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In the article the author describes the notion of a "pure state" which is something that has independently evolving probability. Individual 'units' lose their p

by denom 12y ago

In the article the author describes the notion of a "pure state" which is something that has independently evolving probability. Individual 'units' lose their pure state and become part of an entangled ensemble--move to equilibrium. How is the evolution of biological organisms and technological systems explained in this sense? Played backwards, evolution would fit this and traditional notions of thermodynamic entropy. Is evolution a kind of de-entangling?

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>How is the evolution of biological organisms and technological systems explained in this sense? Played backwards, evolution would fit this and traditional notions of thermodynamic entropy. Is evolution a kind of de-entangling? Evolution and technological change are completely different from the physical arrow of time. Optimization processes (evolution, technology) cannot, as far as we know, actually disentangle themselves on-net. What they can do is move the waste-heat/entropy/entanglement into concepts they don't care about, or entangle themselves with some radiating source of "fuel". (Shout-outs to everyone who thinks the concept of an "optimization process" is total hokum, as I'd like to hear alternate explanations for the apparently similar behavior of so many things that seem to share no purely physical properties at all, and yet all seem to function to shift entropy from some things into other things according to a computable ordering.) Or in other words, yes, all Earthly life actually lives by converting sunlight into a combination of life and waste, with the "waste entropy" often being radiated off as waste-photons into space, which we don't care about. An interesting question, I conjecture, is how this conception of entropy/entanglement ties into energy, which apparently remains necessary for the whole process to occur, and yet is conserved in all physical processes.

by denom 12y ago

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>How is the evolution of biological organisms and technological systems explained in this sense? Played backwards, evolution would fit this and traditional notions of thermodynamic entropy. Is evolution a kind of de-entangling? Evolution and technological change are completely different from the physical arrow of time. Optimization processes (evolution, technology) cannot, as far as we know, actually disentangle themselves on-net. What they can do is move the waste-heat/entropy/entanglement into concepts they don't care about, or entangle themselves with some radiating source of "fuel". (Shout-outs to everyone who thinks the concept of an "optimization process" is total hokum, as I'd like to hear alternate explanations for the apparently similar behavior of so many things that seem to share no purely physical properties at all, and yet all seem to function to shift entropy from some things into other things according to a computable ordering.) Or in other words, yes, all Earthly life actually lives by converting sunlight into a combination of life and waste, with the "waste entropy" often being radiated off as waste-photons into space, which we don't care about. An interesting question, I conjecture, is how this conception of entropy/entanglement ties into energy, which apparently remains necessary for the whole process to occur, and yet is conserved in all physical processes.