o_mlly:
Now the above cuts to the chase. I skipped all the pseudo-physics gibberish in the middle.
So, here’s my question: at the level at which mutations happen… is system complexity
more ordered or
less ordered?
Intuitively, it seems to me that we’re conflating two distinct issues and attempting to describe one in terms of the other.
Time for a thought experiment:
Let’s suppose that I have a string of bits. Each can hold a value of ‘zero’ or ‘one’. In fact, let’s say that I have many tablets, each filled with strings of bits.
Let’s further suppose that I have a ‘converter’ of sorts, that allows us to view each grouping of eight bits – that is, a ‘byte’ – as a single unit. Moreover, let’s suppose that it allows us to view it as a particular encoding: ASCII encoding, which is the encoding you’re using
right now to view my text. It’s really just ones-and-zeroes, but according to an arbitrary encoding, you see a particular series of bits as the letter “A”, and another particular series of bits as an exclamation mark. They’re present because I intended them to be there, of course, but that’s different than our thought experiment!
Now, let’s say that I have a system that somewhat randomly and arbitrarily mutates some of these bits. So, I start out with one set of tablets, and they get run through the system, and new tablets are created. They’re not
identical to the original tablets, but there’s a correspondence there.
Let’s further suppose that there’s an environment that is able to ‘select’ between tablets, according to certain criteria. This environment prefers certain tablets to others, and selects the ones that will be sent through the system (and selects the ones that will not be sent through the system).
I think that it’s not unreasonable to see that, perhaps, the ‘selection’ that’s taking place on a macro level will be a selection
of criteria visible to that level. Maybe the selector prefers the letter “A”, and chooses tablets that have lots of that letter. Maybe the selector prefers sequences of bytes that look like Italian words, and chooses tables that have lots of them! In any case, in each successive ‘generation’ of tablets, we get more and more of the preferred characteristic. In fact, it might even turn out successive generations that look closer and closer to a particular design!
Now… does this violate entropy? Nope: entropy is happening at the
micro level – as bits are changed (in this example, by the system, but in the real world, by external factors). Does the set of observable characteristics at the macro level change? Absolutely! But… they’re changing without violating entropy!
One last thought: what if there were a being who was – imperceptibly and without violating the ways the system worked – moving the tablets toward his own (let’s call it ‘omniscient’) goal? Would that system be discernibly different than the system without his influence? (Nope!) Would that system obey the laws of entropy? (Yep!) Would that system exhibit the same characteristics of ‘selection’? (Yep!)
So, IMHO: entropy doesn’t disprove evolution. Evolution doesn’t disprove God.
