# Does the "heat death" make life possible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486 "2010-02-26T03:55:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![kaneslatranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kaneslatranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaneslatranz)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/121 "2010-03-02T19:01:23Z")
Some more official heat death gas tank analogy than my own… > **[Universe Closer To Heat Death Than Once Thought - Slashdot](https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/26/145223/Universe-Closer-To-Heat-Death-Than-Once-Thought)** > > TapeCutter writes "In a paper soon to be published (PDF) in the Astrophysical Journal, Australian researchers have estimated the entropy of the universe is about 30 times higher than previous estimates. According to their research, super-massive... ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/122 "2010-03-02T19:53:19Z")
> [@kaneslatranz](#): > > Hello, Yumblie. Well my point is that the death of a star is considered to be the heat death in progress, and without the death of stars as is already known certainly by scientists if not by everyone out there, there would also be no earth or life. I mean, the death of stars relates to both evolution and the eventual proposed end of the universe. > > I have seen that there are a lot of people who see evolution taking place by chance in a disordered universe, which of course it is, yet what many of them don’t see is that life occurs both in spite of the finite nature of all forms and because of it. Viewed this way, I think its somewhat less depressing. Like they realize that stars form the elements that support life but what many of them, perhaps other than scientists, don’t seem to connect is that within the context of that star and in the context of the hypothetically expendable universe, in producing elements that support life, stars are also the aging and death of the universe in progress. > So I think that the proposed heat death and the processes that facilitate life are related and that a lot of people don’t see this connection? To me that means that at least if that hypothesis is correct it also makes life possible? Within the context of the heat death scenario, the alternative would be that the proposed heat death is separate from stars aging and dying, which I don’t think is true. > > Your car runs out of gas but does so by taking you where you’re going kind of thing. Again, heat death is the _end_ of the universe. You might as well say the sun blowing up into a red giant and vaporizing all the inner planets is responsible for life on Earth. It clearly isn’t, and in fact will be responsible for _ending_ life on Earth. The entropic increase leading to heat death will in fact also extinguish the possibility of life in the entire universe, due to there being no more usable energy. The heat death scenario makes life _impossible_, not possible. If you want to give a name to stars creating the elements that make life possible, you might want to refer to it the life cycle of stars, or stellar recycling, or something. This is what the “We are star stuff” refers to. Heat death is irrelevant and would happen even if there were no stars in the universe at all. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2010, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/123 "2010-03-03T00:48:05Z")
All this beating around the bush just so we can find out all your after is a lesser depressing view of the fate of the universe? :dubious: You know you’ll be dead _way_ before that right? I’d say you have more pressing, local affairs to worry about. ---
**Author:** ![kaneslatranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kaneslatranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaneslatranz)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/124 "2010-03-04T15:49:57Z")
I do see your point, especially about the title. I am thinking something more fair and accurate that might get the point across might be Could We Exist if There Was No Heat Death? To be fair it is rather a lot to contemplate. Sorry to have offended your delicate sensibilities, Cmyk. As for my dying prior to the heat death, wouldn’t that apply to any examination of it at all? Something that I was thinking about is that while a heat death does seem likely I do think there is an intuitive basis for serious consideration of the possibility that that may not be the last word. By that I mean simply by considering the extent to which nature recycles and the extent to which that makes complex order possible. Stars age and can produce the elements for life, and they die and can disperse those elements as well as resulting in a planet such as ours where life is possible. The sun expends its energy and supports life and cells die to keep us healthy and alive, for a time, and organic matter facilitates soil which supports organisms, and organisms rise and reproduce and fall away within the species and cultures that carry on and evolve into new species and cultures. So the universe is characterized by all these finite forms that result in new, often more complex forms. In that sense I would not be surprised then if the universe itself as one all encompassing finite form, will recycle. I do think that, especially considering how nature pulls off this trick of employing entropy in evolution, for myself at least, it does not honestly seem unreasonable to consider that there might be an element of intention in our largely random universe. I do think it’s a hell of a trick especially as added to the question of why, for that matter, anything exists at all. ---
**Author:** ![kaneslatranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kaneslatranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaneslatranz)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/125 "2010-03-04T16:24:02Z")
I have realized that my behavior here has been less than exemplary. I have felt quite bad about it. It was not intentional and is not typical of me. I did no deliberate beating around the bush. I was insecure and freaked out. So I have apologized and do so again now. At some point you live and learn and move on. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/126 "2010-03-04T17:50:41Z")
> [@kaneslatranz](#): > > I do see your point, especially about the title. I am thinking something more fair and accurate that might get the point across might be Could We Exist if There Was No Heat Death? To be fair it is rather a lot to contemplate. Again, the problem with talking about Heat Death, it’s easy to imagine a scenario that avoids the heat death while still having the universe work pretty much the same way as it does now - with the second law holding at least on a star system scale. Again, see my post #42. > [@](#): > > I do think that, especially considering how nature pulls off this trick of employing entropy in evolution, for myself at least, it does not honestly seem unreasonable to consider that there might be an element of intention in our largely random universe. I do think it’s a hell of a trick especially as added to the question of why, for that matter, anything exists at all. My main objection to this view is that it’s lopsided. **Everything** that happens in the universe increases overall entropy in the long term - life included. But increase in entropy doesn’t necessarily lead to life. It’s a much more general principle. You can’t really deduce anything from the 2nd law except that everything will eventually run out of energy. For instance, I can imagine a universe where stars convert all their mass into energy in a day. This is a very efficient way to increase entropy. But I would be hard pressed to come up with any kind of way for life to occur in that kind of universe. The preconditions for our kind of life are dependent on specific details of the origin of the universe (mostly hydrogen and helium that’s not completely uniformly distributed, for instance) and the physical laws/constants like the strength of gravity and such like, which result in the 1st generation stars that create and scatter the rest the material that’s useful to make planets we like, with still enough stuff left over to make stars again. If you want to make an argument for intent, _that_ would seem to me to be much more convincing than the fact that all the processes that lead to planets etc increase entropy, given that **everything** increases entropy. ---
