Prove Evolution: Win $250,000!

Creation Science Evangelism ^ | N/A | Dr. Ken Hovind

[handk]

Dr. Hovind's $250,000 Offer
formerly $10,000, offered since 1990

I have a standing offer of $250,000 to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution.*  My $250,000 offer demonstrates that the hypothesis of evolution is nothing more than a religious belief.

 

Observed phenomena:

Most thinking people will agree that--
1. A highly ordered universe exists.
2. At least one planet in this complex universe contains an amazing variety of life forms.
3. Man appears to be the most advanced form of life on this planet.

Known options:

Choices of how the observed phenomena came into being--
1. The universe was created by God.
2. The universe always existed.
3. The universe came into being by itself by purely natural processes (known as evolution) so that no appeal to the supernatural is needed.

Evolution has been acclaimed as being the only process capable of causing the observed phenomena.

Evolution is presented in our public school textbooks as a process that:

1. Brought time, space, and matter into existence from nothing.
2. Organized that matter into the galaxies, stars, and at least nine planets around the sun. (This process is often referred to as cosmic evolution.)
3. Created the life that exists on at least one of those planets from nonliving matter (chemical evolution).
4. Caused the living creatures to be capable of and interested in reproducing themselves.
5. Caused that first life form to spontaneously diversify into different forms of living things, such as the plants and animals on the earth today (biological evolution).

People believe in evolution; they do not know that it is true. While beliefs are certainly fine to have, it is not fair to force on the students in our public school system the teaching of one belief, at taxpayers’ expense. It is my contention that evolutionism is a religious worldview that is not supported by science, Scripture, popular opinion, or common sense. The exclusive teaching of this dangerous, mind-altering philosophy in tax-supported schools, parks, museums, etc., is also a clear violation of the First Amendment.

 

How to collect the $250,000:

Prove beyond reasonable doubt that the process of evolution (option 3 above, under "known options") is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence. Only empirical evidence is acceptable. Persons wishing to collect the $250,000 may submit their evidence in writing or schedule time for a public presentation. A committee of trained scientists will provide peer review of the evidence offered and, to the best of their ability, will be fair and honest in their evaluation and judgment as to the validity of the evidence presented.

If you are convinced that evolution is an indisputable fact, may I suggest that you offer $250,000 for any empirical or historical evidence against the general theory of evolution. This might include the following:

1. The earth is not billions of years old (thus destroying the possibility of evolution having happened as it is being taught).
2. No animal has ever been observed changing into any fundamentally different kind of animal.
3. No one has ever observed life spontaneously arising from nonliving matter.
4. Matter cannot make itself out of nothing.

 

My suggestion:

Proponents of the theory of evolution would do well to admit that they believe in evolution, but they do not know that it happened the way they teach. They should call evolution their "faith" or "religion," and stop including it in books of science. Give up faith in the silly religion of evolutionism, and trust the God of the Bible (who is the Creator of this universe and will be your Judge, and mine, one day soon) to forgive you and to save you from the coming judgment on man’s sin.

* NOTE:
When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:

1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3. Matter created life by itself.
4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

[inquest]

I'm just gonna be an annoying little fly and pick at just a couple of things.

Any apparent order is a result of the operation of the rules of [I'm not worthy to utter its name]

By "apparent" order, you seem to be suggesting that the order may well be only illusory. But then you said that this "apparent" order is a consequence of the "rules". Well, what are rules if not a manifestation of order?

The fact that we can make sense of it is an accident as well - the rules produced brains capable of abstract thought and reason, and so we can make some sense of what we see.

It doesn't quite do that statement justice to say that it's unproven; it would be more respectable to say that it's highly doubtful. An accident is no more likely than anything else to have any affinity for it's parent - because it's accidental. It's an illegitimate bastard offspring; you know, the one that got away, if you catch my drift.

As for "moral" laws, as you noted, I pointed out to Diamond that we could bootstrap them for ourselves.

