It’s nice to know that the entropy is good for something:
Backed by governments, business, academics and investors in an industry worth $110bn (£82.5bn) – and estimated to be worth $610bn by 2025 – scientists have spent decades attempting to harness the power of genomics and artificial intelligence to find a way to prevent or even reverse ageing.
But an unprecedented study has now confirmed that we probably cannot slow the rate at which we get older because of biological constraints.
The study, by an international collaboration of scientists from 14 countries and including experts from the University of Oxford, set out to test the “invariant rate of ageing” hypothesis, which says that a species has a relatively fixed rate of ageing from adulthood.
“Our findings support the theory that, rather than slowing down death, more people are living much longer due to a reduction in mortality at younger ages,” said José Manuel Aburto from Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, who analysed age-specific birth and death data spanning centuries and continents.
Amelia Hill, “Ageing process is unstoppable, finds unprecedented study” at The Guardian
For sure. Declines in deaths from traffic accidents — to take one example — will lead to an older average age in a population. Prevent a war and you have more old codgers around decades later. Prevent teen suicides and the same thing happens. But those people aren’t aging more slowly. They’re aging at the same rate because they are alive.
Note: The researchers found it was the same story with primate apes.
That said, there may be a kind of blip in human longevity, not fully understood, between 105 and 110 years of age. But by the time you are there, you have already broken all the rules.
Why would this mean that we couldn’t figure out a way to stop or slow down the aging process though
Absolutely, and the sooner the better!
What for? God made a mistake starting aging clock and you want to teach Him how should had done ? :)) Your grandfather Adam started aging timer and nobody can stop it.
You want to live forever on _this_ planet???? I’d go bonkers even living another 100 years!
Aaron states: “Why would this mean that we couldn’t figure out a way to stop or slow down the aging process though”
Seversky, seeing his opportunity to create mischief, jumps in and states, “Absolutely, and the sooner the better!”
Small problem with Aaron’s, Seversky’s, (and Ponce de Leon’s), long sought after, and mythical, ‘fountain of youth’. Growing old and dying is literally built into the fabric of the universe.
It is called Entropy.
Entropy is, by far, the most finely tuned of the initial conditions of the universe. Finely tuned to an almost incomprehensible degree of precision, 1 part in 10 to the 10 to the 123rd power. As Roger Penrose himself stated, “This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.”
And Entropy is indeed the primary reason why people, (and all other life in the universe), grow old and eventually die.
Simply put, the belief in the mythical ‘fountain of youth’ contradicts the second law of thermodynamics and, as Eddington himself stated, “if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it (but) to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
There simply is no escaping entropic decay, (i.e. growing old and dying), as long as we live in the temporal time of this universe. Indeed, the entire universe itself is headed for entropic ‘heat death’.
But all hope is not lost. As Sir William Thomson himself stated, “We have the sober scientific certainty that the heavens and earth shall ‘wax old as doth a garment’….Dark indeed would be the prospects of the human race if unilluminated by that light which reveals ‘new heavens and a new earth.’”
Verses:
EDTA/4
But there’s so much still to see and do, so many books still to read, so many places to go, even travel into space. Another 100 years would do very nicely, thank you. Another two or three hundred years and I might be around to see the first warp-driven starship!
Bornagain77/5
Pretty miserable piece of design, then, if you ask me.
Sev,
>”But there’s so much still to see and do, so many books still to read,…”
I love books too. But if I read for another 100 years, and theism was not the case, then my brain turns back to dust whether I read 5000 books or 5000000. No net difference in the end.
