Into The Cool

21::November::2009 10:28 → permalink

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, a foundation of Western science, circumscribes the role of energy and order in the observed behaviors of the cosmos. (It’s not just a recommendation, it’s The Law!) Into the Cool is an elegant and well-researched book that makes the linkage between this law and the fundamentals of life as a dynamic energy re-organizing process. I was frequently using the image of concentration and rarefaction in my exploration of energy-as-driving metaphor for the cosmos at all scales. This is a classic error — mistaking the stasis of Yin and Yang for the actuality that those ‘conditions’ were merely perihelion points in a dynamic process symbolized by the taijitu. Rarefaction and concentration are dynamic and reciprocal conditions in a non-equilibrium thermodynamic system at all times and at all scales — a sustained condition that can only be ‘resolved’ by the application of a theoretical limit on the system which makes it a closed and tending-to-equilibrium system. With the reciprocal maxim Nature abhors a gradient, the authors frame the issues surrounding energy and life. That is, observing the cosmos at all scales, it is noted that entropy, or the gradual descent into complete isotropic ‘disorder’ is a tendency — at the same time there is a tendency for ordering driven by gravity (and the rest of the fundamental interactions of physics). Defining life, and consequently, defining the role of life in this dynamic interplay of processes is essentially the same goal. Life could perhaps be defined by that which causes anisotropy to develop in the cosmos. Certainly anisotropy is a necessary condition for life — necessary but perhaps not sufficient — although sufficiency, well, the existence of anisotropy at all scales plays a crucial role in life — without it the universe would be exhibit no difference and would thus not be comprehensible nor could anything happen.

The continuously-variable energy fabric upon which all is drawn in may not logically be sufficient, but in the poetic schema of be-ing and presence, I would say that it was sufficient.

Into the Cool: Energy Flow Thermodynamics and Life, Schneider, Eric D. and Dorion Sagan, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005.
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