Now you're confusing two concepts. Yes we can come up with any laws of morality that we want to, but that wouldn't make them right; just as we can make up whatever law of gravity that we want, even though that wouldn't make it right. That you have a right to live can be determined just by looking within yourself. That the rest of us have that right can be easily extrapolated from your own right. That's reality. You can decide something else if you want, but it would be wrong - meaning totally inconsistent with reality. Word.

[longshadow]

Univ*-al placemarker

[general_re]

I'm just gonna be an annoying little fly and pick at just a couple of things.

Pick away ;)

By "apparent" order, you seem to be suggesting that the order may well be only illusory. But then you said that this "apparent" order is a consequence of the "rules". Well, what are rules if not a manifestation of order?

Well, I'm not entirely sure quite how to put it. Things are the way they are, in effect. The reason they are the way they are is because of the rules. We see things the way they are, and because we are interested in things that are orderly, we define what we see as orderly, in a sense.

That doesn't make much sense, does it? Think of it this way - even if the universe were entirely different from how it actually is, we would still call it "orderly", because to us it would be the natural order of things, the way things were. Univ* just is. It's neither orderly or disorderly, really - "order" is just a human construct that we've applied to it, grafted on after the fact. We find it orderly, but really, "order" is a matter of perception as much as anything else, I think.

And don't worry about calling it by any particular name - it's cool with whatever label you like to assign it ;)

Moi: The fact that we can make sense of it is an accident as well - the rules produced brains capable of abstract thought and reason, and so we can make some sense of what we see.

Vous: It doesn't quite do that statement justice to say that it's unproven; it would be more respectable to say that it's highly doubtful. An accident is no more likely than anything else to have any affinity for it's parent - because it's accidental. It's an illegitimate bastard offspring; you know, the one that got away, if you catch my drift.

Why doubtful? Again, we are conditioned to find patterns in things - it's a part of abstract reasoning . We are so good at it that we see patterns that aren't even necessarily real. We have some affinity for the concept of order - is it a surprise that we should find it in the things around us? Even if it isn't really there?

Now you're confusing two concepts. Yes we can come up with any laws of morality that we want to, but that wouldn't make them right; just as we can make up whatever law of gravity that we want, even though that wouldn't make it right.

Now you're confusing two concepts. ;)

In the arena of "moral" laws, we have the luxury of defining "right". Once we settle on that definition, we can indeed construct laws in accord with that concept. Gravity comes to us predefined - there, we must explore the rules as they are, not as we prefer them to be. We aren't so hamstrung with "moral laws".

That you have a right to live can be determined just by looking within yourself.

How so? And if I grant that to be true, by finding that right "within yourself", aren't you abandoning any claim to morality-from-above? If the right exists within you, you don't need stone tablets any more, do you?

That the rest of us have that right can be easily extrapolated from your own right. That's reality. You can decide something else if you want, but it would be wrong - meaning totally inconsistent with reality. Word.

Well, first you have to show me how you derive this "right" - until then, it's just your say-so. I'll need a bit more than "you can find it within yourself" ;)

[PatrickHenry]

Again, we are conditioned to find patterns in things - it's a part of abstract reasoning . We are so good at it that we see patterns that aren't even necessarily real. We have some affinity for the concept of order - is it a surprise that we should find it in the things around us? Even if it isn't really there?

Permit me to jump in. The "order" we observe isn't merely something we are conditioned to see. Electrons are electrons, are they not? They have the characteristics of electrons, and they behave as electrons behave. This is inherent in the nature of things. They could have been some other way, and were that so (with us somehow around to observe them) we would still see them behaving in accordance with their alternative natures. Whatever their nature is, they are what they are. So we see a certain regularity in their behavior because they're electrons. There isn't much mystery here. Everything has a specific nature, and behaves accordingly. Were it not so, there would be only chaos, and there wouldn't be much of a universe to observe, nor observers either. The order we observe is merely the inevitable consequence of the existence of things. That "things are what they are" is one of the most basic rules of Univ*.

[general_re]

This is sort of what I wanted to get at. Univ* has an order, an arrangement, a particular way of being. But that way is just the way things are. Univ* is what it is.

