Tendency Towards Complexity

[lumberjim]

I came across this theory while reading a book called Shantaram.

The gist is this:

In the beginning before the Big Bang, everything was contained in a perfect simple singularity. Then the bang happened, and the universe began to expand, and since that time, everything has been increasing in complexity. The nature of everything in the universe is to do this. The more complex something is, the more alive it is. Also that everything is heading toward an ultimate complexity, which can be called God.

It also goes on to say that anything that helps this process is Good, and anything that thwarts it is Evil.


I kind of like it.

[Cicero]

Considering the author's history...I would call this a tendency towards a certain end. No wonder people believed it was real, it sounds great. It's too bad we associate all too often the simple with the good.

[Lamplighter]

So increasing entropy is good, therefore...

global warming is good
cold beer and ice in cocktails are evil
my dog's cold nose is evil
etc.

I don't think so...

[lumberjim]

why does cooling something make it less complex in nature? The beer is still beer when it's cold.

[HungLikeJesus]

To make cold beer, though the beer loses entropy, the overall system will gain in entropy.

[Cicero]

Good point. If we hold anything under the microscope or telescope and increase it's powers the more complex in nature it gets. The more this power is increased the more we gain insight and mystery. Understanding does not make things less complex in nature?

Things can be complex and understandable at the same time. Just like our understanding of entropy. If you think entropy is not complex just because we are just recently capable of understanding it: I beg you, try to universally stop it.

[Pie]

Everything you do contributes to the eventual heat death of the universe.

Stop! You're killing it. Just... stop.

[ZenGum]

IMHO the current accumulation of complexity is an enthalpic * state created by skimming off a portion of energy as it flows from one form to another. This is what life does, how it sustains itself.
Eventually, as universal entropy increases, such energy flows become scarcer, life will starve, organic remains will break down, and complexity will greatly diminish towards the heat death of a wholly random universe. I guess there might be remnant complex structures that need a bit of an energy shove to make them break down.
However, I also favour some kind of oscillating universe model, probably not a bang - crunch - bang model but a bang - stretch - fade - quantum bang! model. Complexity will rise again!



*enthalpy. opposite of entropy.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Not in your lifetime, so don't worry about it.

[ZenGum]

Bruce, are you a shill for the enthalpy cartels? Your rabid denialism of the entropy crisis is shortsighted bad science blah blah blah

[Flint]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

In the beginning before the Big Bang, everything was contained in a perfect simple singularity. Then the bang happened, and the universe began to expand, and since that time, everything has been increasing in complexity. The nature of everything in the universe is to do this. The more complex something is, the more alive it is. Also that everything is heading toward an ultimate complexity, which can be called God.

I have been meaning to post about something I read in this book, by Ray Kurzweil. In the beginning, when everything was contained in a perfect singularity, the universe was at its least complex. At this point, significant events were happening every couple of billionths of a second, i.e. fundamental particles forming, and developing into the basic types of matter we know. As the development of things went on, the universe became more complex (more chaotic), and it took longer and longer for major significant events to occur, i.e. the formation of gas clouds, and subsequently the formation of proto-stars, stars, solar systems.

Along this curve, this slowing down of significant events, as a more and more chaotic universe develops (moving further and further away from a perfect singularity with major developments happening in billionths of seconds), at some point planets like Earth become possible, and the stage is set for the development of intelligent life.

The development of life is a SPEEDING UP curve. It takes a long time for the right kind of organic matter to form, to develop into self-replicating molecules, but once we have single-celled organisms there is an EXPLOSION of evolutionary events...eventually we have proto-humans in many varieties, and evolutionary leaps and bounds are happening in rapid succession. Once the modern form of man comes about we see a rapid explosion of human culture and technology. Significant events are happening in thousands of years--and they are still speeding up. We have the industrial revolution and the planet is transformed almost overnight. We invent computers, and observe Moore's Law (Kurzweil believes that human technology is an extension of the evolution of human intelligence) which cycles every TWO YEARS.

So, if the universe is slowing down, how come evolution is speeding up?

Because evolution draws opportunities for advancement (increases in order) FROM the richness of chaos in its environment. So, in reply to the theory in lumberjim's original post, the advancement in complexity of the universe from a single point, is an increase in CHAOS. It is FROM the chaos that more ORDERLY forms of life and intelligence are able to devlop. There are two opposing curves in motion. I believe that to say complexity equals life, and that ultimate complexity is God, is a massive over-simplification. The universe is heading towards ultimate CHAOS, which is DEATH (or "the Devil" I suppose you could say).

Incidentally, I believe that intelligence is organization, and that "God" is simply the organization of everything (this is not conditional on some perfect state being attained).