Critique of "The Scientific Worldview": Part 8c The Ten Assumptions of Science: Complementarity

The Second Law of Thermodynamics (divergence) and its complement (convergence), fictitious forces, Prigogine's microcosmic mistakes, and the Nobel Prize.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are marked "BW: ". The quotes marked TSW are from "The Scientific Worldview[1]" and my comments are marked "[GB: ".

TSW: Sixth Assumption: Complementarity (Part 8c)

TSW:  "Prigogine ... stressed that complex structures can exist only through continuous interaction with their surroundings. Without this interaction, structures tend to 'dissipate.'"

BW: Prigogine just got bit by the dialectic bug, with no supporting evidence. Entropy is a consequence of "continuous interaction" among moving particles. Prigogine just turns that on its head, without reference to some other, unique, "antithesis" form of interaction that produces order. Like other philosophers of science, he "anthropomorphizes" nature to conform with what he perceives as happening in humans. Sure, humans have to interact with their environment, or they die, and "dissipate". But, most material objects "dissipate" *as a consequence* of their interaction with their environment, not the inverse. I agree with your conclusion regarding his "silly producers of order".

[GB: Nonetheless, Prigogine still got the Nobel for his microcosmic pile of self-organization. You are partially correct. The submicrocosms within a microcosm that already is in existence will tend to diverge from that microcosm per the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That is, half of the things in the infinite universe are undergoing divergence (i.e., death), while the other half of the things in the infinite universe are undergoing convergence (i.e., birth). To produce that microcosm in the first place, it must have formed through the convergence of supermicrocosms from the macrocosm (i.e., birth). Dissipation or death is temporarily forestalled via continuous convergence from the macrocosm (e.g., breathing in oxygen). BTW: Here are Prigogine’s "silly producers of order": “fluctuations, distance from equilibrium, and nonlinearity” (TSW, p. 77). None explicitly involve convergence from the macrocosm, which is what produces the order he was looking for.]

TSW:  "An environmentally focused viewpoint would permit the development of a complementary principle, a law about ideal nonisolation."

BW: You can't establish a principle or formulate a law without real, concrete evidence of an interaction that produces it. I don't see that here.

[GB: Support for complementarity exists everywhere. Everything you can observe is a product of convergence. How do you think things form in the first place? That is why the Infinite Universe Theory works so well. Everything is a combination of things from elsewhere. Seems obvious to me. I didn’t think I would have to give examples. Need some help with nebula and the birds and the bees?]

TSW:  "... describes the reality existing between ideal isolation and ideal nonisolation."

BW: You said earlier that there can be no such thing as "ideal isolation". I agree. So, I'm a little surprised to see you proposing the existence of an opposite "ideal nonisolation" ... and then suggesting something in between those exists in nature. I know, it fits the Hegelian "thesis > antithesis > synthesis" paradigm, but nature doesn't need to negotiate with anyone, nor understand what it is doing.

[GB: You do have a serious problem with ideals. I had hoped that, by including the word “ideal” for both concepts, that sort of problem could be eliminated. Like ideal empty space and ideal solid matter, the reality is always in between. We use idealizations like these all the time in doing science. It helps us understand the reality. The trick is to not get caught up in thinking that any of the ideals actually exist (like some folks I know).

Let me explain a bit more on what I mean by “ideal nonisolation.” That is just another way of saying “convergence” or “collision.” Nothing comes into being without it. For instance, try to build something without convergence—can’t be done. That is the complement to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. So sorry that you don’t like dialectics, but the last time I looked, there were only two opposing possibilities with regard to motion in nature: divergence or convergence.]

TSW:  "The obvious answer is that it has moved toward other matter in the universe."

BW: Except, that's not an answer to entropy, which has no problem with particles bouncing apart and going wherever they please. Somewhere, they will bump into another particle and bounce off in a different direction. It will still be entropic action.

[GB: Hold on there. That only works for your ideal solid particle, which does not exist. You cannot be sure that real particles will not form an entirely new entity, as they so often do. Each “bounce” involves one or more of the neomechanical interactions (TSW, Chapter 5). Each bounce is unique per the Seventh Assumption of Science, irreversibility (All processes are irreversible) and each real particle is unique per the Ninth Assumption of Science, relativism (All things have characteristics that make them similar to all other things as well as characteristics that make them dissimilar to all other things).]

TSW:  "In an infinite universe, an increase in entropy in one place results in a simultaneous and equivalent decrease in entropy in another."