So what I want to do is to try to separate the "order of things" from the concept that we find things "orderly". The "order of things" is just the way things are, but we have a sense that it is "orderly" or "neat" or "tidy", and these are all subjective judgements. Univ* is Univ* - it is self-defining, in a sense. And no matter how it is, that's the order of it, the arrangement. That we find it nice and neat to be that way is something we've imputed to it - "neatness" is not an objective concept. Just ask my mother - she and I could never manage to agree on the "orderliness" of my bedroom when I was a kid. ;)

[Diamond]

You guys are hard to keep up with - I'm way back here on 601.

In reference to the morality of Adolf Eichmann, you propose that we put it to a vote. "Sorry, Adolf, as much as you'd like to murder people, we just don't want to be murdered. And we've outvoted you 6 billion to 37." You state that "we must decide on these things both individually and as a society. If the individuals of a society express their preference against such things, then there is no remaining justification for such a thing being permitted."

One of the problems with "society says" morality is illustrated by the circumstance that in Germany at that time you would be morally obliged to help Nazis murder Jewish people because that's what society said you ought to do. That was essentially Eichmann's defense. And strangely, if you hid Jewish people from the Nazis then that by definition would have been immoral; there would be no justification for such a thing being permitted because you were outvoted.

You actually expressed the essence of a point I was trying to make better than than I did: ...the animals have no sense of morality, and no sense of God at all. And they certainly lack the reasoning ability that we have, such that they cannot try to rule out murder pragmatically either. We know this, which is why when some animal kills a person, we do not arrest it and try it for murder, and attempt to hold it "responsible".Which is my point: Why hold impersonal biological machines accountable in the first place? That presupposes such things as free will, personhood and human dignity. tortise made this point better than I, too (in 608): "In short, I am under the illusion that I changed my beliefs as a consequence of free will. However, I am also aware that this illusion exists and why it exists, and therefore would say that I have no choice but to have the beliefs I have if anyone wanted to press the point."

Now to "dysfunctional":

So, if they don't reason, and they don't know "objective" morality, why don't they kill each other more often than they do?

And the answer is because the practice of widespread cannibalism, or just killing your packmates randomly, is a dysfunctional practice. Animals that do that much tend to go extinct - the only ones left are the ones that didn't do that in the first place, or that stopped doing it for some reason.

(See, we're actually drifting back towards evolution, which is what this thread was supposed to be about in the first place.)

So, in addition to the preferences of people not to be killed, we can make the case that to permit something like murder would be wrong - and we define "wrong" as dysfunctional, in this case. So murder is "wrong" on one level because people do not wish to be murdered, and it is "wrong" on another level because it is dysfunctional, potentially leading to extinction.

From a Christian world-view the concept of dysfunction, or things not working as they 'ought' to work, makes makes sense in light of the Creation (purpose) the Fall, and sin. But how do you account for the notion of dysfunciton from a non-theistic, evolutionary viewpoint, seeing as how dysfunction is related to the ideas of design and purpose? It makes sense to say that my refrigerator works as it is supposed to, because it was designed for a particular purpose. In evolutionary terms, though, there is no such purpose. Presumably in evolutionary terms, a male lion killing his own cubs is functioning just as normally as one not doing so, or one hunting prey, or one which is decomposing in a field, or all lions going extinct. Since you are describing morality in terms of dsyfunction, how do you acccount for the notion of "dysfunction" in evolutionary terms?

Cordially,

[inquest]

Well, I'm not entirely sure quite how to put it. Things are the way they are, in effect. The reason they are the way they are is because of the rules. We see things the way they are, and because we are interested in things that are orderly, we define what we see as orderly, in a sense.

That doesn't make much sense, does it?

Well, it didn't, until I lurked onto your #645 and finally got some idea as to what you were talking about: "order" vs. "orderliness". The one is objective, according to you, and the other subjective. Well, our more mathematically oriented friends on this thread might be able to help you out better than I, but I can just start by saying that there are scientific ways of measuring "orderliness", or specifically, the lack thereof. It's called entropy. It's not just a nerdy word for messiness; it's an actual measurable quantity.

