Category Archives: law of thermodynamics

Reflections on Is Time the Curse (Part 1)

16 Monday Oct 2023

Posted by in Adam and Eve, cosmic origins, Difficult Questions, Difficult Texts, Dimensions, entropy, futility, law of thermodynamics

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After writing part 1, while meditating on those matters, it dawned on me that I should address that question of what time is. Needless to say, I most certainly will not solve the question of what time is. My admitting this though draws out a central point, one which I want to underscore. I hinted at this in part 1: before the fall and curse, time was perhaps nothing more than “difference” or the “experience of difference.” To be clear, no one knows precisely what time is. Time is sequence, simply put, and sequence implies difference. In the number list, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and so forth, we spatially observe sequence, and we know that 1 is not 2, and 2 is not 3: they are different, hence sequence implies difference. I am going to venture a risky claim: I believe that all our understanding of time is nothing more than using our understanding of “spatial movement” as an analogy. This analogy of how objects move across a space is what we have direct knowledge of (non-analogous or univocal); we take that and make it abstract, taking it as an analogy to help us understand the passage of time.

A brief review of what an analogy is will help: an analogy is an idea, image, or reference that we apply to something it does not directly refer to. There has to be a certain “sameness” for the analogy to work, but there are ways that the analogy does not apply, what we call the disparate aspects of the analogy. The saying for someone having a tough day after dropping off crying kids and going to work only to be scolded by their boss, “Today’s a bear,” is an example analogy. “Today” is creating pain in this person in the same way a bear would create pain. The disparate aspect is that the bear would cause physical pain while “today” is causing psychological and emotional pain.

Thus, it is not that we know nothing about what time is; it is that our knowledge of time is analogous and therefore admittedly partial. My question, “Is time the curse?” is not particularly outrageous against this backdrop. If we knew what time was, saying that ‘this is that,’ that time is curse, would be more difficult. The only immediate experience of time that anyone has is the current experience of change, or the current experience of difference. To talk about “timelines” and imagining going into the past or future is all imagination. No one has experienced this. The Bible does focus on the curse and the results of the curse: more often than not it is called “futility, vanity, or corruption.” The Bible implies or directly speaks to limitation of time on human life, like in the curse narrative (Gen. 3:16 – 18), but the focus on various biblical texts are ideas like “futility, curse, vanity, or corruption,” not time. If I am accurate in what I am saying, asking “Is time the curse” moves the conversation away from centering on time and more onto central matters the Bible concerns Itself with. If time is little more than experiencing the present passage of change/difference, then the curse just put a limit on how much a person gets to experience this change or difference.

Is talk of “time” — or the scientific discourse we put around the utilization of time — a deceptive sleight of hand? Demonstrable is the pragmatic value of using time for industry and technological innovation. We cannot argue against that. The advancement of technology, however, fails the ultimate test of pragmatism if it cannot overcome entropy, death, corruption. My point is this: if we zoom out enough, and have a broad enough view, we will see that the final outcome of technological advancement is death, entropy, and corruption. Will the entropic heat deprivation of the universe (see 2nd law of thermodynamics) take 10 billion years or only 8 billion? What’s more, does it matter if it takes more or less time if the ultimate conclusion — after all epilogues have been written — is an energy depleted void? From this perspective, technological advancement will be estimated to be nothing more than enhancing human comfort and passing the time with mere toddler bobbles and trinkets.

If I am right, trying to solve this “time problem” is really trying to solve or remove God’s curse. Humans have a delimited window of existence: delimited from the original intent of God to have humans live in a context of ongoing, endless life. This changed after Adam and Eve disobeyed and God cursed humanity. To remove entropy, death, and corruption, is really to overcome God’s curse, not time. Of course, trying to find one’s way into God embrace with our own devices is not new: I would argue that it is a mark of “human-devised-religion.” God closed the door that gave humanity access to an endless infinite future; it reasons that only an Infinite Being (God) would be able to resupply access to this infinite future. The Gospel inverts how this problem gets solved: instead of using the devices of cursed, non-infinite humans to try to gain infinity, the Gospel’s solution is that the Infinite One enters this cursed world, not to defeat time, but to defeat death, entropy, and corruption. The Infinite One solves the curse imposed by the Infinite One. In other words, God decided He was not satisfied with how the human story unfolded and could have ended, and so He wrote another chapter, with a “happily ever after” segueing humanity to this open future infinite.