Ugh….. BA77
Nope I’m not looking for the fountain of youth nooooor do I think it possible to escape entropy
Why I asked the question I did was because I couldn’t figure out how this study proves that it can’t be done
The reduction of mortality of people at a younger age doesn’t prove to there is no way to live longer by other means due to entropy
All it means is that people are living longer because more people are alive to do it
I’m just trying to see how this relates to entropy or proves that entropy will foil all the temps cheating death and stop growing old
I agree we are meant to die and I would hate to have people like Hitler live forever because I’m sure Sev would love to live eternally under the tyranny of an eternal dictator
In my personal perspective I think there’s a cleverness to death because it comes for everybody and it plays no favorites but it allows things to change For better or for worse but never forever
Now I might be mistaken but I raise issue with this because of the conclusion drawn from it
Because it turns out that the mortality rate in younger people is less they conclude that aging is inevitable and is fixed in species
This seems like you have to play “6 ways to relate anything” to draw this conclusion
Now if they had concluded that our perceptions that people were living longer due to being more advanced and eating right was actually wrong I would agree with that
So no one take what I asked in 1 like a form of scientism, false confidence in a human endeavor, or blind hubris that science will over come all
It’s not
I honestly want to know how they jumped to that conclusion from what they studied
Seversky, when shown, via the second law, that his belief in the mythical ‘fountain of youth’ is a figment of his imagination, and not missing a beat, immediately resorts to bad Theological argumentation.
Please note that Seversky is not arguing, via science, that the 1 in 10^10^123 initial entropy of the universe is not designed, (since obviously such an incomprehensible, and astonishing, level of fine-tuning must be the product of exquisite design), but Seversky is instead claiming that it is a “Pretty miserable piece of design”, which basically boils down to this type of faulty theological argumentation,,,
And resorting to such faulty theological argumentation, instead of any actual science, has been the primary modus operandi of Darwinian atheists ever since Darwin first wrote his book, and such faulty theological argumentation is still present in Darwinian literature today.
Of course, as is fairly obvious, the atheist’s argument from evil and/or imperfection, i.e. “God-wouldn’t-have-done-it-that-way”, has a rather glaring fatal flaw within it.
Namely, it assumes a ‘immaterial’ standard of perfection and/or goodness that has been departed from.
As C.S. Lewis, (a former atheist), put the fatal flaw in the atheist’s argument from evil and/or argument from imperfection, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
Simply put, in order for the atheist’s argument from evil and/or imperfection to work, the atheist is forced to assume the objective existence of a standard of perfection and goodness that has been departed from. In short, the atheist is forced to assume the objective existence of God in order for his argument against God to ‘seemingly’ work.. i.e. It is a self-refuting argument!
Thus, in their “Argument from Evil” atheists have, apparently unbeknownst to themselves, conceded the existence of an objective, even perfect, moral standard to judge by and have, once again, inadvertently conceded the existence of God.
Simply put, if good and evil really do exist, as the atheist must hold to be true for his argument from evil to even work, then God necessarily exists!
As Michael Egnor states in the following article, “Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,,”
And as Cornelius van Til put the self-refuting position that atheists find themselves in in regards to their ‘argument from evil’, “A little child may slap his father in the face, but it can do so only because the father holds it on his knee.”
In short, without God the place that Atheists are arguing from simply does not exist.
Moreover, besides inadvertently assuming the existence of God in their argument from evil, the atheist also assumes that there can be no greater purpose for allowing suffering to exist. i.e. He assumes, “There exist a large number of horrible forms of evil and suffering for which we can see no greater purpose or compensating good.”
Yet the atheist’s claim that “There exist a large number of horrible forms of evil and suffering for which we can see no greater purpose or compensating good” is directly refuted in Christian theology by what is termed the “Beatific Vision” of heaven:. In which it is held that suffering is allowed, (somewhat like a child learning to play the violin), in order to eventually bring about a much greater good.
Thus, although the atheist assumes that no greater good can possibly come about by allowing suffering to exist in this world, that assumption is easily refuted by the very fact that greater goods come about for us all the time by we ourselves enduring suffering for a short time. i.e. We all sacrifice of ourselves all the time in order achieve greater goods in our own lives.
Moreover, it is not as if we do not have any scientific evidence for the existence of heaven, i.e. of a ‘perfect’ paradise that exists above this temporal realm.
