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Why is the sock on the ground an example of lost energy? Maybe dropping it results in extra work required to pick it up. But leaving it on the floor is no furth

Why is the sock on the ground an example of lost energy? Maybe dropping it results in extra work required to pick it up. But leaving it on the floor is no further energy loss.

prox 4y ago
It is more of an example. Say you drop a sock and other clothing items every day, you will be swamped in clothing soon. -If you lived with people a lot, you know these types exist. And it might point to a behavior where you let things be (in an entropic state) which could spiral out of control, where the amount of work to fix it (negentropy) is a big energy expenditure and needs more and more effort to organize.
retrac 4y ago
Clutter really ought to be considered a sort of mental energy trap. It takes energy to avoid it, to physically shuffle it around, and it simply saps mood. I used to think I was immune to such effects, but I'm not. It's most obvious after cleaning up from a really bad to a really nice state. A space that can be bright and inviting eventually ends up claustrophobic and repellent. An enormous amount of mental and physical energy goes into either shuffling or mentally avoiding engaging with the mess. I've known people who literally seem blind to it -- but they don't trip over their indoor obstacle courses -- burning energy there both literally and figuratively. One sock is the start!
- euroderf 4y ago
  100% this. A cluttered living space seems to make it near impossible to think clearly. The obvious proof of this is that spending two or three hours straightening up a cluttered room - organizing it and cleaning it down to the dust on the molding - creates a fresh ecosystem where suddenly a lightness of thought, a lightness of being, drifts in and settles down, brushing away and flushing away mental clutter too.
- bawolff 4y ago
  That may all be true, but i think its an argument that physics entropy is bad metaphor for human "energy", and doesn't really match.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    You think it doesn't match because you're limiting your mental filters to the energy you've already spent in your own life. But instead lets go to someone else's house where you've not already spent one side of the energy equation. How much information do you need to find a particular pair of socks? Indexes in a database take processing power and IOPS to generate, more than dumping it on the disk without an index. Much in the same way, taking your socks and putting them in a drawer takes more energy than dropping them at some random distance between the dryer and the drawer. But when it comes to finding the socks again use of the index (drawer) can save orders of magnitude more energy and time. In someone else's house its going to take far less information if they can point you at a particular drawer rather than you performing an exhaustive search. There is a direct correlation here, but I won't say it's obvious as the idea that we live in an entropy driven world is a rather recent human discovery when looked at cross human history.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - bawolff 4y ago
      I think it doesn't match because i don't think that amount of information required to find something in your home is what is zapping "energy". As a thought experiment, imagine your house is fully organized, every sock in its draw. However there is garbage strewn all over the floor and everything is dirty. Would that be an energizing environment for you? Why not, after all, you can easily describe where everything of interest is, the house is just dirty not cluttered.
      - ephbit 4y ago
        And I think the distinction between A dirty and B cluttered is not useful in this context. Any desired and pleasant state (clean/uncluttered/...) of the surroundings which has to be willfully (and through expenditure of energy/work) defended against inevitable spontaneous deterioration is really a victim of the exact same effect: almost all non-living things constantly deteriorate (atoms moving from where they were purposefully put to make things work to unintended places), with only few exceptions. Such as things that develop patina, but that too is really only a certain state of things on their way towards defect.
pixl97 4y ago
Because you're only looking at half the duty cycle here. Let's use an extreme example just to bring the point home. You're baking and you need a cup of sugar. Which of the following takes less energy. 1. Going to the sugar bin and scooping a single cup of sugar from it. 2. Having sugar particles spread chaotically across your house and being forced to collect them haphazardly until you have a cup of sugar. State 1 requires for less information to describe the state, and thermodynamics teaches us that information=energy. A more real life example here would be telling a child to go put on their red socks. If all socks are kept in the sock drawer then you can compress color out of the information you need to keep track of to know where socks are, in fact you only need one location state kept. But instead of the kids room is a mess they'll either have to remember that one red sock is under the bed or begin an exhaustive search (check bathroom floor, check closet, finally check under bed) which is highly energy intensive and generally takes far longer, aggravating parents in a hurry.