Dr. Scalise

Transhumanism of the World Economic Forum, Near Death Documented Consciousness, and the Afterlife (part 5)

15 Wednesday Jun 2022

Posted by in entropy, eternal life, law of thermodynamics, Transhumanism, WEF, World Economic Forum

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The Law of Entropy and Complications for Consciousness

I laid the groundwork for how transhumanism via A.I. will not solve the problem of bias; for how an ex-biological human digitally uploaded consciousness — is it still human — will still have limitations and therefore err; for how after death consciousness is a scientific data point from which to debate and theorize; and for how the World Economic Forum wants to eugenocide biological humanity. With this data laid out, let’s do a very short foray into why prolonging consciousness in this world, in this cosmos, is ultimately an act of futility. We will then, in the next article in this series, investigate components that typically go into ideas of afterlife as religiously and traditionally understood. The 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics state:

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that heat is a form of energy, and thermodynamic processes are therefore subject to the principle of conservation of energy. This means that heat energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can, however, be transferred from one location to another and converted to and from other forms of energy.

First Law of Thermodynamics

This law is sometimes known as the law of entropy: as energy is transferred or transformed, more and more of it is wasted. Entropy increases in a closed system (like the universe), energy moving from more orderly to disorder, degenerating the amount of energy with which to do work. Another way to put it: in all energy exchanges if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state (= entropy increases).

Second Law of Thermodynamics

A few scientific points to put out there — in a very rudimentary way. The universe or cosmos is considered a closed system. This means there is nothing coming in from the outside, no energy input can be expected. Recall that this fits with how the scientific method assumes methodological naturalism in its development; it is a control on the experiment contours. The physics of the quantum realm are generally characterized as one of chaos, a realm in which logical or discernable order is difficult or impossible. The two laws of thermodynamics, when applied to the universe as a closed system, results in the well-known scientific conclusion of the ‘Heat death (deprivation) of the Universe.’ At some hellish point in the future, all energy will have been transferred from orderly to disorderly, and the entropy of the universe will be maxed out.

There will be no life, A.I., digital, or otherwise because all things require energy. The destiny of the universe (as a closed system) is death, utter futility, emptiness, a frozen abyss populated by the death of all things.

This is the context of prolonging consciousness in this world. The other naturalistic alternative for the closed system we call the cosmos would be that the universe ceases to expand, collapses in on itself, destroying all that was, and then re-exploding in a new big bang. Strictly speaking, this is highly theoretical and puts the continuity of this universe in the realm of mystery since investigating the original big bang along naturalist lines is unhelpful and generates more questions than answers. Most religions on the planet have a creation myth, mostly because one of the tasks of religion is to answer the big questions of existence. We translate that into the scientific talk here: religions generally agree that the universe is not a closed system, and its origin came from the “outside” and that its destiny resides in realizing this trans-dimensional bridge.

The World Economic Forum’s notions of transhumanism imply they intend to digitize human consciousness as a kind of consciousness prolonger. Although I contend the WEF’s transhumanism is intent on advancing themselves as little ‘g’ gods, digitally granting themselves false eternal life through abandoning their biology, it is nevertheless resoundingly naturalistic, likely functioning on metaphysical naturalism (that the natural world is all there is) but not naturalistic materialism (because the WEF believes consciousness is not identical with the material brain). This is decided logical if you are the WEF or a metaphysical naturalist because you believe, “who cares if the universe ultimately dies in the future, I’ll be dead in 50 – 100 years, and I will cease to exist. At least if I go digital, I can prolong some measure of existence for however long is possible.” Zoom out though and we see that prolonging consciousness with whatever temporary meaning that has will be consumed by the death of the universe and all meaning made vacuous by the lack of any mind or consciousness to give it standing or continuity. It is messed up that Scripture can speak of all this in such a dismissive and decisive way:

“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it in hope …”

Romans 8:19 – 20

The WEF faces the prospect of oblivion; its answer is extending consciousness in a realm destined for death. Might it be easier to reject naturalism? The adage, “better to rule in hell than serve in heaven,” comes powerfully to mind. Is death the destiny of all things? Is it really the god humanity should be worshipping, the end all roads lead to, the inevitability no one can escape? The WEF might run from death, but death will haunt their steps, demanding it sacrifices, its homage, which will be paid by all things when death’s domain is absolute, when entropy reigns supreme. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Primus Theologoumen