Answering Heat Death...

I recently stumbled across this article concerning infinity and heat death. The Heat Death problem/argument seems to be one of the strongest against the possibility of immortality. Nice to see rational arguments for the pro side.


By: John Hartung Ph.D.

Cosmic heat death has been one of the abiding myths of our age. Bertrand Russell and others seized upon the seemingly inevitable degeneration of the universe as predicted by the second law of thermodynamics to support a philosophy of atheism, nihilism, and despair. Today we can paint a somewhat different picture. The universe may be running down, but it is not running out . . . In Dyson's scenario, the beings of the far future would impact less and less on a universe coldly indifferent to their requirements, but by clever organization, they could still think an infinite number of thoughts and experience an infinite number of experiences . . . [and] in fact, things may not even be as bad as Dyson's scenario. . . . our descendants may themselves attempt to modify the large-scale organization of the cosmos so as to preserve their longevity . . . by manipulating many stars, clusters of astronomical bodies could be created and managed for the benefit of the community. And because the effects amplify and accumulate, there is no limit to the size of systems that can be controlled in this way . . . As time goes on intelligent beings can gain more and more control over a less and less resourceful universe, until all of nature is essentially "technologized," and the distinction between what is natural and what is artificial disappears.

We can certainly imagine our descendants, with such a vast amount of time at their disposal, developing space exploration and all manner of marvelous technologies. They will have plenty of time to leave Earth before the sun grills it to a crisp . . . Our descendants could colonize the galaxy in a small fraction of the time that life on Earth took to evolve into a technological society

Article

Avatar Polymorph adds considerable to the the Heat Death Issue with the following post from WTA:


In the Great Mambo Chicken and Tipler and other extropian writings some preliminary approaches to heath death or a big crunch are outlined based on possible models. The final model of physics is not yet known, and therefore heat death cannot be taken as inevitable. Billion year immortality can. Even for those who do not indulge in uploading, separate neural sections continuously connected by broadcast can include the idea of duplication or triplication, indeed even if temporarily disconnected provided consent between sectors is reached they can be re-engaged. Drexler tells us that even with cells combining dna and molecular supercomputing/cell repair machines (rather than a fully "artificial" body) we can live for billions of years despite cosmic ray and other damage due to the ability of the artificial componentry to dna-check and to self-check (check the checker).

Fixing up the problem of cosmological death has been my primary emotional concern since childhood, followed by the notion of subverting unchosen deaths in the past and creating other universes. This makes Tipler and virtuality exciting to me at the least, and myself a fairly typical transhumanist/extropian.

As far as other types of accidents go such as supernovae we could monitor nearby stars and monitor all asteroids and meteors, for example. Meteor showering over Earth would have to be controlled if allowed (it contributes to the biosphere/Gaiasphere). I assume supernovae can be shielded against on a personal level. The Earth has passed through many before and though some more radical scientific theorists claim these may have had some role in mass extinctions, mass extinctions never killed animals below the size of cats on land, so they can't have been 100% effective even without shielding even if supernovae were involved. Head accidents would require such measures as multiple safety protocols including many internal ones. Currently nature provides some, for example your chance of being dying from falling after being pushed or collission is 1 in 45 million (Wired magazine) (Wired magazine claims your biggest risks in the US are heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory disease, injury, diabetes, flu, car accident and gun shot. Then there is an order of magnitude drop to fire, then another substantial drop (factor of four) etc..)

Towards Ascension
Avatar Polymorph

From an email exchange on WTA:


Bruce Klein writes:
>As you've alluded, an infinite lifespan may seem
impossible because
>of accidents, levels of risk and cosmic events such
as Heat Death, etc.
>The biggest problem in my mind is the one of Heat
Death. Luckily, we
>have a few billion years to figure this out. We're
already seeing
>signs of hope.

Ronin X writes:
Thanks for your information re. heat death. It seems
to be a subjective problem arising from a particular thermodynamic model, which like all scientific theorem may be subject to revision.

The infinite time span implied by 'immortality' is
more problematic. It is really a philosophical issue
rather than a present day concern, but here's how I
think about it: the (even infinitesimal) probability
of a lethal accident occuring to a single life form by
a myriad of causes becomes greater over time, infinite
time therefore means zero probability. so true
immortality would depend on backup uploads (into
either clones or hardware), network distributed
identity, or some other form of disembodiment.

given the probability issue, immortal models require
that consciousness is either not space-time specific
or is transferable out of its biological situation. I
believe that consciousness is space-time specific (a one-dimensional point of chaos located within an n-dimensional matrix of relationships) and that identity is inextricably linked to neural embodiment.
so from my perspective, transhuman immortality
resembles a quasi-religious faith in technology to
provide eternal life, perhaps psychologically driven
by a desire to fill the emptiness left by the
departure of religious faith. humanity always posited
a light at the end of the tunnel, but now that for
many people the light has tuned out to be a trick with
mirrors, we want the tunnel to go forever.

As Avatar pointed out, our models of the universe (our physics) are not complete - just theoretical, and thus heat death may not turn out to be a problem, but for discussions sake lets assume it is.

