From: Xela@yabbs
To: pixy@yabbs
Subject: ok d00d, pt. 2
Date: Mon Jun 20 02:26:34 1994

"...if all the forces in the world were balanced, there would be no 
progress or change..."

Time for a little physics lecture, I think.  If you take a point charge at 
one particular equipotential, say +10V, and move it to an equipotential, 
say +5V, you've created an "imbalance" in the equation; you have to 
perform work to move that point charge to resolve the imbalance.  But if 
you move that charge at +5 back to +10, your *net* work done is zero.  The 
slate is wiped clean.  In order to facilitate my point, I'll expand the 
world to mean the universe.

In the universe, the total amount of energy is a constant; if you change 
gas into mechanical potential [i.e. your car], you don't get all the 
energy stored in the hydrocarbon molecule: you get say 20% and the rest is 
converted into heat, sound, etc. energy...but if you add up all the 
percentages of all the conversions, you get the original energy back.  
None is lost, it is converted.

If it were lost, you would have your "disequilibrium" and the law of 
conservation of energy wouldn't hold [perpetual motion machines would be 
possible].

Let's look at thermodynamics and more specifically entropy, to further my 
point.  The universe, as current theory holds, is running towards a heat 
death; entropy seeks order and order seeks entropy until the two converge 
at zero.  The universe, as a whole, has "entropy + order = 0" to work 
with.   Locally, on planet Earth, we are fortunate enough to be a local 
concentration of ordered energy.  This allows us to convert our higher 
forms of energy into heat + consumer products [moving cars, the cars 
themselves, etc.].  But taking the entire universe into consideration, we 
are an anomaly at best, with our pocket of order being turned into heat 
energy, the lowest form of energy.

So to make my point, change on our planet is possible, because we have 
ordered energy with which to convert into other things + heat.  But the 
balance remains; we cannot add energy to the equation...

"We are defined by the adversity and imperfection of life, and the limits 
it puts on us."

I believe that we define ourselves and our concepts of life, and not the 
other way around.  To do so implies a higher being.

X