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What is "simpler" - An almost infinite number of hydrogen atoms, or a human?

R

RaiderJ

Diamond Member
What is "simpler" - An almost infinite number of hydrogen atoms, or a human?

This is an interesting topic that was brought forth in one of my books regarding complexity, chaos, and the like. I'll post my interpretation of the question, and what I think about it after some posts are made.

BTW, the book is titled "Frontiers of Complexity" by Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield

😀
 
From the way I see it, everything material in this universe is simply a composition of these elements; definition of an object by anything more or less than this exact quantity with exact qualities is insifficient for universal simulation. Ultimately, if one takes the theory to the extremes, nouns could totally be disqualified from English due to their generalistic nature. What *is* a human exactly? Something which simply takes a rough form of our 'shape'? What about chimps? No, they are different, chimps some would say. Take both and interpolate. What is the object then? Perhaps a more evolved chimp, maybe a monkey (please completely dismiss terminology biologists, it's a general case scenario, explicit definition has nothing to do with my point). Interpolate the two once more. What are we left with now? Doubtless, you could keep doing this, your limit to 'evolution' being the human. But after what line to we qualify something, or someone as we ever so proudly like to distinguish ourselves, human? Is there actually a definition for the qualifying quantities? What would a slightly deviating object be? From looking at this example, one can see the absurdity of nouns and such generalisations. Nouns are simply handles for us to generalise, categorise and segregate objects, creating an entirely procedural mindset, where every 'step' along the path to technological glorification is simply investigation, rather than logical derivation.

So, should we suffice with the inaccuracies of language to limit our capacity for definition? No, we are capable of something beyond that. We are indeed, our constructed elements; nothing more, nothing less. We aren't humans, but rather a procedurally created pattern of particles, as definited by contextual physics - everything that has ever existed to you.

It is my belief that brain composition, thought, and perhaps even time are indeed simply figments of our imagination, and that indeed, there was no such thing beyond the definite. Thoughts are merely by-products of a chemical reaction, our actions, and ultimately our personality are defined by these thoughts, which are defined by the chemical reactions, which are defined infinitely until absolute definition is required. So really, there's nothing special to life, or anything else, at all. There is no distinction between the 'living' and the 'dead', simply because they are subjective terms. Sorry to be a little dismissive in my nature, but i'm not willing to accept a 'soul' as a prerequisite property of a living organism, as I don't believe in religion in any way, shape or form; well, perhaps even this ideology could be counted as a religion.

Finally, what results from such an existance? The prominence of these rules imposed on our lives, the laws of physics, turn out to predict our every action, the actions resulting from those actions, and again expanding, everythnig that ever is to come. Fate, as one would have it. Nothing but to live out something we have no control over. One may talk about the paradox's involved in such a prospect - no such contradictions exist. One may say, 'what if I decide to pervert the course of the future after reading this', acting on information perhaps provided in an ever helpful Anandtech post, probably in GH. The thing is, there was never any choice involved in the first place, as you were procedurally 'meant' to look at the text, and furthermore, procedurally act on what is given. The matrix anyone? Ultimately there is no chaos, only procedure. Perhaps what appears to be chaotic procedure, but procedure nonetheless.

I can't help but see this as quite a feasible reality. As I don't have many opportunities to assert the gross generalisations made in creating such a theory, founding axioms may be incorrect; I don't assume them all to be true, and am subject to change. In my experience (only 17 years, barely a drop in the ocean compared to the whittled bodies of centuries of humans past) however, this theory fits with everything I have learnt, and has given me insights into 'morals' and 'ethics' (carefully notice placement of inverted commas).

So please, refute me. 🙂
 
2 ways I think of this:

1) Hydrogen has a simple structure, even though it might be duplicated infinitely. The human body is an extremely complicated structure of molecules, even though it's a single human being. When quantity doesn't factor in, the inifinite # of hydrogen atoms is simplest.
2) When quantity does factor in, an infinite number of hydrogen atoms can be very chaotic in terms of structure and organization. Whereas a single human being is very 'organized' in that it's merely a single point or single structure. Here, the human is the simplest.
 