Why is the sock on the ground an example of lost energy? Maybe dropping it results in extra work required to pick it up. But leaving it on the floor is no further energy loss.

prox 4y ago

It is more of an example. Say you drop a sock and other clothing items every day, you will be swamped in clothing soon. -If you lived with people a lot, you know these types exist. And it might point to a behavior where you let things be (in an entropic state) which could spiral out of control, where the amount of work to fix it (negentropy) is a big energy expenditure and needs more and more effort to organize.

retrac 4y ago

Clutter really ought to be considered a sort of mental energy trap. It takes energy to avoid it, to physically shuffle it around, and it simply saps mood. I used to think I was immune to such effects, but I'm not. It's most obvious after cleaning up from a really bad to a really nice state. A space that can be bright and inviting eventually ends up claustrophobic and repellent. An enormous amount of mental and physical energy goes into either shuffling or mentally avoiding engaging with the mess. I've known people who literally seem blind to it -- but they don't trip over their indoor obstacle courses -- burning energy there both literally and figuratively. One sock is the start!

euroderf 4y ago
100% this. A cluttered living space seems to make it near impossible to think clearly. The obvious proof of this is that spending two or three hours straightening up a cluttered room - organizing it and cleaning it down to the dust on the molding - creates a fresh ecosystem where suddenly a lightness of thought, a lightness of being, drifts in and settles down, brushing away and flushing away mental clutter too.
bawolff 4y ago
That may all be true, but i think its an argument that physics entropy is bad metaphor for human "energy", and doesn't really match.
- pixl97 4y ago
  You think it doesn't match because you're limiting your mental filters to the energy you've already spent in your own life. But instead lets go to someone else's house where you've not already spent one side of the energy equation. How much information do you need to find a particular pair of socks? Indexes in a database take processing power and IOPS to generate, more than dumping it on the disk without an index. Much in the same way, taking your socks and putting them in a drawer takes more energy than dropping them at some random distance between the dryer and the drawer. But when it comes to finding the socks again use of the index (drawer) can save orders of magnitude more energy and time. In someone else's house its going to take far less information if they can point you at a particular drawer rather than you performing an exhaustive search. There is a direct correlation here, but I won't say it's obvious as the idea that we live in an entropy driven world is a rather recent human discovery when looked at cross human history.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bawolff 4y ago
    I think it doesn't match because i don't think that amount of information required to find something in your home is what is zapping "energy". As a thought experiment, imagine your house is fully organized, every sock in its draw. However there is garbage strewn all over the floor and everything is dirty. Would that be an energizing environment for you? Why not, after all, you can easily describe where everything of interest is, the house is just dirty not cluttered.
    - ephbit 4y ago
      And I think the distinction between A dirty and B cluttered is not useful in this context. Any desired and pleasant state (clean/uncluttered/...) of the surroundings which has to be willfully (and through expenditure of energy/work) defended against inevitable spontaneous deterioration is really a victim of the exact same effect: almost all non-living things constantly deteriorate (atoms moving from where they were purposefully put to make things work to unintended places), with only few exceptions. Such as things that develop patina, but that too is really only a certain state of things on their way towards defect.

pixl97 4y ago

Because you're only looking at half the duty cycle here. Let's use an extreme example just to bring the point home. You're baking and you need a cup of sugar. Which of the following takes less energy. 1. Going to the sugar bin and scooping a single cup of sugar from it. 2. Having sugar particles spread chaotically across your house and being forced to collect them haphazardly until you have a cup of sugar. State 1 requires for less information to describe the state, and thermodynamics teaches us that information=energy. A more real life example here would be telling a child to go put on their red socks. If all socks are kept in the sock drawer then you can compress color out of the information you need to keep track of to know where socks are, in fact you only need one location state kept. But instead of the kids room is a mess they'll either have to remember that one red sock is under the bed or begin an exhaustive search (check bathroom floor, check closet, finally check under bed) which is highly energy intensive and generally takes far longer, aggravating parents in a hurry.