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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Mitch Blevins who wrote (3746)12/1/2000 1:32:42 PM
From: cosmicforce  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 28931
 
I've read a lot about this and "my" theories are largely an amalgam of many people's ideas on many topics. I'm an avid amateur naturalist. It is amazing that life finds a way when it exists. People talk about the Earth Killer Asteroids wiping out life. I don't think this is possible considering the variety and forms of life that are available. I have no doubt the WE could be wiped out. Or that all vertebrates could be wiped out. But this is a far cry from "all life".

The self-organizing behavior is self-reinforced by definition. Rust, in this sense, is a primitive model of something that creates more of itself. It grows and reproduces.

Corrosion is a simple chemical process with aspects of self-reinforcement. When steel (a generally hydrophobic material) gets wet, the oxidation causes a decrease of the surface tension of the water. It wears a path like a cow walking across a pasture. Water comes back again to visit the site of the defect, attracted by the actions of previous visitors. The "defect" or "reaction" gets bigger and creates an environment where more of it can form. The iron is no longer hydrophobic, but hydrophilic. Flame fronts tend to have this behavior as well.

I've postulated here and elsewhere, and so have many others before me, that this seems to suggest that there is an organizing force. A Cosmic Force if you will. It "wants" to create more order from the chaos in ways that locally defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Going back to the rust, it forms in colonies. The colonies join and form super colonies. I believe this organization pattern finds paths, and like a catalyst, makes the energy barrier to the processes become lower. Sometimes these catalytic actions work through surprising intermediaries. I think there are many analogs between this and biology and social organization.