Saturday, July 31, 2010

Entropy and the Eternities

Have you ever asked yourself how time works? Why do we keep time on earth but God does not? I ask myself these questions quite frequently and I ponder them often. So why am I telling you this? Well today I was at the mall exchanging a pair of jeans that I bought yesterday for a pair a bit larger. (Marriage is starting to take it's toll) While I was walking out of the mall I noticed a book signing just outside the bookstore and the book they were selling just happened to catch my eye. I wasn't that interested though so I moved on but as fate would have it I was walking the wrong way so I had to turn around and walk past the book again. I was feeling a bit sorry for the guy doing the book signing because there was no one there and he was sitting alone just waiting for someone to want his book. So being the softy that I am I stopped to ask him about his book. I can't remember what the title was but the topic struck something inside me. It had something to do with traveling to other places in the universe through light. The young Prince in the book inherits a space ship made of gold that allows him to travel to different places as long as he is a "faithful knight". Sounds like a good fantasy book so I prod him on a bit and ask him if he does scientific research before he writes or if it is pure fantasy. Of course he does lots of research before he writes and so he shares an idea with me. He rhetorically asks me, what is time? As I'm thinking he responds that he believes time does not exist with out entropy. That became the center of my considerings for the next hour or so until I arrived at somewhat of a concrete conclusion.
For those of you who it's been a while since your last science course, entropy is this: Randomness and disorganization. The second law of thermodynamic states that as you move "forward" in time the entropy of  the universe is always increasing. In other words things become more disorganized as you move forward in time. Even when you organize something your self (such as baking a cake assembling a computer) you are putting in more energy than what is given out and so the net effect is negative. So time does not exist without entropy. Let that sink in for a minute. If things do not become more disorganized (they remain in the same perfected state) then time does not exist. Time for humans is a simply a sequence of events IE the sun comes up and the sun goes down and we have one day. But from an eternal perspective time is measured in terms of entropy. The older your body gets the more it decays and experiences entropy and thus time passes. The three nephites for example don't experience time in this sense. Their body's do not decay and so the only time they experience is in sequences of events. They see decay and entropy around them and so they can measure those events as a sequence in time. 
When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden there was no decay and no entropy in their isolated system and so there was no time. There were only sequences, one thing obviously happens after another but because nothing changes there is no time. This would lead one to believe that the closer man (or the earth) gets to perfection the less you would experience time. A perfect celestial body and earth would, like God, not experience entropy and therefore would not experience time. 
We also learn from Abraham that Kolob is the closest planet to God. On Kolob one day is 1000 years on our earth. According to the above theory, Kolob would be in a more perfect state then our world and that would explain why time moves slower on that planet. Another explanation could be that our earth is decaying at a rate 365,000 times that of Kolob. It would a appear once again that the closer you get to God and perfection that "time" or entropy seems to slow down. 
This is all interesting and I hope it leaves you pondering but it's all really useless if there is not practical application. Maybe you will find your own and thus better you life. Here is my application and you can use it if you want.
Sin and death decay the body. They are spiritual entropy. Christ suffered and died to overcome these two obstacles that we obviously could not overcome on our own. We will all experience death but because of the resurrection we will all live again with an immortal body. In order to overcome sin we need to come unto Christ and let him guide us to perfection. Every time we sin our spirits decay. They move farther away from our Heavenly Father. But because of the atonement we can actually overcome entropy! Sin does not have to move us away from our Father. If we come unto Christ he will help us turn our weaknesses and sin into strength and righteousness. We will move closer to God, perfection and Eternal life. I know this because I can read it in the scriptures and I can see it in my own life. I know this may not make perfect sense but I hope I did a descent enough job that at least you may take something from it.

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