AN ASIDE ON THERMODYNAMICS

As an aside, and on its own page since this doesn't have much application to gaming, I'd like to mention something extra about the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

In laymen's terms, according to the first law of thermodynamics, the general idea is that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

In actual fact, science looks at this closer than that and in what are known as "closed systems" in "time." That is, no new energy should come into the defined closed system, or exit it, from one point in time to another point in time, in order for these laws to be applicable. So any energy present in a system at one time will be present at a future time, although that energy may be transformed from one type to another. Thus, any energy loss can only be explained as energy leaving the system, and not simply disappearing into nothingness, and any extra energy found could only be explained as energy entering the system, and not as energy being created from nothing.

These extra requirements on closed systems, and from one point in time to another, are the points that confuse many laymen - particularly in sophomoric debates concerning evolution, wherein those who poorly understand science misapply it and attempt to discredit science by suggesting science is inconsistent or violates its own understanding of the universe. Therefore, they believe, their ideas - particularly creationism and intelligent design - a backhanded form of creationism - are apparently better by comparison. This fallacious thinking is unfortunate, and most often borne of individuals who decided what they wanted to believe in first BEFORE they went to gather information, evidence, or empirical data to use to subsequently decide what they believed. Most clever people, you understand, like to acquire the facts before they make up their minds. Anyway . . .

Two examples stand out: one argument about entropy or the second law of thermodynamics - the tendency for things to go from more complex systems to less complex systems and to break down over time - is often made, since apparently evolution defies this tendency. But this isn't the case, as the Earth is not a closed system and energy aplenty is constantly being dumped into that system by the sun.

Another argument is that, apparently, during the big bang, the universe went from nothing, to everything, so it seems that energy can be created from nothing, and one of the laws of thermodynamics is violated there. Yet this is not a violation of the laws of thermodynamics, either, since those laws only apply to closed systems in time.

You see, time and space itself did not exist on the other side of the big bang. So there is no point in "time" when all that energy didn't already exist, since time itself didn't exist until the point when all that energy also already existed. Thus, the big bang does not violate the first law of thermodynamics, either. It's merely a statement about the conservation of energy from time₁ to time₂, and says nothing about systems wherein time does not yet exists, or things "prior" to the big bang. Q.E.D.

NOTE: The question of "Where did the universe come from?" can thus be seen to be based upon an erroneous understanding of the nature of the universe - i.e. that all things within our common sense have a past, a present, and a future - and therefore one erroneously might imagine a void in linear time where there was nothing for countless eons until BANG!!! and then there was the universe where before there had been nothingness. Clearly, if one thinks about it, this notion of linear time is wrong, as relatively has shown us time is not always linear - i.e. not everything has a past, a present, and a future. Time can speed up, slow down, come to a complete stop, or not even exist at all. Time is certainly not the simple concept we normally take it for, and questions dependent upon time's framework may be much harder to grasp than initially thought. Ultimately, therefore, we discern the question of the universe's origin to be mired in an erroneous or wrong assumption, as it implies at one "time" the universe was "elsewhere", or it didn't exist, but since time and space, or space-time itself, have existed as long as the universe has, we now correctly know that the universe has "always" existed "here" as long as time and space have existed. These may seem counter intuitive to common sense since most experiences teach us things must have a past, a present, and a future, but this is not the case. Besides, most who scoff at science since they don't grasp the origins of the universe then hypocritically ignore the fact their preferred explanation does an even less satisfactory job at explaining God's origin, or such similar alternate lines of "reasoning." No matter.

For any gamer who might feel I'm attacking a cherished belief of theirs, or that I have my facts wrong - particularly about Intelligent Design "theory" being a form of creationism - they are encouraged to write if they wish. However, suffice it to say, though Intelligent design makes no overt, upfront claims about the creator, and may seem, therefore, not to be creationism, the fact is, logically speaking, that so-called "scientific theory" relies on a supernatural "first" intelligent designer, which is incompatible with the other basic foundational premises of that theory, so it's nonsense. It certainly isn't a "theory" and sure as heck is not science. But that's a whole other topic.

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But, wow, I really digress.