As I pointed out last week in the “Do Any Dogs Go To Heaven?” thread, the Christian Theist can appeal directly to Special Relativity, one of our most powerful theories in science, in order to support his belief in the physical reality of a ‘higher’, heavenly, dimension that exists above this temporal realm.
Verse:
https://neurosciencenews.com/genetics-aging-bacteria-18799/?fbclid=IwAR3-fBXPh41fDstFAxhfVnMN7xWxLI2-VupXjXfGig4T69hLGq6BeyH9I3o
This relates a little bit of the topic above and I found it quite interesting
Bornagain77/11
I don’t believe in a fountain of youth. It would be nice if there was one but this Universe doesn’t seem to be arranged to keep me happy so I’ll just have to live with it.
Do you ever actually examine your arguments? You and John Sanford are pointing to entropy and arguing it is proof of design. You’re saying that life and this Universe have a built-in, delayed-action, self-destruct process. Now tell my why in Mog’s name any designer would do such a thing. Because if it is there as a result of design then, yes, it is a pretty miserable thing to do.
And my answer to Lewis and anyone else who makes this ridiculous comment is, are you really telling me that you would have no idea what is cruel and unjust, good or evil unless your God told you? You could look at a child being tortured and murdered and, if your God has not told you it’s wrong, you would just stand there scratching your head and wonder what all the fuss was about?
If your God can work out what’s good and evil on His own then why can’t we?
Yes, we have to put in long hours of practice to learn how to play the violin. But wouldn’t it be better if, like in The Matrix, we could just plug ourselves into a violin-playing program and instantly become expert fiddlers? Would that be beyond you God’s powers?
Human beings sometimes have to accept the existence of suffering because we don’t have the power to do otherwise. Your God does.
In the early days of surgery, the best that could be done to alleviate the patient’s pain was to give them a few slugs of whisky and something to bite on. Since then, we’ve developed a range of effective anesthetics to suppress pain. When we have the knowledge and power to do better, we do. We don’t just brush it off with something about suffering being good for the soul.
Your God is all-knowing and all-powerful. It doesn’t make sense to say He couldn’t arrange things so that there was no suffering. If suffering exists then He wants it that way, if He exists.
Bornagain77,
I don’t think the Christian idea and indeterminate longevity are opposed at all. For example we see in Isaiah 65:20 “Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach[a] a hundred
will be considered accursed.”
This is of course describing the “Kingdom of God”, but depending upon one’s eschatology, we could expect more or less of a move in that direction. As an amillennialist personally, I think the idea jives with much of what we should expect from a Christian future. Contrarily, I find that the importance of entropy in the systematic nature of the universe means that you’d have some genuine theological dilemmas if you were to try and posit entropy as a result of the Fall. Rather I think the introduced problem from a theological perspective should be a missing of the mark, or a failure to have a balance between designed order and chaos (entropy). A narrow path to life that is off kilter.
I actually think anti-aging research would be a useful pursuit for Intelligent Design. Though it’s probably necessary to form some hypothetical questions:
To what extent – if any – is the breakdown and death of an organism part of it’s original design? (My hypothesis – it isn’t a part of it’s ordered process, only adaptions to it could be.)
What role to ordered systems play in the prevention of aging and death, and how can these be adapted to benefit the populace? (We are aware after all that the germline is immortal otherwise none of us would be here.)
What was the intended role of activity and consumption, and how can humanity benefit from the foods and activities we were meant to eat and perform? (For example fruits and vegetables, our intended food supply produce antioxidants and have many health promoting compounds, many which treat a myriad of ailments.) This of course takes the assumption that purpose directed activity – doing what we were intended will be better for us. (This takes us to some degree in an alternative health direction rather than a pro-pharmaceutical direction). (To be more specific, I find that there are a myriad of positive health effects of the plant Turmeric. Could there be some design or intention in its medicinal properties? If so, what specifically might they be?)