**Author:** ![kaneslatranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kaneslatranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaneslatranz)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/127 "2010-03-04T18:20:53Z")
Hi, Superfluous. I will, finally, have a look at that post. I was thinking that you might be mentioning the steady state theory, in which if I’m not mistaken, stars are continually produced, so no heat death despite the existence of entropy. You may already see that what has me going is that nature turns the death of all forms into new things, including forms of greater complexity, including us. I would even go so far as that I think it’s sort of… bizarre, that stars happen to create life stuff. So we may just disagree ultimately. Um, are you the person who had a thread about agnosticism, or was that someone else on here? I really liked the multiple choice nature of the initial question in the thread because I have long viewed that question in those terms, that there are gradations of belief for or against and that I think any of us can fluctuate within that spectrum. Anyway. I will finally look at post # 42. I really behaved like a jack ass here as I think I have mentioned. Not my finest hour. ---
**Author:** ![kaneslatranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kaneslatranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaneslatranz)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/128 "2010-03-04T18:24:11Z")
Yes. Point taken. Again I do at least refer to the heat death repeatedly as a hypothesis, and address my whole line of thinking about the heat death in those terms. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/129 "2010-03-04T18:32:07Z")
> [@kaneslatranz](#): > > Um, are you the person who had a thread about agnosticism, or was that someone else on here? I really liked the multiple choice nature of the initial question in the thread because I have long viewed that question in those terms, that there are gradations of belief for or against and that I think any of us can fluctuate within that spectrum. Anyway. I will finally look at post # 42. I really behaved like a jack ass here as I think I have mentioned. Not my finest hour. Yeah, I posted that poll about agnosticism. Glad you liked it 🙂 As for behaving like a jack ass - it’s just that I (and I think most people who post in **Great Debates** ) like to have a _debate_, which sort of necessarily includes bringing up counter arguments to claims, and if the “other side” isn’t willing to respond to the counter arguments I think that’s just rude. Don’t take the objections too personally, the arguments here are usually fairly civil (except for some of the politics or religious discussions). ---
**Author:** ![kaneslatranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kaneslatranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaneslatranz)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/130 "2010-03-05T00:55:33Z")
Right. Like I mentioned I kind of freaked out. Then suddenly at some point I saw it all clearly and felt horrid. Then I’m like well that’s life, you know? lol! Did you come up with the multiple choice questions or did you find it somewhere because I have had such a notion in my head for awhile. Like I was once a pretty entrenched atheist but am not anymore and I think atheists have moments of doubt as do religious people and I think we might all go through different phases of belief in our lives generally too. Have to dash but will check back. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2010, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/131 "2010-03-05T01:30:04Z")
> [@kaneslatranz](#): > > Right. Like I mentioned I kind of freaked out. Then suddenly at some point I saw it all clearly and felt horrid. Then I’m like well that’s life, you know? lol! Did you come up with the multiple choice questions or did you find it somewhere because I have had such a notion in my head for awhile. Like I was once a pretty entrenched atheist but am not anymore and I think atheists have moments of doubt as do religious people and I think we might all go through different phases of belief in our lives generally too. Have to dash but will check back. I posted the poll mostly just to get a sense of what other people thought - and it worked at least in the sense that more people voted in the “middle” than I expected. I’m sure atheists (in general) aren’t as certain of their disbelieve all the time, but that is really a subject for another thread. For example, I could maybe be persuaded that there is a god, but it would be much harder to persuade me to worship it. If you want to take that line of thinking further, you really should start a new thread. ---
**Author:** ![kaneslatranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kaneslatranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaneslatranz)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/132 "2013-06-29T15:12:42Z")
Entropy is being redefined in introductory text books of chemistry and physics. No longer defined simply by the confusing term of “disorder” to which it does relate but by which it is inadequately defined, it is now being summed up as energy dispersal. And there are many ways in which the second law make evolution and life possible. “Energetically, the second law of thermodynamics favors the formation of the majority of all known complex and ordered chemical compounds from the simpler elements. Thus, contrary to popular opinion, the second law does not dictate the decrease of ordered structure in its predictions, it only demands a “spreading out” of energy in all processes.”–Frank L. Lambert, [http://entropysite.oxy.edu/](http://entropysite.oxy.edu/) ---
**Author:** ![kaneslatranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kaneslatranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaneslatranz)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486/133 "2013-06-29T15:14:24Z")
Frustration. I queried a science question and answer service regarding a major aspect of my new book, Could a “Heat Death” be Necessary for Life?, for a little confirmation. Confirmation I received, but he does not want his name dropped in a book. Kind of regret asking his permission. But I never mentioned posting it online. =D “Since stars are very close to being isolated systems, the second law of thermodynamics states that their entropy can only grow with time. Therefore you are right that the production of helium and heavier elements (in their core) out of hydrogen, and the final explosion of massive stars as supernovae can be viewed as particular instances of the thermodynamic arrow of time.” Alexandre Le Tiec MCFP Postdoctoral Fellow in the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics at University of Maryland, College Park, working in the field of theoretical astrophysics. And mah book… [https://www.createspace.com/4324969](https://www.createspace.com/4324969) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-heat-death-make-life-possible/530486.md?page=6)