Q&A: Lottery of Physical Laws and Low Entropy
Lottery of Physical Laws and Low Entropy
Question
Suppose there aren't infinitely many universes; there is only our universe, but the laws of nature came about by chance, through a kind of lottery.
How can we know that a lottery of natural laws could not, with high probability, create something complex?
Not necessarily a human being, but perhaps if we took all the variables of nature and drew different numbers, after billions of years we would get other kinds of low-entropy forms.
Answer
It could, but it is very unlikely. That is the whole idea of complexity not arising on its own by chance (the second law of thermodynamics). Throw a collection of coins randomly onto the floor. What is the chance that you will get an ordered structure (that is, low entropy)?
Discussion on Answer
I have elaborated on this in the past. The laws of nature are what make the formation of complex things possible. Without them, nothing would happen even if there were millions of attempts (and who exactly is generating those attempts in the first place?), and the question is how those laws themselves came to be.
You are assuming a system of laws like ours with different values for the constants. But even if you are right, that itself is a very special system. If you look at the set of all possible systems of laws, it is obvious that almost none of them would produce complexities, and certainly not stable ones, and that follows from the very definition of entropy.
Is there any calculation or data that can back up all these claims?
Low entropy, the chances of additional systems of laws, the stability of those systems of laws…
Maybe I just don't understand physics as well as you do, but what seems obvious to you is not really obvious to me. How do people arrive at such conclusions? How can one even imagine what would happen in a lottery of a random system of laws? It could be that a kind of entropy would arise that we simply are unable to imagine, because our imagination operates according to the current system of laws.
I have nothing to add. It seems you really do not understand.
I will try to explain the question…
In the example of a die that is rolled 1,000 times and always comes up 6, I have a mathematical way to understand that the probability is low. I know that the probability on each roll is one sixth, and that lets me calculate the probability that 1,000 consecutive rolls will all come up 6. I can show the calculation, the probability, and prove that this is a negligible chance, and therefore it is rational to believe in a designer.
When it comes to the laws of nature, I do not have the data to draw such conclusions, at least not from what I understand, and I would be glad if you would show me.
My intuition tells me that in any lottery of a system of laws, systems with low entropy could emerge relative to that system of laws.
But the dilemma you are presenting is not about an ordered collection of coins (where the analogue is a human being?) but about millions of repeated tosses and natural selection (evolution). And the question you are presenting is about a system of laws that allows the existence of evolution.
My understanding is that the low entropy exists only in the product that evolution creates after billions of years.
So now my question is: why is it unlikely that in some other random system of laws we would get other systems with low entropy? Suppose the gravitational constant were 72 and the speed of light were 895 and the constant e were 100—who can predict what kind of universe would exist and what entropy systems in it would reach after x amount of time?