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The Idea of Entropy Has Led Us Astray

• jaekash 6y ago
  Nope.
  • deleted 6y ago
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• m4r35n357 6y ago
  Nice bit of post-modern bollocks to fuel the anti-science mob. [Hint] An honest scientist would have written this up in a paper, not a blog.
• s9w 6y ago
  This article is the same handwaving anti-science hogwash routinely found in philosophy departments that talk about quantum mechanics. They twist words and force connections where there are none because they want to talk about things they don't understand. No, the laws of thermodynamics are not based on sociology.
  • boyadjian 6y ago
    Totally agree. Physics laws, and especially thermodynamics laws, are intangible. But here, many people in the world, wrongly think, that we can escape them, and replace them by "good willing".
• dr_dshiv 6y ago
  Entropy is a difficult concept to understand. This was a well-written article that explained nothing and further muddied the waters. What is perhaps not appreciated is how the idea of entropy completely transformed our society by unleashing massive amounts of mechanical efficiency. This free energy is derived from contrast -- power comes from flow across a gradient. I wonder where the analogies work or where they fail. For instance, the importance of contrasts seem to illustrate the value of cultural differences (diversity) and raises concerns about a homogeneous world culture.
  • Chris2048 6y ago
    > For me, this illustrates the value of cultural differences (diversity) Are you talking about cultural differences in the same sense as a temperature gradient?
    • dr_dshiv 6y ago
      Yes, I am, precisely. The basis would be Ronald Burt's idea of "Structural Holes", which describe the phenomenon whereby those people that "bridge" different groups of people are able to gain value from the information arbitrage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_holes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_holes Does it apply to cultural diversity? Who knows. But somehow, I feel like we want a future where differences are strengths -- and yet at the same time, the value of the differences comes from the bridging of them. Monoculture is dangerous for resilience, in any case.
  • contravariant 6y ago
    The jump to diversity is a bit iffy. Even taking for granted that this provides a similar gradient then all you can really guarantee is that it will cause something. This could be both good and bad. Also if it works in the same way then it will only work at the cost of diversity, the second law of thermodynamics makes sure of that. So yeah, I'm not sure if your analogy works, and if it did I'm not sure if it would be useful.
    • Majromax 6y ago
      For social-science applications, I think the information-theoretic notion of entropy is more appropriate. There's no social analog to the laws of thermodynamics, but we can use the notion of entropy to make statements about information content. In particular, the idea (along with the adjacent subject of Bayesian statistics) has sharpened my thinking about news: there's less information (to me) in otherwise trustworthy headlines/stories that agree with my prior notions. In an analytic sense this isn't surprising, but it runs against the emotional impulse to seek out affirming information.
• apocalypstyx 6y ago
  Really, by the end, the author has reversed the situation to do the very thing complained of: science used to assuage the mores and anxieties of a given time. The issue, however, is that the underlying anxiety (whether in the Victorian Era or now) is the same: the desire that the future be eternal and the same as now, if not more so. So we don't even need to buy a new car or leave our homes. If we do nothing, surely the world won't move beneath our feet. Vast as it is, surely we can pretend the universe the opposite of a closed system.
• im3w1l 6y ago
  So one philosophical issue I've had with entropy is that it is based on probability. But it is applied even to non-quantum systems that evolve in a deterministic fashion. How can we talk about the uncertainty of a system that is in a single, well known, predictable state? And with many-worlds interpretation, even the quantum wavefunctions evolve in a deterministic manner. How can we reconcile this? We can say that the system is not probabilistic, but it is approximately probabilistic. If it is only approximately true, does that mean we can find a loophole in the laws of thermodynamics?
  • d-sc 6y ago
    Entropy is only kinda about probability. >How can we talk about the uncertainty of a system that is in a single, well known, predictable state. The system we are usually talking about is orders of magnitude larger than the uncertainty. Think a liter of gasoline in an engine vs the position of a single atom. While we might not know the trajectory of the atom, we have a pretty good idea how the collective atoms that make up the gasoline will function.
    • im3w1l 6y ago
      > we have a pretty good idea how the collective atoms that make up the gasoline will function. Yes, and that idea is based on theories assuming things are probabilistic. Thus bringing us back to my second paragraph. That falsely assuming things are probabilistic works very well in practice. But it may break down under certain conditions, and there may be loopholes. Edit to add: I think this whole thing is very related to pseudo random number generators and keystretching. Maybe computability theory too. If you have a 1gig file generated from a 128bit seed, then the apparent uncertainty (1gig) is much higher than the actual uncertainty (128bit). But since it's so very hard to undo the prng, it will behave very closely to something with 1gig of actual uncertainty. Edit to add again: A fun thought experiment is someone "encrypting" chemical energy into heat, putting the key in a box, only to later go back and decrypt it back into chemical energy.
      • gcthomas 6y ago
• Causality1 6y ago
  I don't think this article does nearly enough work to support its claim that a misunderstood belief in entropy is responsible for human greed, a claim which I think is dead wrong. Most people don't have a misunderstanding of entropy because most people have no knowledge of the concept whatsoever. You don't need the second law of thermodynamics to make human beings shortsighted fools. We've been doing that for millennia.