BW: There's no harm in surmising that some particles, an infinity away, will someday bounce off local particles. Some particles depart, some arrive, but they all bounce. Absent some observable convergent force, you can't have disentropy ... just alien particles doing the same thing as local particles.

[GB: More idealism… Again, there is no “convergent force." Entropy/disentropy or negentropy merely has to do with the relationship between microcosms. Entropy (or disorder) increases as the distance between two microcosms increases; negentropy (or order) increases as the distance between two microcosms decreases.]

TSW:  "The possibility of nearly ideal isolation derives from the possibility of divergence; the possibility of nearly ideal nonisolation derives from the possibility of convergence."

BW: This is a rather disoriented. Divergence only occurs until the objects in isolation reach equilibrium. If they are NOT isolated, entropy just keeps bouncing them toward maximum separation, without constraint. So, entropic divergence doesn't require isolation: nature couldn't care less. IF there is such a thing as a "convergent force", it should work in every case, not merely in isolation or non-isolation. There's no evidence or logic to justify a correlation in the form: isolation = divergence or nonisolation = convergence ... infinite or otherwise.

[GB: Think of it this way: To be isolated at point B means to be separated from the place you once were at (e.g., point A). To get to point B, you would have to diverge from point A. The reverse is true for convergence. Again, there is no such thing as a “convergent force,” just as there is no such thing as a force. Force is a calculation (F=ma) describing the collision (convergence) between two microcosms. The idea that there are mysterious “forces” about should have been left on the Star Wars cutting table.]

TSW:  "The only requirement is for there to be an environment for the parts of a system to move into or to transfer motion to. An infinite universe in which matter and the motion of matter is not everywhere the same is sufficient."

BW: Then, a finite universe, [in which matter and the motion of matter is not everywhere the same] is ALSO sufficient. There's nothing in the nature of an infinite universe that changes the characteristics of entropy.

[GB: That is mostly correct, as demonstrated by the great success of the Second Law of Thermodynamics during this period when scientists still assume finity. The main problem is that it only describes half of the problem. It says nothing about why the things undergoing dissipation, divergence, or death came into existence in the first place. That is the job of complementarity, which clearly states that the complement to the Second Law of Thermodynamics involves convergence from the macrocosm. Pretty simple: the Second Law of Thermodynamics describes things coming apart; complementarity describes things coming together.]

TSW:  "We will continue to study ...

BW: ... until you find a "convergent force" or rational explanation for "negentropy". You haven't found it yet.

[GB: BS. See above.]

TSW:  "The acceptance of complementarity for the Second Law of Thermodynamics requires an acceptance of the other assumptions of science."

BW: I don't think there's any logical coherence, nor "Consupponibility", with the other principles. All you've done is elevate the dialectic learning process to the status of a Law of Nature. It doesn't work.

Does that mean that I reject the idea that "All bodies are subject to divergence [from] and convergence [with] other bodies."? Not at all. Both processes obviously exist in nature. What's missing is the identification of some natural physical process that produces convergence. I think the "existential bonding" of my theory is the answer, but it isn't the topic for discussion.

[GB: You would have to show me the ways in which complementarity is not consupponible with the other nine assumptions of science. For instance, how can there possibly be a contradiction between these two assumptions:

The Sixth Assumption of Science, complementarity (All things are subject to divergence and convergence from other things) and the Eighth Assumption of Science, infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions)?

You beg for some imaginary “converging force.” Why don’t you also beg for some imaginary “diverging force”? Surely you must remember that force was defined by Newton’s Second Law of Motion (F=ma), as a description of a collision in which the velocities of the collidee and collider were changed. Without a collision, there is no force. On the other hand, the First Law is simply an observation about the inertia of bodies, which continue forever in a straight line unless [until] they hit something or are hit by something. This observation works the same for both diverging and converging microcosms. Indeterminists, who assume the universe is finite, need to hypothesize a Prime Mover or mysterious force to get Newton’s inertial body moving in the first place. In the infinite universe, of course, that hypothesis is unnecessary—there is always still another body to do that job. That is the beauty of Infinite Universe Theory.

If you don’t think that bodies can move toward each other as well as away from each other via their own inertia, as described by Newton’s Laws of Motion, then you need a lot more help than I am able to give.]

Next: Irreversibility

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[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 2007, The scientific worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein ( http://www.scientificphilosophy.com/The%20Scientific%20Worldview.html ): Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 411 p.