Replying to LO28702 --
Dear Organlearners,
Dan Chay <chay@alaska.com> writes under the old
Subject: Energy, Entropy, Entropy Production LO28702
>At, I'm looking forward to your follow-up to your
>message responding to the Swenson site on LMEP.
Greetings dear Dan,
I did so in
"Energy, Entropy, Entropy Production LO28706".
You and other fellow leaders will have to read it in conjunction with
"History of Uncovering the Act of Learning LO28708"
which provides the context for its identity.
As for LO28702 itself, i do hope that you have found the number sequences
instructive. I tried a parable and then an entropy landscape to make in
understandable, but in the end i thought that simple numbers will convey
the stark message best.
On my suggestion that you can tell us more about conditions in Alaska, you
wrote
>At, I live just outside of Kenai on the Kenai Peninsula.
>Inspired by Andrew's creative aesthetics and as a
>personal monument to the beetle-killed spruce on our
>property, for the last three years I slowly have been
>up-rooting our dead trees one by one with a ........
(snip)
>Of the many anecdotal observations I could share, let
>me just share three more: one related to glaciers, one
>related to salmon fisheries, and one related to oil.
(snip)
Thank you Dan. Your vivid descriptions, devoid of seeking blame, has been
very valuable. What the peoples of Alaska are experiencing now, is in my
opinion the first sure signs of die-off. The fact that you on your own
began spontaneously to study physics and chemistry to understand how
things work, not having any tutor close to assist you, filled me with
great joy.
It is for this reason that I dedicated this contribution (in two parts) to
you. I pray that it will help you and other fellow learners to understand
the choices which you will have to make in the not so distant future --
and to guide your children preparing themselves for a bleak future while
keeping their hope and compassion.
Dan, steel yourself for what I now will be writing. I might be wrong in
many places, but I ma not wrong in the genaral course which I have taken.
It is not a course by my design, but one laid out by LEC and LEP as you
shall see.
Part 1. The context of die-off
I have changed the topic Energy, Entropy and Entropy Production to the
present one. Look at the phrases "free energy" and "entropy production".
Each phrase is one concept, although it consists of two words. Through
the years i have read hundreds of documents on the coming "energy crisis".
I have studied the past couple of months dozens of web-sites. None of them
matched my soul strangling forbearance on the coming "free energy and
entropy production crisis".
Even though "free energy and entropy production crisis" is a complex
phrase, it tells about the complexity involved in the coming crisis.
Should we be ignorant to this complexity, then the best single word to
describe this crisis is "die-off". A website which actually use this word
to describe the coming crisis is
< http://www.dieoff.com >
It is a good website which tells enough of the physical crisis.
But few know that the coming crisis will be on both the physical and the
spiritual dimensions of free energy and entropy production. It is for this
reason that i believe all of humankind is in far deeper trouble than since
times immemorial. Civilisations came and went for various reasons. But now
many of humankind in all its civilisations may have to go. Why? Follow the
global leaders -- they are right behind you. It is as simple as that.
It is for this reason that I beg you the following. Do not believe what i
say. Rather use my thoughts only to question your own thinking. Use your
own knowledge to question the information which i put to you. Do not trust
anything on this side of Creation, not yourself, neither me nor any other
leader or follower. Be cautious of those who preach Armageddon to get
followers. Be cautious of those who sell "treasure maps" for survival
because they capitalise on ignorance. Insight and understanding comes from
within where money cannot dwell.
What i have been writing so far and will be writing in the rest of this
essay, is information. What you read on screen or on paper is still
information and not knowledge. Only what goes on in my mind to have
produced such information and only what goes on in your mind to make sense
out of this information is knowledge. The idea that die-off can be
prevented by producing and distributing sufficient information is part of
die-off and not its survival. It entails that also this essay is part of
die-off, even should million copies of it be made and distributed.
To survive die-off we all need to have inner knowledge based on authentic
learning. We need to know what in the deluge of information is useful for
our strategic planning. That knowledge cannot be supplied by information,
not even with a truck load of training courses. That knowledge can only
emerge and grow from within the mind. It has to be fed by experiences
derived from compassionate acts. Doing in love will prepare us to survive
die-off.
Writing this essay is a deed in love. Yet the essay itself is just a
collection of information. As information it has no power to help anyone
who read it to survive die-off. To memorise and internalize it will also
not help. It will remain to be a theory without a practice. Where will
that practice be gained other than in die-off? Sadly, die-off has already
begun in many countries like Gambia where May works. It is in them that we
will have to seek the experience.
Furthermore, this die-off of which the site
< http://www.dieoff.com >
tells is not the only kind of die-off we can get. This die-off will involve
the species Homo sapiens, i.e humankind. Die-off can involve any
kind of living species in an ecological niche, natural or artificial. It is
here where we can gain additional experiences to understand die-off
in general. I will tell about some of them in part 2 of this essay.
What is energy? Textbooks of physics invariably tell that energy is the
capacity to do work -- so much energy available, so much work possible.
What they do not tell because they are not interested in the organisation
of systems is that it is actually "free energy" which gets converted into
work. This fact begs the distinction between two concepts:- "total energy"
E (two words, one concept) and "free energy" F (two words, one concept).
The total energy E is the sum of ALL (nothing less) forms of energy of any
system SY. All these forms of energy are involved in the organisation of
the system. Some part of each form of energy is locked up in maintaining
the internal organisation of the system. Thus some of the total energy E
is locked up in the system's organisation. The rest of the total energy E
is known as the free energy F. Whatever the system wants to do like
working or organising (digesting and bifurcating) has to be sustained by
its free energy F.