<< 2 ways I think of this:

1) Hydrogen has a simple structure, even though it might be duplicated infinitely. The human body is an extremely complicated structure of molecules, even though it's a single human being. When quantity doesn't factor in, the inifinite # of hydrogen atoms is simplest.
2) When quantity does factor in, an infinite number of hydrogen atoms can be very chaotic in terms of structure and organization. Whereas a single human being is very 'organized' in that it's merely a single point or single structure. Here, the human is the simplest. >>



I would say that, even if quantity is a factor, the hydrogen atom case is simpler.
It may be an enormous quantity of data required to represent this case, but the data is fairly simple (position, velocity, orientation).

Now, if you want to propagate that collection of hydrogen atoms ... ie. predict where they will be an instant from now ... that could certainly be chaotic a potentially more "complex" then a single human being.

Note that I said potentially. I believe it's been theorized, but maybe not proven/observed, that hydrogen has a solid phase, in which case, even an exremely large collection of hydrogen atoms could be very simple.
 
Just like chaos theory - depends on how you look at. There are ways of looking at it so that a group of hydrogen atoms is extremely "simple" (easy to understand) and ways of looking at humans so that they are extremely "simple" (easy to understand). There are also ways of looking at it so that a group of hydrogen atoms is extremely complex, and same with humans.
 
Chao theory refers to the fact that a set of simple rules lead to a system where the input is highly nonlinearly correwlated with the output, ie you change the mass of the earth by 1 kilogram and a billion years later, its 500 km from where it should be, you change it by 2 kg, its a billion kilometers from where it should be.
 
An almost infinite number of hydrogen atoms is more complex than a human. You need to take into account the properties of hydrogen in addition to it's apperently "simple" structure. Mass has gravity, and a huge amount of hydrogen has a huge amount of gravity, enough to collapse it into a star. If you get a near infinite amount of hydrogen, it will collapse further into a black hole. I'm not a physicist, but I feel pretty confident in saying that what goes one beyond the event horizon is rather complex and currently way outside of our understanding.

The interractions within a human body however complex, unlike a black hole caused by a near infinite amount of hydrogen, is goverened by understandable laws that we are learning more and more about.

So the near-infinite hydrogen will create a system more complex than a human in my opinoin.
 
I thought a black hole killed the Chaos Theory..

Something goes in, nothing (ok.. hardly anything) goes out. So if a black hole "ate" something, it would essentially be creating less chaos (or was it if one ate everything in the universe). Anyways.. i have no idea 🙂
 
Depends on what temperature the hydrogen is at. If it was a chaotic gas, then it would be far more "complicated"in the chaos theory sense ie. More entrophy
 
Unless "simpler" means organized, then the hydrogen atoms.


But is this infinite, or almost infinite 😕
 
I'm no theoretical physicist, but from the things I've read (and granted, rather limited), I'd say the so called "Chaos" aspect has to due with the Uncertainty Principle, in that the more accurately one knows of the velocity of a particle, the less accurately its position can be known. Essentially, this means, on a quantum scale, prediction such as that in Newton's laws are quite impossible. Before this concept was introduced, physicists use to think that if one could accurately measure the position and velocity of all the particles on Earth and take into account all of the factors such as energy comming from the sun, cosmic radiation, etc. one could predict exactly what would happen any time in the future. This is no longer considered to be true as particles are unpredictable, a butterfly in New England flapping its wings could possibly cause a building in Japan to collapse. If we take the example from Jurassic Park, the drop of water on the lady's hand could go either way, it is impossible to predict exactly which way the water will drop if the lady's hand is evenly leveled.
 


<< If we take the example from Jurassic Park, the drop of water on the lady's hand could go either way, it is impossible to predict exactly which way the water will drop if the lady's hand is evenly leveled. >>


Well, if the hand would be evenly leveled and the drop of water would not have any kinetic energy left after reaching the skin, the water would not move at all. It would stay right there, until something would disturb this state. Whatever disturbs it can be very, very small. If we take the hand-example a bit further, and we imagine that the drop of water isn't moving at all. The slightest tremor of the hand, a nearby vein pulsating, it all makes it very hard to predict when and how the drop of water will move.

