7 ms·

While this paper acknowledges at the beginning the need to pump entropy out of a system faster than the local system is injecting it (criterion three, but that

by jerf 4y ago

While this paper acknowledges at the beginning the need to pump entropy out of a system faster than the local system is injecting it (criterion three, but that is my own summary, and a bit different than they phrased it), and they claim they cover it, I don't actually see how they cover it. The only thing they discuss is the gradient between the inner star and outer star, which does indeed involve an energy flow, but the relevant question is whether you can get a gradient between the "inside" and the "outside" of the organism and pump enough entropy out of it to make up for what is being generated inside. I am deeply skeptical of any such claim for the inside of a star because of the sheer amount of entropy constantly being jammed in by the environment. A star entity would be made of relatively normal matter (compared to some other things), even mediated through magnetic fields, and would be working on not entirely dissimilar time constraints from us, so it is difficult to see how that could work. (Contrast Robert Forward's story about critters living on old, relatively quiescent neutron stars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg While if I had to bet, I'd bet reality still makes that impossible, at least the Cheela creatures built of degenerate matter would be working with reactions that themselves run much more quickly than our normal matter reactions do, so one can imagine that even though their environment is pumping more entropy in than our environment does per second, perhaps something could run more quickly and pump it out again at rates conventional matter could not. A star creature is in an environment that could run at perhaps modest, single-digit multiples "faster" than us, but is getting enormous multiples more entropy pumped in. I don't see the ratio working out favorably.)

leejoramo 4y ago
Dragon’s Egg is my favorite hard SF novel. I remember attending a session with Robert Forward at an early 1980s World Science Fiction Convention and was amazed at how much detail science and math Forward put into his books.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  Agreed, great book. Anyone who enjoys thinking about the extremes of possible life might also enjoy Blindsight by Peter Watts. It blew my mind about the nature of thought and consciousness in the same way dragon's egg blew my mind about the nature of time and consciousness.
  - milesward 4y ago
    Next try “there is no anti-memetics division”
    - idiotsecant 4y ago
      I could have sworn there was a popular SCP by the same name! I will check this out, thanks!
      - astrange 4y ago
        Same thing. It's about as good as an SF novel written on the SCP wiki could possibly be. https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub (The extended universe of this story is the Fifthist Church, which is usually written as a kind of hippie Scientology and has a pretty different feel.)
  - amigosauce 4y ago
    Another suggestion: the Xeelee sequence by Stephen Baxter :)
  - bashinator 4y ago
    Just finished rereading that for the first time in ages. I don’t agree with a lot of its opinion on consciousness, but still great read. I was surprised at how in line with Dark Forest theory it is.
- ad-astra 4y ago
  Hah, it just so happens that I’m listening to the audiobook right now. Very fun but too engaging to listen to before going to bed :)
akiselev 4y ago
> I am deeply skeptical of any such claim for the inside of a star because of the sheer amount of entropy constantly being jammed in by the environment. A star entity would be made of relatively normal matter (compared to some other things), even mediated through magnetic fields, and would be working on not entirely dissimilar time constraints from us, so it is difficult to see how that could work. I am not a physicist but I think this is a moot point when the entire basis of the paper is string theory and requires the existence of hypothetical monopole particles to encode information like DNA. This is all sounds like wild speculation built on top of the most speculative theoretical physics still active in academia.
- jerf 4y ago
  I decided to cut them a bit of slack on that point, since you can build a magnetic monopole quasiparticle, apparently: https://gizmodo.com/elusive-magnetic-monopole-phenomenon-found-hiding-in-ol-1821129975 https://gizmodo.com/elusive-magnetic-monopole-phenomenon-fou... which would probably do what they want. Though, again, how to keep any "quasiparticle" coherent/retaining the necessary properites in the middle of a star is, to put it charitably, an open question.
united893 4y ago
Could you help me understand what it means to "pump entropy out of a system"? I asked ChatGPT and it claims "It is generally not possible to "pump" entropy out of a system in the same way that it can be added to a system. This is because the second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of a closed system will always tend to increase over time."
- samus 4y ago
  "Pumping entropy out of a system" to me means keeping the system more orderly. To drive such processes, you have to increase entropy elsewhere, which is also known as using energy.
- monkeydreams 4y ago
  Wouldn't the star itself be the closed system? Any lifeforms within it are free to reduce their own entropy so long as they increase entropy within the system.
  - nextaccountic 4y ago
    The star is constantly sending stuff outside (solar wind and light / photons)
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    A star, of course, is itself almost as far from a closed system as it is possible to be in our universe. A bomb calorimeter in a chemistry class might be approximated as a closed system for the purposes of thermodynamics. Very few things in nature can.
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  ChatGPT is wrong here because in order to "pump" entropy out of a system this system must not be closed! So to ask it, you must insist the system isn't closed. And, specifically, living organisms can't be closed systems, because their existence depend on spending energy to decrease their internal entropy, increasing the entropy of the external environment in the process, in order to keep their own entropy low enough to still function without random breakage we would expect from an aging system. And we all know that entropy always wins in the end, and we always break if we are old enough, so this is a sisyphean task; but we still do it all day every day, because we are afraid to die. Anyway, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life