How can behavior in line with our purpose (telos) in these senses promote well-being both mental and physical?
Seversky,
>>>
“And my answer to Lewis and anyone else who makes this ridiculous comment is, are you really telling me that you would have no idea what is cruel and unjust, good or evil unless your God told you? You could look at a child being tortured and murdered and, if your God has not told you it’s wrong, you would just stand there scratching your head and wonder what all the fuss was about?”
>>>
That sounds all righteous and noble at first, but the reality of human nature is a lot darker than you think. It was Christianity that was responsible for the end of the gladiatorial games in Rome wherein people would not just stand and scratch their heads. They would cheer over torture, murder, public rapes (sometimes by animals) and little children being brutalized and molested. Christians were often criticized for not taking part in the games and opposing them.
There are a confluence of factors in human psychology, but what is very clear is that without some exterior reference point for ethics, societies and individuals alike meander into dark places.
I think we can see it happening already in the breakdown of civility in the West.
>>>
“If your God can work out what’s good and evil on His own then why can’t we?
>>>
Are you a moral realist? Because if you were a relativist, there really wouldn’t be anything to work out. Morals wouldn’t be discovered they’d be dictated by whatever was in cultural vogue. If you’re a moral realist, what’s your basis?
>>>
“Human beings sometimes have to accept the existence of suffering because we don’t have the power to do otherwise. Your God does.”
>>>
Have you ever read Martin Luther King’s discussion of the Problem of Evil? You might want to check it out.
Yarrgonaut while I agree with your rebuttal of Seversky’s, (as usual), self-refuting claims, I disagree that you have found a workaround for the ‘problem’ of entropy.
And while you are certainly correct in your overall premise that living a Christian lifestyle can significantly extend our lives beyond the life expectancy of those who are atheistic in their beliefs,
And while you are also certainly correct that “anti-aging research would be a useful pursuit for Intelligent Design”, you are incorrect to downplay just how far reaching entropy actually is as to being the primary cause of aging and death in this universe.
Specifically, Genetic Entropy, i.e. the buildup of ‘slightly deleterious mutations’ in the genome, while it may be slowed down and somewhat mitigated by healthy lifestyle choices, cannot be stopped.
Dr. John Sanford has done yeoman’s work in demonstrating the fact that genome degradation, i.e. Genetic Entropy, is a reality that cannot be stopped by any known naturalistic process.
And here is a link to the mutation database that confirms, in over the top fashion, Sanford’s observation that the human genome is in the grip of relentless genomic degradation,
It is also interesting to note that Dr. Michael Behe, especially since the publication of his latest book, “Darwin Devolves”, has now joined Dr. John Sanford and now holds that persistent genomic degradation is a reality, by showing that even ‘helpful’ mutations, which we once thought were beneficial, “degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent,,”.
Entropy is, scientifically speaking, simply a far bigger problem, in regards to growing old and dying, than you implied in your post Yarrgonaut.
Indeed, you really did not even challenge the science behind what I was saying about entropy being the primary cause of growing old and dying in this universe, but you only referred to eating right, i.e. ‘the plant Turmeric’, to somewhat mitigate the effects of entropy.
In fact, your main objection to entropy was not even a scientific objection at all, but was instead a Theological objection,
Specifically Yarrgonaut you claimed that,
I think, (and correct me if I am wrong), that you are referring to the fact that, since entropy is the primary reason why things grow old and die in this universe, and since death did not ‘enter the world’ until the fall of man, then having entropy around before the fall of man would, on the face of it, seemingly create an irresolvable theological dilemma for the Christian.
And indeed, death preceding the fall is one of the main reasons that Young Earth Creationists give for rejecting an Old Earth view of Creation.
Yet, Dr. William Dembski addressed that supposedly irresolvable ‘theological dilemma’ of death preceding the fall in his book “The End of Christianity”.
