"Short Course" (because it was written in USSR)

 

As usual, "three sources" :(Prigogine, "Order out of Chaos"), F. A. Hayek "The Fatal Conceit") and Vonnegut (or rather, his Kilgore Trout) with Strugatskys ( "A billion years before the end of the world"). Who knows - may miss.

Ilya Prigogine - Belgian physical chemist, Nobel Prize winner in collaboration with I. Stengers –wrote "Order out of chaos." For us it is importantthe following: by examining the apparent contradiction between the second law of thermodynamics (entropy a measure of disorder) ... 'Increases in a closed system, "- i.e., all non-uniformitses are smoothed and leveled) and Darwin's theory of evolution (" from the simple to the complex by the accumulation of useful random changes "), Prigogine emphasizes the fundamental openness of living systems (food, breathing - are exchange with the external environment). In addition, he notes that even in simple physical systems with heat transfer (i.e., a typical example of increasing entropy) self-ordering can occur. Examples of the latter are known more than 100 years in a form of so-called Benard cells - cellular structures of regular hexagonal cells: "When heating the bottom of the pan with a uniform layer of liquid at first diffusion begins and convection currents are formed. Typically, this process looks pretty chaotic, but Benard found that under certain relations between the parameters - thickness, surface area, liquid viscosity - convective flow suddenly is ordering itself and forms a regular, similar to a honeycomb structure of the cells of a regular hexagonal shape "-, and it is important for the structuring to have sufficiently large temperature differential (gradient), between upper and lower surfaces.

 

Especially self-ordering is likely and necessary in the case of biological, principally open systems. Darwin was quite wrong in one point: totally random “evolution” would not have found such a way even for 1000 billion years. Prigogine brings a good example of some of the biological journal description of one of the sheep parasite, carefully studied by scientists. This, sorry, sheep worm, should spend an important part of his life cycle (like the spores ripening) beyond the intestines of sheep - namely, inside the ant. And if the ant infection obviously has no problems, but how can infected ant return to the sheep, if none of them do not eat ants at all?! The answer seems to be incredible: after picking up this nasty ant becomes intoxicated, so that it loses its normal ant skills and just gets on the tip of a grass blade and ... sits there - right up to a possible eating by sheep or simply to death! The required conclusion: in strongly enough nonequilibrium systems with large energy and/or information flows self-ordering can take place. There are some hints on this approach applicability in this book for the social sciences and processes. But it turned out to be better done by von Hayek:

"Fatal conceit" - "the latest work of Professor F.A. Hayek, outstanding Austrian-American economist, Nobel Prize winner. The book summarizes more than half a century of reflection on the nature of the extraordinary and disastrous for humankind popularity of socialist ideas in the XIX and XX centuries " as well as on the causes that made the inevitable failure of any and all projects of building a socialist society. In 1939, when Hitler and Stalin divided the world - to predict the collapse of socialism could only deep enough theory, could not it?

The essence of the book in short is to ensure that people from time immemorial copied from each other (and from the neighboring communities) algorithms and rules of behavior that maximize the number of people able to feed themselves in the area. For thousands of years the basis of ideology of people was a religion, and in the process of "natural selection" by the end of the 19th century, the Protestant branch of Christianity won (Hayek specifically notes – it won as one which gives maximum freedom to the economy and society as a whole from unnecessary restrictions (such as five prayers per day for Muslims or usury ban (de facto - banking activities) for Orthodox). So, the free market system naturally grew there, where it was less likely interfered and it has proven to be the most effective than any other - only market economy can feed so many people so well. Attempts to come up in advance (especially from zero) with something better and Hayek called the "fatal conceit" (it was the notorious deadlock even in the late 1930th, when the mix of goods produced and necessary for people was by orders less than now).

K. Vonnegut created a character named Kilgore Trout, the science fiction writer. So he wrote a story from the life of yeast that lived, loved, suffered, argued about the life meaning ... and then all died as a result of the global ecological catastrophe for them, "choking in their own excrement." And they did not know that they were making champagne.

And Strugatsky in "Over a billion years before the end of the world," wrote about the scientists of different specialties, who encountered with someone’s or something constant interference in their works - such as telegrams from the dead, fireballs and other, as it turns out - quite by accident, troubles. Not soon, but they understood that their work (production of new knowledge) can reduce the entropy so that there is a possibility of its global (across the universe) decrease - so entropy undertook to oppose them, impersonally, in a variety of accidents and coincidences.

So, open systems (exchanging with the environment a lot of information and energy) due to the rather large gradients (differences, heterogeneities) are capable of generating more complex structures for further reproduction both the same and new gradients, providing self-development without visible ( localized) its source. Actually, that very Force or Law (in English the best word is Power), forcing (and helping) these systems to evolve and to improve is called God.

