(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Oh! OK! So this symmetry breaking thing in the very early universe - it's a move from a less ordered, more homogenous state, to a more ordered, less homogenous state, right? To a state with more information in it, more entropy. This is roughly analogous - this is how my mind works - to creation stories in which the cosmos begins as a chaos from which arises order, or into which is introduced order. A comparison can be made with the primeval ocean of Ancient Near Eastern and Ancient Egyptian myth and the directionless soup of which the universe was made in that tiny fraction of a second before it began to freeze and break apart. Crucially, that ocean is inert, inactive, featureless - but full of potential.

Comments

[erinbow.livejournal.com]

>a state with more information in it, more entropy

Is this right? How can a state with more information have more entropy?

I love the cool leap into creation stories, though.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Shannon entropy, which is the reverse of proper Logopolis entropy, thus confusing the hey out of everyone.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"with more information in it, more entropy. "

You mean less entropy, of course. =:o}

And um... Yeah!

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

There's some crazy thing in information theory where entropy goes up or goes down with the amount of information present, depending on which way you measure it. It makes my brane hurt.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'd call the breaking of symmetry a move to MORE order - consider that if you start with "formless and void" (Heb. tohu v'vohu), there is no concept of place, because every place is identical and indistinguishable for every other place. It's only once a single particle arises from nothingness (or, perhaps "let there be light") that "place" as a concept exists - you have the place where the particle is, and all the other places where it is not. You then have distance (how far away is the particle), direction (which way is the particle), and even moreso, you have time (before particle / after particle).

I would argue that the entropic symmetry of the formless void is the purest aristotelian order you'll ever describe - it is the alpha and the omega of the universe (unless our Hubble constant is < 1, anyway).

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Turns out that "nothingness" is a bubbling cauldron of particles!

... it makes me vaguely itchy to think about it.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

The challenge, of course, is that you're discussing the fine, fine line between physics and metaphysics. I, for one, am thrilled that there's lots which is not only not known, but is currently considered unknowable...