I was disappointed. He did indeed, with his usual élan and clarity, present DNA and the roots of living cells from which all life on Earth springs – and boldly said that today’s physics and chemistry can explain it all. But he then laboured the point, with heat photographs of animals and humans, that Life absorbs well ordered “high level” energy (light) and dissipates it as “low level” less orderly energy (heat); which he regretfully, sadly, morosely concluded yet again proves The Second Law of Thermo-Dynamics or Entropy (increasing disorder), which in turn proves that the entire universe will inevitably, irrevocably and irreversibly experience (a sentient universe that grows brains as big as Prof. Cox’s can logically have experiences) Heat Death – which actually means cold-death, as the universe drifts down to Absolute Zero temperature.
Everything is falling apart and going cold – and nothing can stop it - Really?
I think the Heat Death conclusion is flawed. Human beings are creatures that integrate trillions of molecules in efficient warm cooperative conglomerations that build brains, sentience and intelligence. Blades of grass are almost as amazing. Stars condense bitterly cold gas clouds and set them on fire. Solar systems hold orbiting planets that support Life and attract and capture passing asteroids. Galaxies attract and hold solar systems in orbit – and grow by collecting inter-galactic dust. Galaxies collide and merge – and make new solar systems and Black Holes – which shoot out streams of energy. Things explode spectacularly and all the materials are recycled. Most scientists now believe that Life exists in millions or billions of locations across the universe. The universe is alleged to have formed from a limitless expanding field of “pure energy” that somehow (via Higgs?) condensed energy into matter. There is ample scientific evidence of natural forces in our universe that combine and integrate energy and organise (give rise to sentient organisms) matter and energy into vital and identifiable phenomena with scientifically predictable life cycles, lifetimes and half-lives. All these events laugh in the face of today’s scientific conclusions of doom, extrapolated from The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Again, science applies double-speak: “thermodynamics” implies a dynamic universe that responds, evolves and changes with events. But, what the Doom, Doom, Doom mongers believe is that our universe is static – Open, Closed, Saddle-Shaped or Megaphone shaped – they believe it is set on a fatal static course that will not change.
Today’s science largely relies on The Standard Model – built with logic, experiments, interpretations and brilliance over the past hundred years. Science advises us that the standard model is incomplete – hence the hunt for The Higgs and a hundred other sub-atomic bits and pieces – and advises that 80% to 90% of mass is “missing” both from Galaxies and from the nucleus of atoms. Science does not know what Gravity is – or its anti-force, Inertia. All these mysteries are being pursued by science. What is not being addressed by science is; where does the integrating, organising, sentience-creating power come from.
I am sorry to contradict your current view, Professor Cox, but in reality and observably Life and the Universe are evolving and are dynamic – not predestined. We and they are not doomed to evolve to Heat Death. Every action and event in the universe, even thought, feeds back as coherent radio waves, into and is accurately recorded by the universal energy, which thus re-formed and in-formed creates the matrices for the next time-second of eternity. Science should now focus on complex integrated systems - more than on disintegration.
LIFE THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dmvCsQly2c OR AT
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