As the preceding article explained, Dr. Dembski holds that since Christ’s crucifixion worked both forward and backwards in time, saving both us who came after it, and also saving “many saints who had fallen asleep” before it,,,
Dr. Dembski holds that since Christ’s crucifixion worked both forward and backwards in time, then the effects of the fall also reached both forward in time as well as backwards in time.
And although many people may strenuously object that ‘backwards in time’ causation is ludicrous and is impossible, advances in quantum mechanics shows us that ‘backwards in time’ causation is a reality and thus quantum mechanics itself, our most powerful theory in science, now offers us a solution, even a ‘mechanism’, for ‘backwards in time’ causation so as to provide the Christian with a resolution to this seemingly irresolvable ‘Theological dilemma’ of death preceding the fall of man.
Specifically, in recent experiments in quantum mechanics, it is now found that “quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”
And as the following 2017 article states, “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.”
And to drive the point further home, in the following 2018 article Professor Crull provocatively states “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”
Moreover, on top of that, recent experiments in quantum mechanics have also now shown that “entropy is always dependent on the observer.”
Thus, scientifically speaking, and as far as entropy and quantum mechanics are concerned, death preceding the fall is not such an insurmountable difficulty as it would appear to be at first glance.
Indeed, one could almost argue that, scientifically speaking, death preceding the fall is almost to be expected as far as quantum mechanics itself is concerned.
Of supplemental note, while I usually (just) argue that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides the correct reconciliation between quantum mechanics and general relativity, what I very rarely point out in that argument is that there is a profound ‘entropic divide’ between special relativity and general relativity.
You see, in the attempt to unify quantum mechanics with general relativity into the much sought after ‘theory of everything’, we find that we are, in fact, dealing with two very different types, and/or qualities, of entropy.
Specifically, in Special Relativity, (which can be ‘unified’ with quantum mechanics via Quantum Electrodynamics), we are dealing with the extremely orderly 1 in 10^10^123 entropy that is associated with the creation of the universe, i.e. associated with the initial creation of light.
Whereas, in General Relativity, (which cannot be unified with quantum mechanics), we are, in fact, ultimately dealing with the ‘infinitely destructive’ entropy associated with Black Holes.
And thus, since the entropy associated with special relativity is extremely orderly, i.e. 1 in 10^10^123, and yet the entropy associated with General Relativity, via black holes, is found to be ‘infinitely destructive’, then I hold that those two profoundly different qualities of entropy to be a fairly obvious theoretical reason, (besides the ‘infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics), for why Quantum Electrodynamics, (i.e Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity), will never be successfully unified with General Relativity into a purely mathematical theory of everything.
In regards to gravity, (general relativity), being dealt with in the Shroud of Turin, the following article states that ‘The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.’
And in the following video, Isabel Piczek states,,, ‘The muscles of the body are absolutely not crushed against the stone of the tomb. They are perfect. It means the body is hovering between the two sides of the shroud. What does that mean? It means there is absolutely no gravity.’
Kevin Moran, an optical engineer, describes the Shroud Image in this way, “The unique front-and-back only image can be best described as gravitationally collimated. The radiation that made the image acted perfectly parallel to gravity. There is no side image. The radiation is parallel to gravity,,,”
Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with on the Shroud of Turin, the Shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics, (Quantum Electrodynamics), itself was dealt with. In the following paper, it was found that it was not possible to describe the image formation on the Shroud in classical terms but they found it necessary to describe the formation of the image on the Shroud in discrete quantum terms.
Moreover, the following rather astonishing study on the Shroud, found that it would take 34 Trillion Watts of what is termed VUV (directional) radiation to form the image on the shroud.
So thus in conclusion, when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God back into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, and as is now empirically warranted with the closing of the ‘freedom-of-choice’ loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then a very plausible solution to the number one unsolved mystery in science today, of finding a reconciliation between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, readily pops out for us in that, as the Shroud of Turin gives witness to, both Gravity and Quantum Mechanics were dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Video and Verses