is the solution from a religious or non-religious aspect.

Some neurologists might point to brain damage as an increase in disordered consciousness.

[Quiddity]

Actually, the exact opposite is true. The second law of thermodynamics--which is well supported by years of experimentation--holds that all isolated systems tend to move toward disorder.

MS, I know things move toward disorder. I noted that when I said "Granted that things do die" in my first post. My point was that they dont want to move in that direction. Thats why I said WANT. Your stance the same?

~Victor

[mr.guy]

Originally Posted by Victor

I noted that when I said "Granted that things do die" in my first post. My point was that they dont want to move in that direction. Thats why I said WANT. Your stance the same?

It's hard to apply the hydrogen analogy to "want". We could say with most other elements that general valence electron configuration will almost always "want" a polorized element to itself, but this leaves hydrogen as a thoroughly confused particle. How do we assign desire in this premace to an element that is frequently found as a lone proton and not uncommonly as hydronium?

[Mr Spinkles]

Originally Posted by Victor

My point was that they dont want to move in that direction. Thats why I said WANT. Your stance the same?

No. If atoms "want" anything, it is to adopt the most probable state--a disordered one. It takes outside forces acting on a system to compel it to do anything different. Left by themselves, all systems "want" to get more disordered.

[JerryL]

Actually, the exact opposite is true. The second law of thermodynamics--which is well supported by years of experimentation--holds that all isolated systems tend to move toward disorder.

No it doesn't.

Let me repeat that, because it bears repeating

The second law of thermodynamics does *not* involve order/disorder; that's an equivocation fallacy.

What the second law of thermodynamics does discuss is the movement and concentration of heat. In a closed system, you can have no process by which the sole effect is the movement of heat from an area of lower concentration to an area of higher concentration. This dispersion of heat is referred to occasionally as entropy. Unfortunately, the entropy is also synomious with "disorder" and the law is often equivocated.

If you would like to see an example of something becomeing more orderly, put cooking oil and water in a jar and shake it up... look at the mix. Leave it for a few days and come back. Amazingly, they have "ordered themselves".