Don Mikulecky replies:
Francis Heylighen wrote:
> Reply-To: <halvor.naess@hl.telia.no>
> =46rom: "Halvor Naess" <halvor.naess@hl.telia.no>
> To: <PCP@vub.ac.be>
> Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 21:59:08 +0430
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>
> I am a neurologist living in Bergen, Norway. I am interested in
> selectionism and believe creative instructionism to be incompatible with
> the Second law of thermodynamics. Here is what I believe:
>
> In agreement with Schr=94dinger it is generally accepted that ontogenesis
> feed on low entropy in accordance with classical thermodynamics.
Classical Thermodynamics deals with equilibria. It has little bearing on far
from equilibrium situations. This has been written about by hundreds of
people. I have a book which deals with these issues "Application of Network
Thermodynamics to Problems in Biomedical Engineering" NYU Press, 1993. Don't
be misled by the title. The essence of the ability of non-equilibrium systems
to create elaborate structure including life is in the coupling of precesses.
The second law requires that the OVERALL entropy production be positive. Thus
negative terms in any set of coupled non-equilibrium processes' entropy
production merely need be compensated by larger positive ones.
>
>
> I suggest that any species can be defined as a macrostate. The microstates
> belonging to a macrostate of this kind constitute the genotypes coding for
> all possible individuals of this species. (Even though individuals
> within a species differ somewhat macroscopically they are relatively
> similar compared to individuals of other species). The concept of entropy
> used here in connection with phylogenesis is different form the concept
> used in the paragraph above. The configurational entropy can be defined as
> the logarithm of the total number of all possible genotypes coding for the
> individuals belonging to a given species. It is clear that the entropy of
> this macrostate is far lower than the entropy of the macrostate comprising
> all genotypes of similar length not coding for viable organisms.
>
This is overly simplistic and mechanistic. The issue is easily dealt with as
above without having to ever identify states or mechanisms. This is
thermodynamics which is true independent of mechanism.
> Every mutation is a step towards maximum configurational entropy. This is a
> direct effect of the Second law. Because the phase space of better
> adaptations is small compared to the phase space of nonadaptations, most
> mutations are maladaptive. Better adaptations come to dominate because they
> selfcopy more frequent or because they last longer. The selfcopying of
> better adaptations is nothing but repeated ontogenesis and therefore
> compatible with the Second law in agreement with Schr=94dinger.
>
> The above reasoning shows that every step towards the domination of
> better adaptations following darwinian mechanisms is in agreement with the
> Second law. Lamarckism on the other hand means a shortcut towards better
> adaptation without also producing bad adaptations. This means that
> lamarckism is not a product of processes towards maximum configurational
> entropy. On the contrary, lamarckism leads to reduction in total
> configurational entropy thereby violateing the Second law.
>
The second law is clearly not violated.
> Similarly it can be argued that instructionism is incompatible with the
> Second law and therfore impossible.
>
> I am not certain that the above reasoning is right. If it's wrong can you
> spot the flaw?
Yes, your understanding of thermodynamics is somewhat lacking.
>
>
> Best wishes
>
> Halvor N=E6ss.
Respectfully,
Don Mikulecky
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