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I remember reading somewhere that maybe the purpose of life is to increase entropy in the universe. If that is true and we haven't found any sound evidence of l

I remember reading somewhere that maybe the purpose of life is to increase entropy in the universe. If that is true and we haven't found any sound evidence of life elsewhere, I don't know.

justinator 2y ago
It tracks, though "attaining a higher state of entropy" is just what Universes generally do it seems, given our n of 1 Universes we've started to evaluate. Though, I'm not sure if life is the best at it, when compared to say a black hole. Some smart apes burning off fossil fuels seems pretty insignificant in comparison -- or even seeing what our own Sun does in a few seconds. File that under, "The Earth will be fine in the long run, it's humans that are f'd" George Carlin pov. Maybe when we start building Death Stars (plural)
kmoser 2y ago
Where did you read this? "Purpose" is a very loaded word. If life has any purpose at all, it's to reproduce and propagate one's genes. Additional entropy just sounds like an inevitable side-effect of that.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- firecall 2y ago
  Agreed about purpose being a loaded term. It's my, somewhat lazy, philosophical opinion, that there isn't any purpose and there doesn't need to be one. I don't see why the universe would need a purpose for anything. Things are what they. Things changing state. Entropy. I see reproduction as more of built in motivation to our system than a purpose as such. But that's semantics, and my purpose in life is not to argue about words! ;-)
- justanotherjoe 2y ago
  Could be. Could also be that reproduction and propagation is the inevitable side effect of that, no? We cant dissipate energy when we're dead.
  - guerrilla 2y ago
    Rather a way to accomplish that. Life reproducing in order to accelerate the generation of entropy, in other words.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  "to reproduce and populate its genes" feels like a better fit for the purpose of an organism. If you subscribe to the big bang theory (and the idea that the purpose of a system is what it does), then the universe's purpose is to walk a path from low entropy to high entropy. Of what use is life, in such an endeavor? Well, life tends to seek out bits of stuck energy (food/fuel) and release it (metabolism/economy)--moving the universe further along on its path. This gives a sort of answer to the question: "why bother have live at all?" And so I think the entropy purpose makes sense--moreso than just having it just be a side effect. Nobody will ever be absolutely right or wrong about such things (purposes), but they're handy to have around sometimes.
  - gsf_emergency_2 2y ago
    Stafford Beers, "The Purpose of a System is What it Does (POSIWID)", very hot right now.. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpose-of/comments https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
    - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
      When Beers says: > According to the cybernetician the purpose of a system is what it does... The "according to the cybernetician" part makes it pretty clear that we're now entering some kind of abstract space that cares not for the stated intentions of humans. It seems that what's "very hot right now" is to ignore the first part. I think it's an especially reasonable position to take when the system in question has no designer to disagree with anyhow.
      - tsimionescu 2y ago
        Not necessarily. Cybernetics was specifically the study of systems, so that part can also be taken as an appeal to the experts in the matter. Generally the point of this observation is specifically about human systems, either designed or evolved. The observation stems from the fact that it's (a) impossible to ascertain what the true intention of a human that designed a system was (they may be publicly lying about it, or even privately, it even to themselves), and (b) any complex enough system has been influenced and possibly "warped" by many more than one human, so the original unique intention, whatever it was, isn't the sole guiding principle behind it. So, if analyzing a system, rather than trying to dig into its creators' history or anything like that, it's best to just look at what the system is doing and consider that its true current purpose.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- kouru225 2y ago
  Pretty sure this is what Schrodingers opinion is in his book “what is life?” But I haven’t read it. Maybe OP got it from that
- mjan22640 2y ago
  Reproduction is not really a purpose. What makes copies of itself, happens to persist.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
I have lost the book, but I think I read this in "What is Life? And Other Scientific Essays" by Erwin Schrödinger. If I recall, it was one of the "Other Scientific Essays."
nayuki 2y ago
I read somewhere that life is more efficient at dissipating energy and faster at increasing entropy than non-living physical/chemical phenomena. Citation needed.
- MeteorMarc 2y ago
  https://www.amazon.nl/Every-Life-Fire-Thermodynamics-Explains/dp/1541699017 https://www.amazon.nl/Every-Life-Fire-Thermodynamics-Explain...
- floatrock 2y ago
  Right, it's less about the purpose of life (which implies a directive force) and more that a characteristic of life is it's an emergent complexity that finds more efficient ways of increasing entropy. It gets a bit blurry when you start to substitute "life" for any "complex cosmological system" though...
robocat 2y ago
Surely you mean accelerate entropy. I presume the end-state of entropy would be the same (excluding ways to escape the universe).
XorNot 2y ago
I mean purpose is assigning too much agency, but it's relatively easy to show cells are entropy pumps - they survive by producing a lot more entropy in their environment then is recovered from dying.
flanked-evergl 2y ago
I think it was from Sean Caroll's book The Big Picture. The statement is a category error, but that criticism distracts from the very valuable insight he does provide regarding entropy, life and complexity. He did a series on minutephysics explaining it quite well, worth a watch. He does explain why complexity increases as entropy increases (with some additional qualification). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoaVOjvkzQtyZF-2VpJrxPz7bxK_p1Dd2 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoaVOjvkzQtyZF-2VpJrx...
tiborsaas 2y ago
We are only relatively recently have good enough tooling to even talk about discovering bio- and technosignatures in the atmosphere of exoplanets. I'm really hoping that we will find some undeniable evidence in my lifetime.
perrygeo 2y ago
POSIWID. Life on earth's primary "purpose" if observed from space would be to dissipate low-entropy solar radiation, using it to build temporary structures out of carbon. It is puzzling why life isn't more common. Perhaps dissipative self-organizing structures are everywhere - stars, solar systems and galaxies themselves maintain their order by dissipating energy. They just don't look like "life" to us.