by jerf 4y ago

leejoramo 4y ago

Dragon’s Egg is my favorite hard SF novel. I remember attending a session with Robert Forward at an early 1980s World Science Fiction Convention and was amazed at how much detail science and math Forward put into his books.

idiotsecant 4y ago
Agreed, great book. Anyone who enjoys thinking about the extremes of possible life might also enjoy Blindsight by Peter Watts. It blew my mind about the nature of thought and consciousness in the same way dragon's egg blew my mind about the nature of time and consciousness.
- milesward 4y ago
  Next try “there is no anti-memetics division”
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    I could have sworn there was a popular SCP by the same name! I will check this out, thanks!
    - astrange 4y ago
      Same thing. It's about as good as an SF novel written on the SCP wiki could possibly be. https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub (The extended universe of this story is the Fifthist Church, which is usually written as a kind of hippie Scientology and has a pretty different feel.)
- amigosauce 4y ago
  Another suggestion: the Xeelee sequence by Stephen Baxter :)
- bashinator 4y ago
  Just finished rereading that for the first time in ages. I don’t agree with a lot of its opinion on consciousness, but still great read. I was surprised at how in line with Dark Forest theory it is.
ad-astra 4y ago
Hah, it just so happens that I’m listening to the audiobook right now. Very fun but too engaging to listen to before going to bed :)

akiselev 4y ago

> I am deeply skeptical of any such claim for the inside of a star because of the sheer amount of entropy constantly being jammed in by the environment. A star entity would be made of relatively normal matter (compared to some other things), even mediated through magnetic fields, and would be working on not entirely dissimilar time constraints from us, so it is difficult to see how that could work. I am not a physicist but I think this is a moot point when the entire basis of the paper is string theory and requires the existence of hypothetical monopole particles to encode information like DNA. This is all sounds like wild speculation built on top of the most speculative theoretical physics still active in academia.

jerf 4y ago
I decided to cut them a bit of slack on that point, since you can build a magnetic monopole quasiparticle, apparently: https://gizmodo.com/elusive-magnetic-monopole-phenomenon-found-hiding-in-ol-1821129975 https://gizmodo.com/elusive-magnetic-monopole-phenomenon-fou... which would probably do what they want. Though, again, how to keep any "quasiparticle" coherent/retaining the necessary properites in the middle of a star is, to put it charitably, an open question.

united893 4y ago

Could you help me understand what it means to "pump entropy out of a system"? I asked ChatGPT and it claims "It is generally not possible to "pump" entropy out of a system in the same way that it can be added to a system. This is because the second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of a closed system will always tend to increase over time."

samus 4y ago
"Pumping entropy out of a system" to me means keeping the system more orderly. To drive such processes, you have to increase entropy elsewhere, which is also known as using energy.
monkeydreams 4y ago
Wouldn't the star itself be the closed system? Any lifeforms within it are free to reduce their own entropy so long as they increase entropy within the system.
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  The star is constantly sending stuff outside (solar wind and light / photons)
- Sharlin 4y ago
  A star, of course, is itself almost as far from a closed system as it is possible to be in our universe. A bomb calorimeter in a chemistry class might be approximated as a closed system for the purposes of thermodynamics. Very few things in nature can.
nextaccountic 4y ago
ChatGPT is wrong here because in order to "pump" entropy out of a system this system must not be closed! So to ask it, you must insist the system isn't closed. And, specifically, living organisms can't be closed systems, because their existence depend on spending energy to decrease their internal entropy, increasing the entropy of the external environment in the process, in order to keep their own entropy low enough to still function without random breakage we would expect from an aging system. And we all know that entropy always wins in the end, and we always break if we are old enough, so this is a sisyphean task; but we still do it all day every day, because we are afraid to die. Anyway, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life