• evdev 6y ago
  I was going to rant, but this: > The energy-driven reduction of entropy is easy to demonstrate in simple laboratory experiments, but more to the point, stars, biological populations, organisms, and societies are all systems in which energy is routinely harnessed to generate orderly structures that have lower entropy than the constituents from which they were built. There is nothing physically inevitable about increasing entropy in any of these systems. is so straightforwardly incorrect that it frankly just should not have been published.
  • mtgp1000 6y ago
    I would argue that what the author said is somewhat true, in that life can be roughly separated from nonlife by the observation that organisms do appear to tend toward less entropy in a universe where everything else seemingly does the opposite. Genetically coded beings are orderly structures with far fewer microstates than their molecular constituents would likely contain otherwise. And we tend to make copies of ourselves, giving order to otherwise chaotic matter. I think there's a profoundness in there, somewhere. Such a definition also solves the virus conundrum!
    • macspoofing 6y ago
      >in that life can be roughly separated from nonlife by the observation that organisms do appear to tend toward less entropy in a universe where everything else seemingly does the opposite. In a superficial way, I suppose, but it's still wrong. Another way to look at it is that life actually tends to a more efficient increase of entropy than otherwise would be expected (when compared to non-living processes). For examples, humans are a complex chemical reaction that has reached the point where it can release energy through splitting of atoms - which raises entropy so much higher than it would be been possible otherwise and completely impossible via non-living chemical reactions.
      • bitcurious 6y ago
        What happens to this metaphor when we crack hydrogen fusion?
• m12k 6y ago
  I'd say thermodynamics and entropy describe the woes of our time quite well: Ecologically, we've seen that releasing sequestered carbon into the atmosphere in order to extract its stored energy is a form of entropy that leads to a low energy state which it takes a lot of energy to undo. It's like we've rolled a rock down from the top of a mountain, only to realize how difficult it is to get it back up, how long it had taken for nature to build up all that potential energy over aeons. And economically, we're seeing that capitalism itself seems to be a process of entropy, moving us toward low-energy states with wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer, much like stars forming from cosmic dust creating gravity wells into which other material becomes more and more likely to fall. Not to mention between tax havens and transfer pricing, we seem to be waking to the fact that our economic system is not a closed system, but is slowly getting the fuel siphoned out of it.
• macspoofing 6y ago
  I'm scratching my head trying to understand what the author is trying to say. It feels like he doesn't like the idea of entropy for political and ideological reasons. Reminds me of Soviet support for Lamarckianism. I take his point about misapplying scientific theories to socio-economic policies, and entropic thinking certainly can be misapplied in domains where it doesn't make sense ... but is that our problem today? Entropy is not part of the cultural and mainstream consciousness like Darwinism is. If anything, we don't take the idea of entropy seriously enough.
  • drcode 6y ago
    I kind of share the authors dislike for the concept of entropy, at an instinctual level. But the fact remains that we know that energy is conserved, but there is still something happening as time progresses, where the world is changing from one state into another. Calling this difference "entropy" seems like the only solution, even if the definition for entropy is hard to really get comfortable with. (Though I appreciate it can be made very rigorous for specific physical calculations)
  • aeternum 6y ago
    It seems like he is arguing for more environmentalism because the less energy we use, the longer it will take to reach the heat death of the universe? It's a pretty ridiculous way of looking at things since any human activity is still an exceedingly insignificant entropy gain, even if looking only at our solar system.
    • fsckboy 6y ago
      not to mention and speaking as a human, human activity is the only justifiable reason to support entropy gain. Like, what else is enthalpy worth to us? so the universe can be here longer without us? (assuming we had any say in the matter)
  • Izkata 6y ago
    > Entropy is not part of the cultural and mainstream consciousness like Darwinism is. Taking advantage of this to drop one of my favorite book series (though I'm a few books behind): _Young Wizards_ [0], where wizards exist in-universe to fight entropy, so that the universe can continue to exist as long as possible. The series is possibly best known by the name of the first book, _So You Want to Be a Wizard_, which for a long time I thought was the name of the series. (Another interesting thing about this series is that magic is treated as a programming language for reality, a few books in going so far as referring to subroutines, variables, and so on) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Wizards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Wizards
• at_a_remove 6y ago
  This bit "Thermodynamic theories served a society committed to laissez-faire competition." is just ... I don't know where to begin. Of course it inevitably leads into the idea that if we had just thought differently about the "sense of energy" and whatnot, things would be different. It has the ominous hint of Irigaray's bit about E=mc^2 being sexist because it "privileges" the speed of light ... No, physics is always there, and it doesn't matter if the original science was done by cutthroat capitalists or gulag-exiling communists. If you want a decent sociological perspective of the realities of physics, I would instead suggest building on just how uncomfortable a given reality seems to make some, everything else is window dressing and justifications.
• brummm 6y ago
  A non-physicist writing about entropy most often leads to a incorrect article full of slightly incorrect statements and misunderstandings. Case in point this article.
• hummo56 6y ago
  I am still confused by the notion of entropy being unorder. I think there was an article about this being a common misunderstanding.
