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>> better turn low entropy into high entropy. I took a double take and thought you'd made a typo, because I've never heard that assessment before. I see what

>> better turn low entropy into high entropy. I took a double take and thought you'd made a typo, because I've never heard that assessment before. I see what you're saying about dissipating heat and work... but life organizes. Most of that wasted heat from any organism is the result of its processing, consolidating and transmitting information. Which is probably the only counter-entropic (extropic) process we can observe in the universe. My view has always been that life fights against entropy.

donny2018 3y ago
>but life organizes Yes, and that's the interesting part. In the right circumstances, more entropy doesn't mean less complexity. Matter can become more complex and less entropy locally if that results in increase of total entropy in the system. This can occur, for example, if we have constant flow of concentrated energy on some local areas of the environment that continuously wants to spread out. Because the system as a whole "wants" to maximize its entropy as fast as it can, and it statistically "searches" for the shortest paths possible. This may result in natural occurrence of more and more complex molecules that dissipate heat more and more efficiently. It's like the planet's atmospheric processes, for example. Where differences in heat concentration don't just spread out in linear gradients but can form complex structures like vortexes, hurricanes or even stable geometric hexagons (like the famous hexagon storm on Saturn), etc. >My view has always been that life fights against entropy. Yes, it "fights" against entropy to exist, but it exists solely by processing low entropy into high entropy. Maybe that's why it even exists in the first place? This part is better addressed in Jeremy England's work, for more basic explanations you can refer to videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfLZSL7YGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfLZSL7YGw (it's a very good video on this topic by PBS)

donny2018 3y ago

>but life organizes Yes, and that's the interesting part. In the right circumstances, more entropy doesn't mean less complexity. Matter can become more complex and less entropy locally if that results in increase of total entropy in the system. This can occur, for example, if we have constant flow of concentrated energy on some local areas of the environment that continuously wants to spread out. Because the system as a whole "wants" to maximize its entropy as fast as it can, and it statistically "searches" for the shortest paths possible. This may result in natural occurrence of more and more complex molecules that dissipate heat more and more efficiently. It's like the planet's atmospheric processes, for example. Where differences in heat concentration don't just spread out in linear gradients but can form complex structures like vortexes, hurricanes or even stable geometric hexagons (like the famous hexagon storm on Saturn), etc. >My view has always been that life fights against entropy. Yes, it "fights" against entropy to exist, but it exists solely by processing low entropy into high entropy. Maybe that's why it even exists in the first place? This part is better addressed in Jeremy England's work, for more basic explanations you can refer to videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfLZSL7YGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfLZSL7YGw (it's a very good video on this topic by PBS)