I remember reading somewhere that maybe the purpose of life is to increase entropy in the universe. If that is true and we haven't found any sound evidence of life elsewhere, I don't know.

justinator 2y ago

It tracks, though "attaining a higher state of entropy" is just what Universes generally do it seems, given our n of 1 Universes we've started to evaluate. Though, I'm not sure if life is the best at it, when compared to say a black hole. Some smart apes burning off fossil fuels seems pretty insignificant in comparison -- or even seeing what our own Sun does in a few seconds. File that under, "The Earth will be fine in the long run, it's humans that are f'd" George Carlin pov. Maybe when we start building Death Stars (plural)

kmoser 2y ago

Where did you read this? "Purpose" is a very loaded word. If life has any purpose at all, it's to reproduce and propagate one's genes. Additional entropy just sounds like an inevitable side-effect of that.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
firecall 2y ago
Agreed about purpose being a loaded term. It's my, somewhat lazy, philosophical opinion, that there isn't any purpose and there doesn't need to be one. I don't see why the universe would need a purpose for anything. Things are what they. Things changing state. Entropy. I see reproduction as more of built in motivation to our system than a purpose as such. But that's semantics, and my purpose in life is not to argue about words! ;-)
justanotherjoe 2y ago
Could be. Could also be that reproduction and propagation is the inevitable side effect of that, no? We cant dissipate energy when we're dead.
- guerrilla 2y ago
  Rather a way to accomplish that. Life reproducing in order to accelerate the generation of entropy, in other words.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
"to reproduce and populate its genes" feels like a better fit for the purpose of an organism. If you subscribe to the big bang theory (and the idea that the purpose of a system is what it does), then the universe's purpose is to walk a path from low entropy to high entropy. Of what use is life, in such an endeavor? Well, life tends to seek out bits of stuck energy (food/fuel) and release it (metabolism/economy)--moving the universe further along on its path. This gives a sort of answer to the question: "why bother have live at all?" And so I think the entropy purpose makes sense--moreso than just having it just be a side effect. Nobody will ever be absolutely right or wrong about such things (purposes), but they're handy to have around sometimes.
- gsf_emergency_2 2y ago
  Stafford Beers, "The Purpose of a System is What it Does (POSIWID)", very hot right now.. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpose-of/comments https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    When Beers says: > According to the cybernetician the purpose of a system is what it does... The "according to the cybernetician" part makes it pretty clear that we're now entering some kind of abstract space that cares not for the stated intentions of humans. It seems that what's "very hot right now" is to ignore the first part. I think it's an especially reasonable position to take when the system in question has no designer to disagree with anyhow.
    - tsimionescu 2y ago
      Not necessarily. Cybernetics was specifically the study of systems, so that part can also be taken as an appeal to the experts in the matter. Generally the point of this observation is specifically about human systems, either designed or evolved. The observation stems from the fact that it's (a) impossible to ascertain what the true intention of a human that designed a system was (they may be publicly lying about it, or even privately, it even to themselves), and (b) any complex enough system has been influenced and possibly "warped" by many more than one human, so the original unique intention, whatever it was, isn't the sole guiding principle behind it. So, if analyzing a system, rather than trying to dig into its creators' history or anything like that, it's best to just look at what the system is doing and consider that its true current purpose.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kouru225 2y ago
Pretty sure this is what Schrodingers opinion is in his book “what is life?” But I haven’t read it. Maybe OP got it from that
mjan22640 2y ago
Reproduction is not really a purpose. What makes copies of itself, happens to persist.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

I have lost the book, but I think I read this in "What is Life? And Other Scientific Essays" by Erwin Schrödinger. If I recall, it was one of the "Other Scientific Essays."

nayuki 2y ago

I read somewhere that life is more efficient at dissipating energy and faster at increasing entropy than non-living physical/chemical phenomena. Citation needed.

MeteorMarc 2y ago
https://www.amazon.nl/Every-Life-Fire-Thermodynamics-Explains/dp/1541699017 https://www.amazon.nl/Every-Life-Fire-Thermodynamics-Explain...
floatrock 2y ago
Right, it's less about the purpose of life (which implies a directive force) and more that a characteristic of life is it's an emergent complexity that finds more efficient ways of increasing entropy. It gets a bit blurry when you start to substitute "life" for any "complex cosmological system" though...

robocat 2y ago

Surely you mean accelerate entropy. I presume the end-state of entropy would be the same (excluding ways to escape the universe).

XorNot 2y ago

I mean purpose is assigning too much agency, but it's relatively easy to show cells are entropy pumps - they survive by producing a lot more entropy in their environment then is recovered from dying.

flanked-evergl 2y ago

I think it was from Sean Caroll's book The Big Picture. The statement is a category error, but that criticism distracts from the very valuable insight he does provide regarding entropy, life and complexity. He did a series on minutephysics explaining it quite well, worth a watch. He does explain why complexity increases as entropy increases (with some additional qualification). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoaVOjvkzQtyZF-2VpJrxPz7bxK_p1Dd2 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoaVOjvkzQtyZF-2VpJrx...

tiborsaas 2y ago

We are only relatively recently have good enough tooling to even talk about discovering bio- and technosignatures in the atmosphere of exoplanets. I'm really hoping that we will find some undeniable evidence in my lifetime.

perrygeo 2y ago

POSIWID. Life on earth's primary "purpose" if observed from space would be to dissipate low-entropy solar radiation, using it to build temporary structures out of carbon. It is puzzling why life isn't more common. Perhaps dissipative self-organizing structures are everywhere - stars, solar systems and galaxies themselves maintain their order by dissipating energy. They just don't look like "life" to us.