Gravity comes to us predefined - there, we must explore the rules as they are, not as we prefer them to be. We aren't so hamstrung with "moral laws".

Indeed we are, as I have a right to live, regardless of your preference in the matter, and vice versa.

That you have a right to live can be determined just by looking within yourself.

How so?

I think you know the answer to that, and what's more I think all our friendly Lurkers know the answer, too (with regard to themselves). I can't actually make you see it, and I certainly can't make you admit that you see it. Likewise, I can't make you acknowledge the law of gravity, even though it exists. The only difference between the two concepts is that external truth (law of grav, etc.) can be looked upon collectively (which puts greater pressure on you to acknowledge it, lest people start looking at you weird), whereas the internal truth can only be seen individually, but that doesn't make it any less true.

And if I grant that to be true, by finding that right "within yourself", aren't you abandoning any claim to morality-from-above?

Not at all. The fact that you're able to see the morality by looking within yourself in no way implies that you're able to create it the same way. Think of it like all FR threads from before 9-4-01: read only.

[longshadow]

....but I can just start by saying that there are scientific ways of measuring "orderliness", or specifically, the lack thereof. It's called entropy. It's not just a nerdy word for messiness; it's an actual measurable quantity. [snip]

But "entropy" is NOT a measure of "messiness" (though lots of people try to hijack the term for all sorts of mischief). Clssically, it is a measure of the energy in a thermodynamic system that is unavailable to do useful work.

[inquest]

Unavailable by virtue of...? All energy can be made available to do anything. But if it's presently is such a disordered state, then that's when it seems to fall under the definition. But one has to be able to define objectively what is meant by a state that's sufficiently disordered to preclude doing anything useful with the energy therein. And if disorder can be defined there, it can be defined in any other context. Or so it would seem.

[betty boop]

Unless you are going to tell me that the Constitution is also the literal word of God, then you have little choice but to accept yourself that law may come from God or it may come from Man.

It came from men who were (still) formed in God. They left it to a posterity that they thought would appreciate the great gift on those terms.

As for the rest of your reply: I must have been doing something right, if you needed to resort to the technique of the ad hominum attack to refute me. But I forgive you anyway. best, bb.

[edsheppa]

The "order of things" is just the way things are, but we have a sense that it is "orderly" or "neat" or "tidy", and these are all subjective judgements.

It's not so simple - or perhaps I should say it is simple and that's the complication. You seem to have a mathematical bent so I'm sure you're aware that there are are vastly more ways for things to be complicated than simple. It could conceivably have been one massive entangled quantum system with everything connected to everything else. Or spacetime could have been riddled with multiple connectedness. Instead the stuff in the universe seems well separated, spacetime is singly connected (at least locally) and by and large the rules and patterns are simple. I'd say this simplicity is an objective feature of the universe and also a curious one. It'd sure be nice to have a satisfying explanation.

[general_re]

It's not so simple - or perhaps I should say it is simple and that's the complication. You seem to have a mathematical bent so I'm sure you're aware that there are are vastly more ways for things to be complicated than simple.

Perhaps. If I accept such a thing, would you say that the current simplicity is the only way for things to be simple?

It could conceivably have been one massive entangled quantum system with everything connected to everything else. Or spacetime could have been riddled with multiple connectedness. Instead the stuff in the universe seems well separated, spacetime is singly connected (at least locally) and by and large the rules and patterns are simple.

Suppose we lived in a universe that was as "complicated" as you suggest. Presumably we would have brains that evolved in an environment, and therefore, in order to develop some sort of rational thinking ability, we would need the ability to make sense of what we saw around us - to detect patterns and to categorize things, to think abstractly, and so forth. If we lived in such a universe, do you think we would describe it as "simple", or "complicated"?

IOW, if a creature with the ability to reason were to evolve in such a universe, wouldn't the ability to reason imply an ability to make sense of the things around them - or at least be a necessary precondition to reason? And if you can make sense of it, is it really "complicated"? ;)

[general_re]

It came from men who were (still) formed in God. They left it to a posterity that they thought would appreciate the great gift on those terms.

