Cultural Systems

John Hopkins 03::October::2009 09:55 → permalink

A few minor references to energy and socio-cultural systems.

In order to evolve, a biological or a cultural system must obtain energy in increasing quantities from the external world. In the process of evolving, these systems move in a direction opposite to that of the cosmos as a whole as specified by the Second Law of Thermodynamics: i.e., they move toward greater concentrations of energy and increasing structural complexity. — Leslie White

The concept of cultural systems: a key to understanding tribes and nations, White, Leslie, Medium Aevum monographs, Columbia University Press, New York, 1975.

This view is simple, but outlines the fundamental situation. Research in thermodynamics (Prigogine, etc) has looked at the actual counter-intuitive problem of living systems countering general thermodynamic principles. It may come back to the mystical views of Simone Weil:

Two forces rule the universe, light and gravity. — Simone Weil

With gravity driving the coalescing of matter, the concentration of energy, or fluctuating densities (or simply fluctuation) of the cosmos. The anisotropic distribution of matter in the universe is not an insignificant evolving or existing condition. And Light, well, what may or may not be said about Light?