  • sarah180 6y ago
    Here's the best way I know to explain it, paraphrasing Stephen Hawking: Imagine taking a picture puzzle that you'd completed, putting it in your clothes dryer, and turning on the tumbler. I think you and I can both safely say that you'd get out a jumbled mess of pieces with little to no resemblance to the completed puzzle. Now imagine taking a disassembled picture puzzle and putting it in your tumbler. You and I would both be very surprised if what came out was a correctly completed puzzle. Mathematically, there is only one way that the pieces of the puzzle can all position themselves correctly to solve that puzzle. There are a huge number of ways those pieces can position themselves that don't solve the puzzle. This is, mathematically, what is meant by "order" and "disorder." It means the system is in a configuration that is more– or less-constrained state. A more classical version of this is to say that if you have a divided box with oxygen on one side and nitrogen on the other, this has a lower entropy than the same box where the oxygen and nitrogen are intermixed. Removing the divider from a box where they're separate will lead to them mixing, but removing the divider from a box where they're mixed will not lead to them separating. There are more configurations where the gases are mixed than where they are separate. There are some subtleties when you look deeper at what it really means to be in a constrained state and how this interacts with quantum mechanics, but this is a reasonably accurate picture of how entropy works.
• golemotron 6y ago
  I won't claim the author is mathematically illiterate. I don't know. But this is where math shines. Show the equation and how it it models the phenomenon. Match it against measurements. If it doesn't match, make another model. Without that, talking about entropy as if it isn't a useful way of conceptualizing phenomena is just word soup.
• seemslegit 6y ago
  Nautilus writers are the first to lose their jobs to GPT-3 and not have the readership notice.
• dehrmann 6y ago
  I've always found entropy to be one of the most depressing things in science.
  • noobermin 6y ago
    You should read the article then because his point is that things aren't closed systems to begin with.
• epx 6y ago
  Disorder is the order we don't want :)
• syrrim 6y ago
  A very boring article. The thesis is potentially interesting, but fails to get any real attention from the author. The author proposes to investigate the negative social and political consequences of the framing of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but puts no actual effort towards such an investigation. Kelvin and Darwin are presented as equally consequent of a Victorian worldview, whereas they seem to propose opposing tendencies. Darwin describes a world of growth, and creation ex nihilo, whereas Kelvin describes a world of cooling and decay. The social implications of the Darwinian thesis seem to involve preferencing the creators and inventors of the world, while accepting the loss of those who stagnate as not only inevitable, but necessary towards producing growth. Kelvin's theory states that there is a limited amount of free energy in the world, which we might take to imply that those with a disproportionate share of resources are hoarding them and keeping them away from others. This seems to promote a world of redistribution and socialization. An agrarian worldview would seem to preference a hotter world, since plants rely on a high outside temperature to grow. We also know that photosynthesis can be performed more efficiently at high CO2 concentrations. An entropic worldview prefers colder external temperature, since efficiency of a heat engine increases with temperature difference. I've seen proposed, as a resolution to the fermi paradox, that certain civilizations are waiting for the universe to cool down in order to perform computations more efficiently. Such a proposal could only arise out of a worldview informed by entropy, of waiting in order to more efficiently use the finite resources we have available. The evolutionary worldview, by way of contrast, suggests that waiting entails to stagnation, and ultimately destruction, that success goes to whoever is most nimble. I would percieve a congruency between a worldview informed by entropy and modern liberalism, which seems to heavily favour the principles of waiting and of redistribution. Conservatism seems more in favour of an evolutionary worldview, wherever it believes that someone well off deserves what they have, or wherever it perceives a competition between groups. It should be clear that both worldviews have some relation with the real world, that both decay and growth are happening around us constantly. I, personally, would highlight the evolutionary thesis as more hopeful, in that it imagines still greater things to come, rather than the slow decay characteristic of the entropic model. I would also point out it likely has stronger relevance for the foreseeable future, since the death of the sun, much less of the universe, remains an inordinately long way off still. I would therefore tend to agree with the thesis of the author, though for none of the reasons they set out to defend.
• noobermin 6y ago
  A very good article, although I think the deeper point that isn't really said explicitly is essentially how scientists (physicists in particular) are often too fond of their models and forget that they are idealizations of the real world. Whether a system really is isolated (they never are) is a serious contingency scientists often forget, but we can extend this to essentially forgetting the applicability of all hosts of accepted theory. This point of view has been called reductionism by some philosophers, and it has value in some cases but tends to overestimate the complexity of the real world. It's important to remember that all models are approximations.
• kilpikaarna 6y ago
  Lol. Lots of comments getting all huffy at someone daring to look at physics from a humanities perspective. The basic idea is that the theory was worked out in a certain time and space where the social conditions were suitable to it. And that they form a feedback loop where the theory will reinforce those social conditions. It doesn't mean that the theory is somehow "wrong", or that the equations don't make useful predictions about observable systems. It really not that esoteric. Nor a threat to any of the science itself. Really, anyone throwing up their arms in disgust at this article would do well to read up on some basic philosophy of science. Pick up an entry-level college textbook. Hell, just look up the definition of "theory" and really think about it for a few minutes.