A: Why Did Nature Choose Life?
Edit: as @stemq doesn't do it on it's own (which is something I would urgently encourage), I have to do the following manually:
This is an answer to @gokhan83kurt's recent question, as submitted at https://www.stemq.io.
Nature
The main problem with your original question is a complete misunderstanding of the term "nature".
Nature has no concience and hence cannot choose. Random stuff happens according to natural laws, but there is no governance, no conscious selection. Thus, nature did not "choose" life to happen, but life evolved despite of the existence of entropy.
CC0, pixabay
How can life beat a law of thermodynamics?
It simply doesn't.
Entropy, just as you said, describes "the tendency of the universe [to strive towards] a more chaotic state", but that sencence is half-correct. The second law of thermodynamics doesn't use the term "universe", but describes that "in a closed system", disorder (=entropy) always increases.
The universe might be a closed system for all we know, but a planet - as mother Earth - is clearly not. We get loads of energy from the sun, and by using this energy, life could evolve to ever more complex organisms. With energy input from outside, the laws of physics allow entropy to decrease - locally and for some time.
"Existing forever"
Life will not exist forever. Nothing will. But for the time being, at planet Earth, it does exist. And why would that be a contradiction to nature as we know it?
StemQ Notice: This post was originally submitted on StemQ.io, a Q&A application for STEM subjects powered by the Steem blockchain.
The post is dead-on, but here I think you overreached yourself! If nothing will exist forever, that means the laws of thermodynamics won't exist forever, which means life might get a chance after all :P
But really, we are fledglings, we evolved consciousness only recently and science even more recently. Who knows what our brains and science will enable us to do in the future, even beat entropy, as impossible as that sounds.
Very nicely put!
I fully agree: one most take the laws of physics together with all the assumptions going with them.
Thanks. Whenever I have to add some physics, I fear you might come around the corner and declare my whole argumantation invaldid, so your agreement means a lot to me here. ;-)
It is easy to miss any of all the naughty assumptions going together with any single theorem or theory. We need to buy it as a whole and not as pieces.
Hi @sco, thank you for your answer.
StemQ does allow you to edit a post however.
Please let me know if you are having difficulties with this feature.
Editing is not a problem. I would implement an automatic header with a link to the question post, however.
We are currently considering adding a link to the original question that will be visible on non-StemQ dapps.
Definitely a good idea.
As for a link to the original question when using StemQ I assume that you saw the button at the bottom of the answer page?
Yes, I saw it. Does the question asker get a notification of some sort that someone answered?
Ah sorry, wrong accont. It's Sco, anyway.
No, not at present unfortunately.
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