Anyway, since Heisenberg's uncertainty principle isn't very well understood yet, and therefore many things can still change, it's not unlikely that one day we'll be able to measure and predict in ways we never imagined.

As for the question with which the thread started, the solution lies in the word 'simple':

'Simple' means uncomplicated in form, nature or design, easily understood. Now which is more uncomplicated and easier understood? The body, in which we can observe and predict reactions and other events and measure whatever we want, without the need for special equipment (only the occasional involvement of supercomputers with things like proteinfolding), or an immense number of hydrogen atoms, of which the behaviour of individual atoms is impossible to measure, and perhaps even irrelevant, where a single colliding atom-couple can have far-stretching consequences, which can only be calculated with equipment we currently don't have, unless we take a couple of decades to crunch data?

In this case, the Human body is far easier understood, because the hydrogen atoms require much, much more work before (if) they can be understood.
 
Since I started the post, I might as well put out my 2 cents on the matter!

If you take an almost infinite number of hydrogen atoms bouncing around, it is impossible to predict where an individual atom, or group of atoms is a split second from the initial time. Therefore I would say this is a very complex system. Now, if two of the hydrogen atoms fuse together, forming helium, then you have [(almost infinite) -1] particles floating around. Since there is one less variable in the system, it is simpler.

Humans are mainly composed of 4 low atomic number elements (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and I forget what the 4th is). These "heavier" elements are formed like helium, through the fusion of hydrogen. So if you were to take an almost infinite number of hydrogen atoms, and fuse enough of them together to make all the elements neccessary to "form" a human, you would have significantly less variables in the system. Since you would have less variables in the system, it would be less complex.


It's pretty easy to go from an infinite number of hydrogen atoms, to a system with those same atoms, but with one now a helium atom, and see that it would be less complex. Granted, to go from a system of hydrogen atoms to a human is a jump, but it makes you think "Could it be possible?". The book I mentioned earlier does a much better job of explaining, but I've tried to keep this short and to the point. What does everyone think? Let me know if I need to clarify something also.

 
Fewer variables doesn't make a system less complex... it may even make it more complex if the variables are more complex. Plus, there aren't [ almost infinity ]/16 atoms in our body. If there were, we would be [ almost infinitely ] big.

Depending on the density, the H interactions could be computationally modelled with very low error for a finite period of time. Could you computationally model the interactions with very low error of two humans for any finite period of time? If you could you would be a very rich person.

On the other hand, if you follow your logic hydrogen is more complex. Or you could say it's impossible to completely model the interactions of the hydrogen atoms for any significant amount of time because of heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

So it's all in the way you want to look at it.

BTW, Shalmanese was right about Chaos theory... given a set of simple rules and an input, a system may produce outputs that are wildly different from the same system with the same set of rules given a slightly different input. So, chaos theory states that for such a system with "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions" (a chaotic system), long term predictions about the state of the system are impossible to make. Examples are weather, and the hypothetical hydrogen system. This is different from classical physics where everything is deterministic. In any case, if you look at a chaotic system based on the rules it follows, it is extremely easy to understand. When you look at the state of the system over time, the system may be very hard to understand.
 


<< Well, if the hand would be evenly leveled and the drop of water would not have any kinetic energy left after reaching the skin, the water would not move at all. It would stay right there, until something would disturb this state. Whatever disturbs it can be very, very small. If we take the hand-example a bit further, and we imagine that the drop of water isn't moving at all. The slightest tremor of the hand, a nearby vein pulsating, it all makes it very hard to predict when and how the drop of water will move. >>



Actually, the water would not stay perfectly still. The Uncertainty Principle says that the precise position and velocity of a particle cannot be determined. Now, if the water was perfectly still, its position would be known and velocity would be known, both zero relative to its original state some time in the past. That is where quantum fluxuations happen, what is called zero state fluxuations. The chances of it happening are very small but if you consider the vast number of particles inside that little drop of water, even if one of them experiences a zero state fluxuation, it would move the whole drop of water. And since it is a randum fluxuation, one can never predict which way the particles that experience zero state fluxuation will go or how fast it will go.



