The Second Law of Thermodynamics

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Introduction

The second law of thermodynamics is one of the bedrocks of physics and must not be violated. However, we have identified abilities of the mind that will run directly up against the second law. In this chapter, we will examine the reasons these mind capabilities do not violate the second law.

Raising a Mass with Geometry Locks

Figure 10. A ball hangs from a cord that is three bonds long. Initially, all the air is in the chamber to the left while the chamber to the right is at vacuum. The starting temperature on the right approaches absolute zero, so the ball and the cord atoms are motionless.

Consider an isolated system with two chambers separated by a rigid membrane, as shown in Figure 10. All the air in the system starts in the left chamber. In the right chamber we have a motionless ball hanging by a cord. The cord consists of two atoms and three bonds where the bonds are shown as springs. The starting temperature in the right chamber is absolute zero and the atoms of the cord are motionless.

The rigid membrane separating the chambers now breaks and the warm air expands freely until it fills both chambers. The newly introduced air molecules will now collide with the cord atoms and cause them to start vibrating. We are a mind with governing control over the bonds of the cord.

After the system has reached thermal equilibrium, we decide that we would like to raise the ball. To do this, we first impose a length lock on a bond just as its length is at a vibrational minimum. This shortens the average length of the cord, so the ball will now settle at a higher level than before. Once the ball has settled in at its higher level, we impose a length lock on one of the remaining bonds just as its length reaches a vibrational minimum. This shortens the average length of the cord once more, so the ball now settles at a still higher level. Once the ball has settled in at its new higher level, we impose a third length lock on the last bond, again, just as its length reaches a vibrational minimum. This raises the ball to an even higher level.

So the ball is now higher than it had been before the air entered the chamber to the right. This means the ball now has a higher potential energy than it had initially, which means we now have a store of energy we could use to do work. But where did the energy come from to raise the ball?

Recall that in the beginning, the cord atoms were not vibrating. At that time, it would not have been possible to raise the ball using geometry locks. It was the random thermal motion of the air molecules that provided the energy needed to raise the ball. As the ball was raised, the surrounding gas became cooler because energy drawn from the air was now being stored in the locked bonds of the cord.

We could now release the locks, the ball would fall, and the potential energy stored in the cord bonds would return to the air and raise the temperature of the air back to its original value. At this point, we would have completed one working cycle that could now be repeated. So why is this a problem?

Sub-Thermodynamic Systems

Our conscious mind was able to convert the thermal motion of a system that is at thermal equilibrium and isolated from its surroundings, into useful energy that could do work. This appears to violate common expressions of the second law of thermodynamics. Consider this expression by Max Planck: “It is impossible to construct an engine, which, when working in a complete cycle, will produce no effect other than the raising of a weight and the cooling of a heat source.” It appears that we are in direct violation of this expression, but have we actually violated the second law?

The cord engine described above does not violate the second law of thermodynamics because the system is not a thermodynamic system, and the second law of thermodynamics applies only to thermodynamic systems. By definition, a thermodynamic system can be described by state variables such as pressure, temperature, and internal energy. At no time could this system be properly described by state variables.

Consider that, even after the system as a whole had reached thermal equilibrium, we still could not use state variables to describe the component parts of the engine because the active elements of the engine were the individual atoms and bonds of the cord. The concepts of pressure and temperature do not apply to single atoms being acted upon by a surrounding gas because pressure and temperature are inherently macro concepts. Instead, the cord atoms were being acted upon by individual air molecules one collision at a time.

For this reason, the cord engine responsible for raising the mass was sub-thermodynamic, that is, it operated well below any threshold where the engine process could be considered a thermodynamic process. Because the second law of thermodynamics does not apply at sub-thermodynamic scales, processes sometimes described as impossible actually remain possible.

There is another way to think about this. It was given that the system described was an isolated system. In an isolated system, it is understood that the progression of events within the system is fully determined by the physical laws. This assumption does not apply when there is matter within the system that is governed by a mind.

Because minds are capable of changing outcomes to what otherwise would not have occurred under the physical laws alone, we cannot consider a system to be fully isolated when a mind has governing control over matter within the system.

Because the free will actions of minderelles are carried out at atomic scales, they are sub-thermodynamic, and therefore, they do not violate the second law of thermodynamics. With this in mind, this free will paradigm now accepts that geometry locks make it possible for minderelles to convert surrounding thermal energy into useful energy by dealing with the surrounding energetic particles one collision at a time.

In 1867, the physicist James Clerk Maxwell created a thought experiment that was quite prescient to what we are doing here. Interested readers may wish to look up “Maxwell’s demon” for more information.

Perpetual Motion

If it is possible for minderelles to derandomize thermal motion and convert this energy into useful energy, it follows that geometry locking also makes perpetual motion possible. Perpetual motion engines driven by minds with geometry locking capabilities are sub-thermodynamic, and therefore violate neither the law of energy conservation nor the second law of thermodynamics.

It should be emphasized, however, that the long-held understanding that perpetual motion is not possible has not changed. This understanding was always applied to systems governed by the physical laws, and this understanding remains the same in this free will paradigm.