Thermodynamics, entropy and life
 

Why does life exist?

Popular hypotheses credit a primordial soup, a bolt of lightning, and a colossal stroke of luck.

But if a provocative new theory is correct, luck may have little to do with it. Instead, according to the physicist proposing the idea, the origin and subsequent evolution of life follow from the fundamental laws of nature and “should be as unsurprising as rocks rolling downhill.”

Read more: A New Thermodynamics Theory of the Origin of Life | Quanta Magazine

In other news this week, "comet water" theory took a hit, but it appears Mars had quite the lake and river system that provides the opportunity for living organisms.

In retrospect, this thread maybe more fun in the "politics and religion" section. If the mods agree, move it.

So the end game is to fully evolve to the highest level we need to hurry up and burn all the fuels we can. GW is the answer.

This is very interesting. I'll step out and say it's the scientific side of Aristotle's ancient claim that things behave the way they do because they are following a principle. Now for him, the principle was The Fully Actualized and in this case the principle is Thermodynamics but the logic of the move is similar even if the final principle is different.

Thanks for posting that article. I personally don't agree with those findings, but it is interested to see another perspective. While dissipative structures do form to enhance the spread of energy (for instance convective currents between a hot and cold surface), the leap to applying this to life is hard for me to understand.

Roaches have been living on earth for an amazing amount of time. If the second law was driving evolution towards more dissipative (i.e., larger, warm blooded) forms of life, why has the roach stayed essentially unchanged? Clearly a larger roach or a warm blooded roach would dissipate more energy, but neither such creature exists.

Look in a mirror??

uh- Dude,
don't you have some Saving The World stuff to go do?

Have you seen some of the roaches in Florida or Hawaii? or NYC :D

http://img2-1.timeinc.net/ew/i/2013/...COCKAMOUSE.jpg

Good one!

WTF are those scribbles on the chalkboard?

One possibility is that there was a triggering event that changed roaches and the new type took hold. Without another trigger, change might not occur again.

A person must separate "why" life occurred from "how" life occurred. Some groups make a big deal when someone wants to investigate the how thinking they are questioning the why.

man, it's a cockamouse, which can also fly.

Marshall: No, it wasn't a cockroach, it had fur. And only mammals have fur.
Lily: It was a cockroach.
Marshall: Come on Lily, the only way it was a cockroach was if it was wearing the skin of a mouse it just killed.
Lily: Oh my god!
Marshall: Yeah, it had six legs, a hard exoskeleton like a roach!
Lily: But it also had mouse-like characteristics, grey brown tufts of fur, a tail.
Robin: So which is it, a cockroach or a mouse?
Marshall: It's a cockamouse!
Lily: It's a whole new species, the cockamouse.
Marshall: And it's the size of a potato.
Robin: So what now, a cocka-potato-mouse?
Marshall: Don't make it sound ridiculous, it's a cockamouse.

I'm much more effective at creating disorder than any non-human critter on Earth. Mainly I do this to release more energy over time, from which I benefit.

J. Willard Gibbs rears his head.

Bot we all know A Rolling Stone gathers no moss.