Here are my thoughts/ramblings

For reference check out this article on the expanding universe
Dark Matter - Heat Death

Astrophysicists in this article claim dark matter is causing the expansion of the universe. They say they have solid proof of this based on recent experiments. They claim that dark matter is not only causing the universe to expand, but also that the expansion is accelerating. Correct me if I am wrong, but acceleration requires energy input. If the expansion of the universe is accelerating then the amount of dark matter must be increasing or at least its energy output must be increasing. It would have to be like a "well" or "natural spring" of energy constantly increasing to drive the universe apart. So...for those worried about the universe running out of energy, this would seem to be the answer. Since energy is never destroyed and dark matter is increasing then it would seem there will always be a steady and sufficient supply of energy for intelligent beings to live into infinity. Of course, I am assuming that we will eventually figure out a way to use dark matter for our energy needs (just as we use carbon now).

Correct me if I am wrong, but acceleration requires energy input

I don't know if it's correct to portray it as accelerating from the standpoint of an outside force per say... it's accelerating because it's escaping gravitational pull.. i would guess...the original Big Bang, +/- 15 Billion years ago... that's where the acceleration stems from... and then you have the law of physics that suggest a body in motion tends to stay in motion.. If I'm thinking correctly.. and the acceleration is so great as to overcome any gravitational force bringing everything back together.. the worry is that the expansion will happen to such an extent, with proton decay that will deteriorate matter and such that we'll eventually run out of storable, usable energy or mass.


This brings up an interesting question.. if it's accelating.. the expansion that is.. it is accellerating because of proton decay and a loss of energy more or more from a release from the gravitational pull or a combination of both.. if so.. this may be an indicator of actual proton decay and loss of matter.. that would not be to great for an immortalist.

In my mind...the acceleration of the expansion requires energy input. Think of a grenade exploding. If the grenade exploded in a vacuum, after the explosion (the burning of the propellent) is done the shrapnel would expand off in all directions at constant speed. There would be nothing to make the pieces go faster or slower (assume the gravitational pull of the pieces is too weak to affect their flight). The only way to make the shrapnel accelerate (achieve higher and higher speeds) would be to add energy. The pieces would have to each have a little rocket thruster on them pushing them along. Or there would have to be an infinite supply of propellent (gunpowder) and it would have to keep on burning and pushing the shrapnel away. Or think of throwing a baseball. If you threw a baseball in a vacuum it would fly at constant speed once it left your hand. There would be nothing to make it accelerate. Wouldn't it be weird if the baseball kept moving faster and faster, with no extra energy input!

Now think of the universe. Let us say we could measure the entire energy of the universe today...and it is 122. If the expansion of the universe is accelerating and we measure the total energy of the universe tomorrow, everything would be moving faster, and thus the total energy would be 123 or something higher. Where is this energy coming from? The article I linked above claims the acceleration is being caused by dark energy. Thus dark energy must be increasing. If it is increasing, where is it coming from?

I understand what you are saying about the gravitational pull BJ. I am trying to distill it down into a simple thought experiment. Let us say you have 2 spherical bodies sitting next to each other. Now let us set them in motion in opposite directions (again in a vacuum with no electromagnetic attraction). Their velocities would not change except for the affect of gravity. Gravitational force declines with respect to the square of the distance between the 2 bodies, but it never goes away (correct me if I am worng). The two bodies would gradually slow down and attract one another back to the starting point. This is the reasoning that lead many to believe there will be a big crunch at the end time of the universe. However, now there seems to be this mysterious dark energy. Let us put this dark energy into our simple though experiment. Let us say this dark energy is present everywhere in the vacuum of our thought experiment and it causes a repulsion between the two objects. I guess if the repulsive force was greater than gravitational pull then the objects would accelerate away from each other. Of course this introduces a lot of new assumptions. First the dark energy is ever present everywhere. Also it would have to act through infinite distance like gravity.

This would bring me back to my original point about using dark energy. If it is everywhere and constant, then we should be able to use it to our benefit when all the current matter/energy decays.


Did I just talk myself in circles or what!?

Edited by Mind, 11 February 2003 - 11:35 PM.

Pardon a few more ramblings.

I have resolved it in my mind that even with accelerating expansion the energy density of the universe could remain constant or decline, but it still seems like the entire energy of the universe (if it is not infinite) would increase with accelerating expansion.

Back to dark energy and the thought experiment with 2 identical spherical bodies moving away from each other. If the repulsive force of dark energy exactly balances the pull of gravity then the 2 objects should continue to move off in opposite directions at constant speed. If the force of dark energy is greater than gravity then the 2 objects should accelerate away from each other. One problem I can see with this scenario is that there is no reason any matter should have ever coalesced into galaxies and stars if dark energy has always existed and is stronger than gravity. Gravity would've never had a chance.

Mind, interesting thought experiments... however, we may be traping ourselves into ideas associated with our local earthly world view. When we look at stuff on a larger scale, I suspect the general physical laws of physics we're accustomed to break down. This puzzle reminds me of what happens in quantum mechanics.. the smaller you go the crazier things get.. similarly, the larger you go, the sillier things get. Then you have to put cool name on stuff, like 'dark energy' to explain them in relative terms.

A particle can be a point and a wave... and maybe the universe increase it's expansion because of some 'dark energy' and not like the real stuff we see from the sun...., just a few more billion years to figure this one out. Thank goodness!

Just for the sake of an epic 10 year bump: astronomers find an enormous quasar group that defies explanation under current cosmological theories.

Even though my previous analysis was myopic and didn't reference relativistic properties of space and time, the point is that, we just don't know how the universe works on a large scale. I don't like the "conjuring" of dark energy and dark matter to plug holes in our lack of understanding, but a diversity of theories is what is needed, I think.