<< Anyway, since Heisenberg's uncertainty principle isn't very well understood yet, and therefore many things can still change, it's not unlikely that one day we'll be able to measure and predict in ways we never imagined. >>



The Uncertainty Principle is quite established. It is, to my knowledge, the basis for quantum theory.



<< for the question with which the thread started, the solution lies in the word 'simple':

'Simple' means uncomplicated in form, nature or design, easily understood. Now which is more uncomplicated and easier understood? The body, in which we can observe and predict reactions and other events and measure whatever we want, without the need for special equipment (only the occasional involvement of supercomputers with things like proteinfolding), or an immense number of hydrogen atoms, of which the behaviour of individual atoms is impossible to measure, and perhaps even irrelevant, where a single colliding atom-couple can have far-stretching consequences, which can only be calculated with equipment we currently don't have, unless we take a couple of decades to crunch data?

In this case, the Human body is far easier understood, because the hydrogen atoms require much, much more work before (if) they can be understood. >>



Actually, I'd have to disagree with you on that one. On a macroscopic scale, the human body alone is quite predictable. If a body moves from position (0,0) at velocity 1 x and 1 y it will arrive at position (1,1) in 1 second. However, if you look on a microscopic scale, the complexity of interactions between particles inside a human being is not only impossible to predict, but even calculating the sum over histories (probability) of each particle would be impossible. In contrast, an array of hydrogen atoms, all behaving the same, can be guessed at. By that, I mean their sum over histories can be calculated and the probability of what each hydrogen atom would do can be shown.

Another arguement is that an infinite number of hydrogen atoms would take up an infinite amount of space, with no where to go and no way to change. So it would be quite predicatable.
 
Actually, I would say that a helium atom is significantly more complicated than 2 hydrogen atoms because of the electron proton interaction.



 
I probably shouldn't even try to answer this question, but what the heck.

1. Having or composed of only one thing, element, or part. See Synonyms at pure.
2. Not involved or complicated; easy: a simple task. See Synonyms at easy.
3. Being without additions or modifications; mere: a simple ?yes? or ?no.?
4. Having little or no ornamentation; not embellished or adorned: a simple dress.
5. Not elaborate, elegant, or luxurious. See Synonyms at plain.
6. Unassuming or unpretentious; not affected.


Definition of simple, compliments of Dictionary.com.

If you don't bother considering the actual effects of a nearly infinite amount of hydrogen atoms, then I'd consider the human to be more complex. How many possible reactions can occur from one atom multiplied a google times? Probably far less than the human body's varied atoms which can interact in ways that we still can't completely understand. The human brain itself could probably be considered more complex than a nearly infinite number of hydrogen atoms.

Of course this questions is rhetorical and even if we had an answer, it'd be pretty useless anyway...so perhaps the better question is why does it matter which is simpler?
 
The book that I mentioned in my first post goes over this topic much more in-depth, and has a much better explanation. I would highly recommend this book if you find an interest in this topic, or anything involving chaos theory, AI, evolution, creation, etc. I wouldn't normally recommend a book so highly, but every chapter in this book ends up turning my brain into mush.

A quote from the book that I really liked:
"If we define a religion to be a system of though which contains unprovable statements, so it contains an element of faith, the Godel has taught us that not only is mathematics a religion but it is the only religion able to prove itself to be one."

Ever thought of mathematics as a religion? If it could be, then could all of our "science" be a "religion"?

😉
 
The hydrogen. Afterall, the huge amount of hydrogen that this solar system used to be, collected and transformed itself into billions of human beings eventually😉
 
I'd say that the hydrogen is simpler. After all, we can model the interaction between two hydrogen atoms perfectly well, down to observables. -meaning that for everything we can reliably observe, we can predict it. For things we cannot observe, well, obviously we can't predict those. And if we can't observe it, we generally don't care about it 🙂.