So, it came from God, but essentially indirectly. Does my state legislature present legislation inspired by God?

As for the rest of your reply: I must have been doing something right, if you needed to resort to the technique of the ad hominum attack to refute me. But I forgive you anyway. best, bb.

Hmmm. By now I had thought you would be able to separate an attack on your arguments from an attack on you personally. I believe if you reread my post, you will find that my comments are directed entirely at what you have argued, rather than at you. If, however, I have left something vague or unclear, such that it could be interpreted as an attack upon you as a person, I hope that you will be kind enough to direct me to it, so that I might clarify or apologize, as necessary.

[general_re]

One of the problems with "society says" morality is illustrated by the circumstance that in Germany at that time you would be morally obliged to help Nazis murder Jewish people because that's what society said you ought to do. That was essentially Eichmann's defense. And strangely, if you hid Jewish people from the Nazis then that by definition would have been immoral; there would be no justification for such a thing being permitted because you were outvoted.

Which is why I proposed that we begin from the beginning with something resembling a social compact. First we posit which things we are going to treat as inviolable, and then we proceed from there. Once we have established those, we have placed them off limits, so obviously we will have to be careful what we term as a "right".

In any case, it seems rather clear to me that it can't be any worse than a society based on claims to universal morality handed down from God. Hitler did not base his "Final Solution" upon a rational case for genocide. Instead, he cast it in terms of an evil people, the Jews, doing harm to the notional "Aryan race". His claim was based on immutable destiny and the claim that their "birthright" had been stolen from them, and which must be seized by any means necessary. It's all one extended argument ad populam, really. It seems tolerably obvious that all of Hitler's rationalizations for genocide were simply that - rationalizations - and would have very little chance of success in a society built upon the notion that we are expected to make a reasoned case for our desires. I must also point out the rather unfortunate fact that the Final Solution was, with a few brave exceptions, largely carried out with the tacit complicity of the religious authorities of the day in Europe, both Catholic and Protestant. Even if they didn't actively conspire to aid the Nazis, they certainly asked precious few questions about what was happening.

It wasn't a society based on reason that did such things, but one whose leaders had perverse notions of universal morality, after all....

You actually expressed the essence of a point I was trying to make better than than I did: ...the animals have no sense of morality, and no sense of God at all. And they certainly lack the reasoning ability that we have, such that they cannot try to rule out murder pragmatically either. We know this, which is why when some animal kills a person, we do not arrest it and try it for murder, and attempt to hold it "responsible".Which is my point: Why hold impersonal biological machines accountable in the first place? That presupposes such things as free will, personhood and human dignity. tortise made this point better than I, too (in 608): "In short, I am under the illusion that I changed my beliefs as a consequence of free will. However, I am also aware that this illusion exists and why it exists, and therefore would say that I have no choice but to have the beliefs I have if anyone wanted to press the point.

It presupposes the existence of reason and logic more than anything else. If we deem ourselves irrational, it will not work either. Just as a society built on universal morality must make certain presuppositions about its members and the universe, so must mine. It may be no better than a society built on universal morality in this respect, but it is certainly no worse. And if you see the shift toward logic and reason in daily society as a good thing, it may be better as a consequence anyway, if not from base principles.

In any case, tortoise is probably right - the human mind is probably a finite state machine. But it seems likely that the number of possible states is going to be exceedingly large - so large that for all intents and purposes, it might as well be infinite as far as we are concerned. And depending on how much influence quantum effects have upon the workings of the brain, it may not be fair to describe it as particularly deterministic, either. This is not my area of expertise, so this is, of course, some semi-educated speculation on my part - someone may very well come along to correct or revise my remarks ;)

From a Christian world-view the concept of dysfunction, or things not working as they 'ought' to work, makes makes sense in light of the Creation (purpose) the Fall, and sin. But how do you account for the notion of dysfunciton from a non-theistic, evolutionary viewpoint, seeing as how dysfunction is related to the ideas of design and purpose? It makes sense to say that my refrigerator works as it is supposed to, because it was designed for a particular purpose. In evolutionary terms, though, there is no such purpose. Presumably in evolutionary terms, a male lion killing his own cubs is functioning just as normally as one not doing so, or one hunting prey, or one which is decomposing in a field, or all lions going extinct. Since you are describing morality in terms of dsyfunction, how do you acccount for the notion of "dysfunction" in evolutionary terms?