Atheist can hardly argue with this formulation, and Christian will say that the above attempt to be clever - another pathetic attempt to make a shift without God, or to rename it.

If one is trying to combine these ice and fire (dialectics - this is again one of the sections of self-development through gradients) - then we can conclude: God in traditional religions simply is a personification of the Power that moves the open systems to self-ordering and creates ever more complex self-developing systems.

And from this point of view an atheist can only marvel at the ancient wise men, who knew nothing about gradients, nor about Prigogine and Hayek, but managed to express all of the above and a lot more by clear and simple words and images.

For example: " 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness… 9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. “ Now there is even no need to argue, to which fraction of a second after the Big Bang (where the REAL differences and gradients took place:-) it should be attributed - when photons (light), or nucleons (the basis for future substances), or to the time when the Earth had cooled enough so that the water could condense from the vapor.

And even hardened atheist will not argue (after acceptance of the above definition of God) against the statement:” St. Scripture is divinely inspired”. Indeed, the Power that drives self-ordering in various ways supports everything that comes in its way. Molecules forming Benard cells do not possess free will, nor the capacity of knowledge. Vonnegut’s fungi did not know that they were doing champagne.

The men, whom God made "in the image and likeness" (that is, with the pursuit of development) can and must try to understand, "what drink" they are making and what do they need for it.

And it is necessary (as long as it was) - only the ten commandments and Protestantism, to break the monopoly of Catholicism on their (the commandments and the Scriptures) interpretation, i.e., on the interpretation, development and creation of information - without which there would no Prigogine or Hayek appear.

Of course, God needed no spoiling people by providing them with with US Independence Declaration and Constitution with a dozen amendments instead of the 10 Commandments in their Protestant interpretation, without creating a pre by His own will (and by their hands and brains) the relevant material and information preconditions. And the answer to a vile atheistic question (“And why is it that He admitted the Inquisition and other ugliness, with all His goodness?”) is clear and almost inquisitorial in form: not enough people were inspired and not correctly interpreted and so fell into the clutches of the Devil.

Well, but what and who the Devil is? This is entropy, everything that increases disorder and reduces information in a closed systems, and in general, when people do not charitable doings (when the molecule suddenly does not want to build a Benard cell, but decided instead to build communism, which came up with another of her neighbor as a result of the abuse of free will and some fluctuation). It is clear that communism will not work. Though the vinegar can turn instead of champagne and – it is decided by winemaker, yeast and fungi together and in different circumstances in different ways.

In light of this or a similar approach prayer, fasting, and worship in the temples may be more intuitive to atheist and as well as attempts to come closer and enter into God's plan by a kind of meditation and brain sensitization.

Another sidestep. It has long been widely known explanation of communism as the punishment of Russia for a variety of sins, and loss of faith. Hayek said enough about diabolical temptation by imaginary omnipotence of reason, this may be supplemented with known Godel (anti-Soviet :) theorem. Secondly, it is interesting to consider the apparent enormity of Russia in line with the proposed approach also. Namely, in such proportions both an indignation and gradients, as well as information flows should be giant to obtain the only possibility of transition to a higher level of self-development. Dimensions (as well in China, by the way) always dictated the need (at first real and then - just the usual) stiffness. In many countries (and even empires) the harmfulness of stiffness and fight for the status quo were understood and the ways of development were found. This was due to the geographical remoteness of the colonies, and (paradox) poor supply of own resources, which turned out to be advantageous to simply buy from the released (or abandoned) colonies of their own and other ones than trying to civilize them.

And in Russia - on the contrary. All vassals are nearby, and a great deal of own resources. The first until the last few years (and even now, with antique geopolitical views from 18-19 centuries: more is better!) with Great-russian, then communist messianism created the illusion of necessity and the possibility of building and maintaining the empire, and the second up to the last years allowed to pay for it.

For this very reason (for inability and unwillingness to understand and to dispose the gift of God) Russia and Co were punished. One can, however, be comforted (and learn),by the fact that we are not the first. Instability (largely provoked) of Germany to the diabolical temptation of fascism was punished (and partially redeemed), as well as Japanese sin of imperial dreams. But the most importantly - that punishment was well understood - hints were too transparent, and there were nothing in Germany and Japan after and because of the war to pay for, and the others (Taiwan, S. Korea, Singapore - even without it) indulge in sins. So they obtained a "spark of God" in the form of a free-market economy and (may not necessarily democratic) but not striving to steer economies governments they received.

In one classics of Marxism-Leninism were right: the laws of social development are objective ones and it would be better if you act in accordance with them (with God's will), and not against it. But the fact that they (the classics) have come up with their own laws and pass them off as objective ones - that's, of course, the devil has beguiled. And the track (a sheet in catastrophe theory), in which we find ourselves, kept us up to this very point of branching, preventing from leaving it no matter who was at the helm - Khrushchev, Trotsky or Lenin or Malenkov. We could only get to where we are - in a big puddle, the maneuvers in which can change a lot, as it was the case with Russia in 1917, Germany in 1933, etc. In general, it is the second over the couple of years – in the first the Soviet Union entered in 1991 and CIS and Co had left it.

