Entropy Clarified

I've been informed that my previous discussion of entropy left a few people confused, so I'll try to do better. First let me point out that though I am around a lot of science, it is basically a second language to me. I am no physicist. Therefore what I am about to write will likely be unsatisfactory to both scientists and non-scientists alike. So it goes. . .

Entropy is a form of energy which is most easily understood as a state of disorder. Consider shuffling a deck of cards ten times. What are the chances that you will be left with a perfectly ordered deck? We all assume that this will basically never happen. Statistically we can say that there is an infinitely minute possibility that this could happen, only we don't hold our breath for it. Likewise, the chances that the deck will be left with all suits or even colors grouped together are highly unlikely, yet possible. The fact is that there are far more ways for a deck to end up disorganized than organized.

This degree of disorganization is referred to in science as entropy. The deck of cards metaphor is even more apt when we think of it not a shuffling a deck, but playing a game of 52 card pick-up. What are the chances not only that the deck will land in any organized fashion, but even more improbably that it would land neatly stacked and properly ordered? Again, this is not impossible by any laws of nature, other than statistical probability. This basically goes to say that we could have a million people spend their entire lives playing 52 card pick-up, and never witness a single occurrence of such an event. How much more so when we go from 52 cards to countless trillions of atoms and molecules?



Science has found plenty of evidence to suggest that the universe is constantly expanding, which goes to say that the room we are playing 52 card pick-up in is increasing in size, so the disorganization natural to the game we are playing is only finding more chances to increase. This is the second law of thermodynamics. The universe is characterized by the fact that entropy (disorganization) is always increasing. The universe is getting messier.

We live in a world filled with countless examples of organization. Isolated systems can grow more organized, so long as the universe as a whole ends up more disorganized.

Thus, among those from a liberal arts background it quickly becomes a matter of doom and gloom. Chaos is slowly siphoning away the energy that allows for life, for meaning and hope for a future. In the course of time we will be left with a cold, lifeless universe where lonely isolated molecules float in an eternal expanse with a rare and meaningless interaction with other molecules. Insignificance will be the rule.

This is not a totally unrealistic interpretation of scientific facts. Yet, let's consider the reverse. Were it not for entropy the universe would likely have remained a confined and intolerably hot ball of energy, where anything resembling matter (let alone life!) would never have had the slightest opportunity to form. The expansion of the universe allowed for energy to consolidate into subatomic particles. Thus, atoms. Thus, molecules. Thus planets, and their fragile systems. Thus, earth and all its byzantine absurdity.

A hot, matter-less universe is no preferable situation to a cold, lifeless one. But wait, there's more.

The simple fact is that all energy wants to escape into a situation of maximum entropy. Thus when you want an ordered deck of cards you do not shuffle them, or throw them up into the air, much less a stiff breeze. You must go through manually and order them yourself. This requires brain-power, and hand-movements. It requires you to use energy: burn calories. You use some of the calories you burn to organize the cards, the rest becomes body heat which slowly escapes from you into the world around you. Similarly, this heat that escapes into the world, escapes from the world into the universe not as heat but as other forms of energy. Eventually, all energy wants to be "freed" into the world of deep space where the greatest level of disorganization is possible.



So, why does this matter?

The vast majority of chemical processes in our world that allow for life in all its forms harness the tendency of matter/energy toward entropy. Life, so to speak, is riding the entropic wave as far as it will go. We should have no illusions; this wave will run out. But, were it not for entropy there would never have been any chance that life could have come into existence in the first place. When sugar breaks down in your body, it releases energy that according to the laws of the universe seeks a more disordered state. Along its way toward disorganization, our body and the proteins in it, uses it to organize the very molecules that allow us to maintain "life". Our bodies work on the principle that the universe's momentum toward disorder can be used to create order.

This obviously carries huge implications concerning the duration of our universe, our reality. The world is temporary. No matter how long we can drag this reality out, it will eventually end. It is funny that it is generally only Westerners who find this deeply problematic. Our Hindu friends laugh at our silliness in ever assuming otherwise.

This is, in large degree, where I find the views of people like N.T. Wright implausible. Were it our destiny to raise from the dead and re-inhabit this world, then we also inherit a plethora of difficulties needing to be explained. If we assume a gracious and loving God then I find the sheer number of resurrectees difficult. At seven billion we are facing horrible over-population problems, then what of the trillions of human lives that could be accounted for throughout history. Perhaps this thinking is too mundane. Then what are we to make of our Sun which is increasing in size. A million more years and its heat will make this planet no great inheritance for anyone. Do I simply lack imagination? What of the fact that in a billion years the energy of our universe will be so widely dispersed and so stable as to make, no only life, but all chemical interactions impossible.

I don't mean to question God's capacity to change the laws of the universe. Yet, the question remains, that if he does, how is this qualitatively different to the notion of heaven? Perhaps he will create a world like earth for the resurrected dead to inhabit, but that is still not our world. And, a universe freed from the reliance on and threat of entropy is not the universe we live in now.

I also understand the heart of Wright and people like him, who believe that resurrection faith places greater value on our world and human dignity. Still, willing belief based on the fact that we've rested our ethics on an untenable worldview seems a poor way to cope with the difficulties of the human situation.

As a poor scientist and a fair theologian, I hope that sheds some light on a difficult but important subject.