We account for it as a matter of definition, as I said. We begin with the assumption that being alive is better than being dead, and that survival is better than extinction. These may be seemingly arbitrary, insofar as we cannot necessarily make a reasoned case for them, but they are definitions that most of us would agree on, I think. Once we define survival as better than extinction, we have something to hang our hats on in thinking that practices that lead to extinction are dysfunctional. Once we have practices that can be fairly described as dysfunctional, we have some justification for proscribing them - as examples, incest, cannibalism, murder, and so forth are pretty clearly dysfunctional. In terms of the success of societies, practices such as widespread theft, fraud and deception, and enslavement are pretty clearly dysfunctional when we look at the history and relative successes of various societies.

[general_re]

The one is objective, according to you, and the other subjective. Well, our more mathematically oriented friends on this thread might be able to help you out better than I, but I can just start by saying that there are scientific ways of measuring "orderliness", or specifically, the lack thereof. It's called entropy. It's not just a nerdy word for messiness; it's an actual measurable quantity.

Well, yes, but as longshadow pointed out, entropy is generally a description of the energy in a system. Plus, to expand on it, arrangements that we consider "disordered" do not necessarily correspond to higher entropy states. Consider my bookshelf - assume I have a set of encyclopedias on it. Which arrangement is "disordered", having all volumes in alphabetical order, or having them in random order next to each other? Which arrangement is higher in entropy? Either way, it's 26 volumes, side-by-side - order is something we've inserted after-the-fact. Unless, that is, you think that the entropy of the bookshelf depends on the letters stamped on the spines of my books.

And no snide comments from the gallery. Information-theoretic entropy is not the same as thermodynamic entropy. There's no information loss in rearranging my books anyway...

Indeed we are, as I have a right to live, regardless of your preference in the matter, and vice versa.

And we can certainly make a rational case for such, with or without a morality handed down from above.

Vous: That you have a right to live can be determined just by looking within yourself.

Moi: How so?

Vous, encore: I think you know the answer to that, and what's more I think all our friendly Lurkers know the answer, too (with regard to themselves). I can't actually make you see it, and I certainly can't make you admit that you see it. Likewise, I can't make you acknowledge the law of gravity, even though it exists. The only difference between the two concepts is that external truth (law of grav, etc.) can be looked upon collectively (which puts greater pressure on you to acknowledge it, lest people start looking at you weird), whereas the internal truth can only be seen individually, but that doesn't make it any less true.

One may choose to believe such as a matter of faith, but that's all it is - a matter of faith. One may equally well choose to believe otherwise. Which is more or less the main point of all my argumentation thus far ;)

[Diamond]

I'm not really sure if I get your point. You seem to suggest that I should question my skepticism towards certain claims. Is it that what you mean?

Yes. In particular, your own certain claim of skepticism creates a paradoxical dilemna; because of your finiteness you can never be totally certain that you have enough of all possible knowledge to justify your skepticism.

Fact is that we have a text describing a prophecy which it claims is later fulfilled. Well, that could be true but there are also other possibilities: the prophecy was never made and only after an important event happened it was claimed that it has been prophecied some time ago or the prophecy was vague so it could be made to fit a wide range of occurrences; there are of course self fulfilling prophecies and sometimes it is also very hard to tell whether it happend by chance that a prophecy was fulfilled or by divine intervention.
As long as I cannot rule out these other possibilities beyond a reasonable doubt I simply cannot accept them as true even if I really want them to be true. (This article addresses this point in more detail than I could have done here)

Yes, I can at least agree with you here that these are all possibilities that must be considered when examining claims of prophecies.