Now, just a lot of international law subjects were at similar points, they are in general still quite connected with each other. With this budding significantly increased the probability for subjects that at least one or more of them will hear God’s voice and return to the track, leading to a general road. At the branching point the system’s path selection may change under the influence of even a very small parameters: in 1916-1917 - from when Rasputin was killed and/or if Lenin caught, and now - of anything.

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Here, the author could not resist the temptation to bring a letter, the idea of very much began to mature even in the 1980th under the influence of the Polish "Solidarity" and turned into a letter to the 19-th Party Conference and to "Izvestia" newspaper.

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Have you noticed that "people is tired of politics", although protest reasons and are not diminished? I wonder whether used impact. USSR and CMEA will be affected so heavily by next Sun’s activity peak (hey, astrophysics, when will it come - somewhere in 2002-2003?).

1993, January

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More recent additions

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We (or rather, our consciousness) are at least a part of the Power’s “nervous system” or brains, by which it studies and knows itself and its capabilities. This is why it still tolerates us, but it already makes it clear (by ecology, systemic crises and conflicts, hundreds of millions of starving and so forth) that patience may come to an end. In short - It thinks itself by us.

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At least part of the "dark matter" and "dark energy" (the essence of the dark energy is a subject of debate. It is well known that it is very evenly distributed, it has a low density, and does not react any significantly with ordinary matter through the known fundamental types of interactions except gravity. Because the hypothetical dark energy density is extrimally low (about 10^-29 g/cm?), it is unlikely to find it by laboratory experiment. Dark energy can have such a profound impact on the Universe (accounting for 70% of total energy) because it uniformly fills empty (in other respects) space) - is the material manifestation of the Power, available for us to notice at the current level of our development.

 

 

“In any case it is clear that far from equilibrium behavior of molecules coherence greatly increases. In equilibrium, the molecule "sees" only its immediate neighbors and "communicate" only with them. Off from the balance each part of the system "sees" the entire system. We can say that the matter in equilibrium is blind, and it sees clearly out of balance. Consequently, only in a nonequilibrium system a unique events and the fluctuations can take place, that contribute to these events, as well as the expansion of the system scale takes place, increasing its sensitivity to the outside world and, finally, there arises the historical perspective, i.e., the possibility of generating other, perhaps more advanced, forms of organization.” Re-translated from Russian Original - Ilya Prigogine, „The Philosophy of Instability?, Futures 21 no. 4 (1989): 396-400.

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Until recently, I couldn’t find other GTE’s practical consequence than recommendation (in the presence of great uncertainty in a complex situation) to choose that direction to which (as much as possible) independent "random" factors are pushing you - because the Power in question operates "by hands of improbability", i.e. creates the possibility of extremely rare (in the ordinary life) coincidences of circumstances. And only in 2016 I managed to invent an experiment to test the theory under discussion. Its idea is to create in a small isolated volume the most diverse physical conditions (and, therefore, large gradients), influencing this volume by energy flows of different nature (light, heating-cooling, electric discharges) and various periodicity - and create, (I hope:) directly from inorganics, the simplest living (replicating) structures. You can find some details (and even take part in the preparation ) of said experiment on abiogenesis (origin of life) on our special website.

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The discussed development law, or "evolutionary pressure" law which opposes the second thermodynamics' law, forces open complex systems with gradients to process energy and matter into new developing structures. This fact gives it a creative character, hence the Creator God form, as the most accessible form of the Law understanding at an early stage in civilization development. Research and creativity are usually closely related and essentially represent a continuous, increasingly complex cycle. It is quite possible that intelligent life and we, as its manifestation, are just another stage of God's ( the Nature or matter itself - this is how you like it or how it is clearer :) self-knowledge. This law, essentially consisting in specific ratios between fundamental physical constants, could somehow improve itself, "self-adjust" and self-develop - either taking into account fluctuations of these ratios in various Universe parts or during successive cycles of its Big Bangs and subsequent collapses. Approximately how it works in the voles' epigenetics:
"In autumn, before a cold snap, they are born with a longer and thicker coat than in spring, although the intrauterine development of "spring" and "autumn" mice occurs against the background of almost the same conditions (temperature, daylight hours, humidity, etc.). Studies have shown that a change in the melatonin concentration gradient in the blood (it decreases in spring and rises in autumn) is a signal that triggers epigenetic changes leading to an increase in hair length.Thus, epigenetic adaptive changes (an increase in hair length) are induced before the onset of cold weather adaptation to which is beneficial for the organism. (citation translated by me)