Re: 2nd law clarifications

On 5/01/2025 8:08 pm, LDagget wrote:

On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 6:53:02 +0000, MarkE wrote:
 

Are these statements correct? Could they be better expressed?
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Local entropy can decrease in an open system with an input of free
energy.
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Free energy alone is not sufficient to maintain or further decrease low
local entropy: an energy capture and transformation mechanism is also
needed.
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Extant life *maintains* low local entropy through its organisation and
processes.
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Evolving life *decreases* low local entropy through the ratcheting
mechanism natural selection acting on random mutations in instances
where that evolution increases functional complexity and organisation.
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There is no other known mechanism apart from natural selection that does
this. For example, neutral drift alone increases entropy.

 There's so much fuzzy language in there that replying is bound to
explode
things into an extended attempt to us clean up the language enough  for
one to understand the claims in scientific language.
 So let's bypass that, besides, it's been done before.
 Instead, consider this. The broad objection is that creationists or
their
bedfellows try to claim that evolution is somehow a decrease in entropy.
Such a claim is superficially nonsensical. Here's why.
 Evolution is a result. In a simple example of adaption, an initial
population of bacteria begin with an enzyme that is effective against
one antibiotic but has very low efficacy against a related antibiotic.
These things work such that at very low concentrations of the antibiotic
the low efficacy is sufficient to allow the bacteria to keep growing
but at higher concentrations bacterial cell wall growth is inhibited
and the bacteria stop growing.
 so the usual processes take place because they can't be stopped.
Imperfect
DNA replication occurs, mutations of the antibiotic resistance enzyme
occur, most have little effect but occasionally there are mutations that
result in increased activity against the related antibiotic (a new
drug).
So now bacteria with the mutation can grow faster than those without
the mutation. The process repeats, the gene pool evolves to have more
and more of the antibiotic resistance gene with higher efficacy and
that's evolution.
 Now where and how do people claim that is a violation of the 2nd law?
 Let's help with that. The process involves millions of bacteria growing,
reproducing, and sometimes dying. The process is the sum of all of these
events. Each and every cell consumed food, and metabolized it. The sum
of their life processes can be cartooned like the metabolism of glucose
C6H12O6 + 6 O2 ==> 6 CO2 + 6 H2O    This reaction increases entropy.
It still increases net entropy when coupled to charging ADP to ATP.
The sum of all of the chemical reactions that have to take place for a
cell to grow and replicate represents a relentless increase in entropy
comparing the reactants to the products.
 Now how do the creationists claim that summing up all of these millions
of positive increases in entropy represents a decrease in entropy?
 That's the essence of their nonsensical claim. At each and every step
along the way, all the chemical reactions are increasing entropy.
Entropy increases when DNA is replicated. There's negligible difference
between a perfect copy of a gene and a copy with a mutation. Either
way, it's an increase in entropy.
 The only way that evolution can be considered a decrease in entropy is
thus revealed to be by a failure to look at the actual processes
involved
and to instead resort to hand waving about loosey-goosey attempts to
invoke related concepts like __disorder__.
 

Entropy is a difficult concept, especially its application to OoL and evolution. I get the frustration. My own understanding in incomplete. The examples you give point to a question of where exactly is the "local" boundary of the claimed entropy decrease?
What about this approach as starting point. Take configuration entropy, which relates to the arrangements or positions of components within a system, but ignores energy distributions, i.e. it's a subset of thermodynamic entropy, and can be calculated for systems where the spatial distribution dominates the behavior. Configuration entropy can be calculated using the Boltzmann entropy equation:
     𝑆 = 𝑘𝐵.ln(𝑊)
where:
     𝑆 is Entropy
     𝑘𝐵 is the Boltzmann constant
     𝑊 is the Number of possible microstates (configurations)
        consistent with the macrostate
Microstate: A specific arrangement of the system's components.
Macrostate: The overall state of the system, described by observable properties like temperature, pressure, or composition.
A macrostate with a larger number of possible microstates has higher configuration entropy." (ChatGPT-4o; also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Configuration_entropy)
For an ensemble of molecules that could form a living entity, the "nonliving macrostate" is composed of many more possible microstates (Wn) than the "living macrostate" (Wl). E.g., if say Wn/Wl = 10^10, then the local configuration entropy *decrease* to go from nonliving to living is
     Sn - Sl = kB(ln(Wn) - ln(Wl))
             = kB.ln(Wn/Wl)
             = kB.ln(10^10)
             = 3.2E-22 joules per kelvin
Now, assuming that a similar result would apply for the other component of thermodynamic entropy (i.e. energy distributions), then a protocell or living cell represents a local region of greatly reduced entropy. The process of abiogenesis has given rise to a region of reduced entropy (albeit at the expense of an overall entropy increase in the environment).
And...so what, that's surely a given. You wouldn't dispute that, would you?
Therefore, the issue is, are the mechanisms available to say OoL capable of driving this required entropy reduction? There does not appear to be simple yes/no answer. Are redox couples, proton gradient, etc sufficient, and in what form?
"In 1924 Alexander Oparin suggested that sufficient energy for generating early life forms from non-living molecules was provided in a "primordial soup".[31] The laws of thermodynamics impose some constraints on the earliest life-sustaining reactions that would have emerged and evolved from such a mixture. Essentially, to remain consistent with the second law of thermodynamics, self organizing systems that are characterized by lower entropy values than equilibrium must dissipate energy so as to increase entropy in the external environment.[32] One consequence of this is that low entropy or high chemical potential chemical intermediates cannot build up to very high levels if the reaction leading to their formation is not coupled to another chemical reaction that releases energy. These reactions often take the form of redox couples, which must have been provided by the environment at the time of the origin of life.[33] In today's biology, many of these reactions require catalysts (or enzymes) to proceed, which frequently contain transition metals. This means identifying both redox couples and metals that are readily available in a given candidate environment for abiogenesis is an important aspect of prebiotic chemistry.
"The idea that processes that can occur naturally in the environment and act to locally decrease entropy must be identified has been applied in examinations of phosphate's role in the origin of life, where the relevant setting for abiogenesis is an early Earth lake environment. One such process is the ability of phosphate to concentrate reactants selectively due to its localized negative charge.[34]
"In the context of the alkaline hydrothermal vent (AHV) hypothesis for the origin of life, a framing of lifeforms as "entropy generators" has been suggested in an attempt to develop a framework for abiogenesis under alkaline deep sea conditions. Assuming life develops rapidly under certain conditions, experiments may be able to recreate the first metabolic pathway, as it would be the most energetically favorable and therefore likely to occur. In this case, iron sulfide compounds may have acted as the first catalysts.[35] Therefore, within the larger framing of life as free energy converters, it would eventually be beneficial to characterize quantities such as entropy production and proton gradient dissipation rates quantitatively for origin of life relevant systems (particularly AHVs)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life
As far as I understand then, it does seem to be an oversimplification to say the development of life (origin and evolution) violates the second law. On the other hand, a supply of free energy is not in and of itself sufficient to explain life.
However, the ratio of the nonliving macrostate's number of possible microstates (Wn) to the nonliving macrostate's (Wl) I suspect is grossly underestimated, and the corresponding difficulty/improbability of matter self-organising into life. A research avenue would be to further quantify and analysise this.