I thought of posting the infidels.org article, which IMO contains numerous inaccuracies, but on the other hand, I'm afraid if I posted it, it would generate another 600 responses:^)

Cordially,

[Diamond]

...we live life with the illusion that things are random or directed by self-will.... Ultimately, "free will" is an illusion that is created when a universal predictor (math term) has insufficient model memory (e.g. in the human brain) relative to the state machinery it is trying to model (e.g. the universe)...

In short, I am under the illusion that I changed my beliefs as a consequence of free will. However, I am also aware that this illusion exists and why it exists, and therefore would say that I have no choice but to have the beliefs I have if anyone wanted to press the point. Most people don't think about it this much though, so I rarely break it down this far.

I don't mean to be flippant with this question, I really don't, but how do you know that you have gone far enough? How do you know that this ultimate truth that you have discovered, namely, that "free will is an illusion" is not also an illusion itself? In view of the limitations inherent in insufficient model memory how do you justify this particular "stopping point"?

Cordially,

[longshadow]

Unavailable by virtue of...? All energy can be made available to do anything. [snip]

Entropic energy is "unavailable" to do useful work by virtue of the absence of a natural favorable temperature gradient in the system. Entropic energy is energy (usually waste heat of a process) that has been dispersed to the surrounding environment, which is at a lower temperature than the system that released that energy. Hence, work would have to be performed to extract that energy from the environment (it won't flow out spontaneously), and since any machine that extracts the energy can't be more than 100% efficient, you can never get more energy out than you put in.

I recommend any basic text on Thermodynamics for the details.

[edsheppa]

If I accept such a thing, would you say that the current simplicity is the only way for things to be simple?

No, it conceivable could be differently simple. But again, there are many more ways that it conceivably could be more complicated.

If we lived in such a universe, do you think we would describe it as "simple", or "complicated"? ... And if you can make sense of it, is it really "complicated"?

Let's look at it differently. Could things be even simpler than we have found them to be? Setting aside (perhaps unfairly) boundary conditions and looking only at the rules, we're at the point where there are only two fundamental things, spacetime/gravity and the other forces. The big attempt currently is to unify even these two things, but even only two fundamental rules to govern the universe is really very few. Why not ten or a hundred or a million?

Now, shifting back to your question, if there were a million basic rules there would be many, many ways for the universe to be simpler. For us this is not so. It's kind of surprising.

[general_re]

Let's look at it differently. Could things be even simpler than we have found them to be? Setting aside (perhaps unfairly) boundary conditions and looking only at the rules, we're at the point where there are only two fundamental things, spacetime/gravity and the other forces. The big attempt currently is to unify even these two things, but even only two fundamental rules to govern the universe is really very few. Why not ten or a hundred or a million?

Now, shifting back to your question, if there were a million basic rules there would be many, many ways for the universe to be simpler. For us this is not so. It's kind of surprising.

Good question? Why not? Why not ten rules, or a hundred, or a million?

But the question presumes a sort of answer in the way it is framed - why assume that the way things are is the only possible way for things to be? Suppose that it is entirely possible for universes of all sorts to exist - and I don't think there's any way to disprove that contention, so I think I'm safe in making it. And of all possible universes, some would be, for lack of a better word, what we would consider "complicated", and some might be what we would consider "simple".

But it has been suggested via the "Anthropic Principle" (and I'm surprised nobody's brought it up until now) that only certain sorts of universes are conducive to the rise of reasoning observers. IOW, only universes we think of as "simple" have the conditions necessary to produce folks like us who look around and think how simple things are. If that is the case, it should hardly be surprising at all that the universe seems "simple" - if it didn't, we wouldn't be around to marvel at it in the first place.

So it is entirely possible that universes like you describe exist - where the rules change from place to place, and from time to time, and are not constant as we generally assume they are here. Or where causality doesn't mean anything, and effects can precede causes. Or "point" universes, where everything's squashed together because there's no such thing as physical space. Or "instant" universes where everything happens as once because there's no such thing as time. And so forth and so on. All these things may very well be possible, but none of them seem likely to result in rational creatures who goggle in wonder at the awesomeness of the space they inhabit ;)