And Heisenberg originally had specific conditions for his Uncertainty Principle. He was talking about electrons. The only media through which we can 'observe' electrons are particles (like photons) whose sizes are roughly that of electrons, or at least as much on the same scale that by observing, we change the course/velocity/position of the particle so that our observation is not complete. The only way to 'observe' something is to bounce it with a particle, which would then hopefully be reflected somewhere where we can see it and then, from this observation of the resultant vector of our observational particle, derive the observed item's position and velocity. (Which really is pretty mind-blowing if you think about it too long. Our sight is really due to billions and billions of photons' being emitted from light sources, bouncing off of (well really, being absorbed and then instantaneously re-emitted by) the atoms in an object and then travelling through our pupils onto our retinas, where the photons' interactions with the vision cells cause a chemical reaction which is then combined from millions of signals into something that our brains can properly interpret. It's really unfathomably complex.)

Anyway, a photon is *much* smaller than a Hydrogen atom, so that we *can* state with X percent certainty that a Hydrogen atom is at this point and is travelling with this much velocity. Generalizations of Heisenberg's theory can be dangerous (as can any generalization, I suppose). But, the statement that the process of observing something will change that something is generally valid. To what extent this change takes place is a matter worth considering, and if it really doesn't have a significant effect (i.e. viewing a basketball with our eyes via the medium of photons doesn't change the basketball in any meaningful way), then we can ignore it.

Referring back to my first paragraph, we now see that the only things that we can really observe about the Hydrogen atoms are finite, well-defined, and easily measured: position, velocity/energy, state of its electron (i.e. whether it's excited or not), and maybe a few more, but these things are really the only things that we could *care about* in a Hydrogen atom. There may be many other things going on with its components such as quarks and sub-quarks, and perverse things that we don't even know about. However, the things that we *do* know about are easily measured and are, for the time being, the only things we care about. Furthermore, these characteristics come about through interactions that we know and have studied, so that they are deterministic in today's science. We *know* that hitting two H atoms together at X and Y velocities at Z angle will result in their going away from each other at X', Y', and Z'. Even given 'random' processes such as the 'zero state fluctuations' mentioned, we could predict the probabilities of those happening and, given those probabilities, give a list of final states, each with a given probability.

Given that, the interactions between a finite number (the phrase 'nearly infinite' is meaningless) of Hydrogen atoms whose initial velocities, directions, and energies are known, which take place in a closed system with set rules of gravitation, motion, etc., would be completely determined by a finite number of calculations. (The problem's being incalculable by today's technology is meaningless. As long as you can prove that something can be determined in a *finite* number of steps, it is proven that it can be determined -- even if "finite" is a number too large for human comprehension.) However, the same could be said of a human body; after all, there's only a finite number of particles, all of which must interact in pre-determined ways. Therefore I think the Hydrogen is simpler because there's only one calculation that must be iterated many times to reach a solution, while for a human body there are many different, interacting calculations.

Which brings me to Weyoun's post. I have been skating the deterministic/free-will line for a long time now. Whenever I think about it, logic always brings me back to the conclusion that there is no free will, and everything is determined in the universe. (The same result is obtained by even a mildly logical walk-through of Christian beliefs.) So I guess that what it really comes down to is the following:

Do you believe that there exist phenomena in the universe which are not explainable by logical processes, whether they be chaos-theory, probabilistic, or deterministic? In other words, do you believe in miracles?

If not, you must come to terms with the fact that you have no free will and everything that you do in your life is pre-determined. If so, then you can believe that you have free will. 🙂 And yet, regardless of your stand, I *defy* you to tell me that you really and truly believe that you have no free will. This is what I call "God's (or Nature's) Joke": that we don't have free will, but we all irrationally believe that we do.

Also, if you conclude that miracles *can* happen, then you should also have no problem accepting religion, because accepting one irrationality is the same as accepting a bunch of it. 🙂

And RaiderJ, I do believe that science/rationality/mathematics is a religion, and have believed so for a long time. When I considered myself a Christian, I used such an argument to bash my athiest friends who would never leave me alone about God. For if you believe that everything can be proven by a rational process, how is that any different from believing that God exists? They're both assumptions which must be taken on faith.

BTW I haven't really ever read anything on chaos theory per se. Any recommendations on basic literature?
 
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