Neither the total energy E(sy) nor the free energy F(sy) can be used as an
indicator for the system's internal organisation (structures and
processes). This organisation is rather indicated by the system's entropy
S(sy). Should the system's organisation change, so will its entropy S also
change and thus its free energy F, i.e. its capacity to work or organise.
The entropy of a system is not only a measure of the chaos in it, but also
of order in it. This is an insight which very few people can grasp. It
indicates how difficult it is to shift a general paradigm.
One of the great fallacies is to think of the organisation of a system
merely as its internal organisation. A system is also organised with
respect to its surrounding systems. Similarly the system's total energy E
consists of two major categories, each having many forms of energy. The
one category of total energy is that involved with the internal
organisation of the system. Physicists call it the internal energy of the
system.
But scientists have not yet devised a general name for the other category
of total energy which accounts for all the additional forms of energy
which a system has as a result of its organised interaction with its
environment. Perhaps the name "contextual energy" will do. The most
important form of contextual energy to chemists is "enthalpy". It is the
total energy of the system plus the pneumatical energy which the system
has with respect to its pressure&volume interaction with the environment.
Engineers, on the other hand, often have to work with the internal energy
of the system plus the kinetic energy and potential energy it has with
respect to the environment. They do not have a special name for it.
The point is that when extracting a barrel of oil or lifting a load of
coal for their free energy F, their contextual energy has to be overcome.
For example, a hole has to be drilled for oil and a shaft to be dug for
coal. The oil has to be pumped upwards and the coal lifted upwards. All
this involves much work self derived from free energy. In others words,
the free energy F of fossil fuels are initially not free. The fossil fuels
are locked up in their geological organisation. They have to be set free
from this geological organisation, something which requires free energy F.
Said in financial terms, it costs money to free fossil fuel. This means
that as fossil fuel becomes more scarce and thus more expensive in terms
of supplies not meeting demands, the money needed to deliver them will
also increase. In other words, the price of fossil fuel will increase
faster than the demands for it.
We also will have to extend the contextual energy of fossil fuel to the
owners of its deposits. They may organise themselves in any way to protect
their interests. This organisation requires free energy and thus costs
money. To undo that organisation and replace it, even with something as
horrible as war, also requires free energy which costs money. All these
costs will invariably also add to the price of fossil fuel. This means
that the price of fossil fuel will increase much faster than what
ordinarily the supply-demand would dictate.
Once the fossil fuel has been extracted, it has to be organised in a new
context. For example, it has to be transported, raffinated and stored. The
vehicles, refineries and containers do not come free, but have to be
manufactured by using fossil fuel already free for use. This also costs
money which adds once again to the price of fossil fuel still to be freed
(mined). Consequently there is an inherent inflation factor in any fossil
fuel based economy. This inflation factor is not evenly spread over all
countries of the world. Before i can explain this, i first have to create
the concept "wealth machine".
Let us speak of "wealth machines" to indicate all machines needing
directly or indirectly fossil fuels to be manufactured or to operate.
These fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) act as a source of free energy or
highly ordered compounds (entropy). All these wealth machines make up what
are commonly known as the equipment of industry and technology. They range
from massive furnaces in steel and cement factories to sophisticated
electronic equipment like multi- meters and computers.
The inflation factor is far less in those countries which have taken the
lead using wealth machines to create wealth than in those countries trying
to catch up with them. The latter subsidise the leading countries by
importing from them goods with higher added value, i.e. having more fossil
fuel based wealth. In exchange they export to them goods having less such
wealth which cause an increasing trade deficit. Some countries have
already fallen out of the race. They have typically triple figure
inflation rates, unemployment above 50% and few wealth machines of which
less, if any, are manufactured locally. The imported wealth machines which
they do have are paid for by global tourists and primary exports to the
countries leading in industry and technology.
Since the world is fast becoming a global village, another outcome of
fossil fuel based economies, the economies of all the countries are
beginning to fit together like a pyramid. To the bottom are those
countries losing the race and even those who have dropped out of the race.
Round about the middle are those countries trying to catch up in getting
rich with more wealth machines. To the top are those countries who have
begun the race of using wealth machines to enrich them. Like a pyramidal
scheme for money the bottom is beginning to give way.
The top countries in the pyramid got there by first colonising a lot of
the rest of the world with their shipping industry. Their first sail ships
of the high seas some six centuries ago were not wealth machines
themselves. These ships were driven by free energy coming from winds. They
were manufactured by manual labour using natural wood. The first ships
were commissioned by kings. Then the stock market was invented to let
others become rich like these kings, building more such ships. Thus began
colonisation in the name of the king -- and slavery on an unprecedented
scale. These slaves had to serve as cheap labour, creating further wealth
for their rich masters.
The race of becoming wealthier by using wealth machines begun much later
with the very invention of the steam engine. As more wealth machines came
into operation replacing slave labour, the need for slaves became less.
Even for cheap slavery, the wealth machines in those days cost less to
manufacture and operate. The rate of doing work is expressed as
horsepower. It is a pity because it should have been expressed as
"humanpower". People would then have recognised more readily how the
"humanpower" of one big machine exceeds thousands of working humans.
Nevertheless, the conscience of the nations using wealth machines and
slaves began to awaken. Slavery was abolished because these wealth
machines made them superficial. These wealth machines became the new
slaves, having no souls themselves.
Some might say that the invention of the steam engine was responsible for
the race of becoming richer using wealth machines. Machines and thus even
wealth machines cannot be held responsible for anything since machines
have no spiritual dimension. It is only people who can be held
responsible. Is it then those people with their vision of a "piecewise
globalisation"=colonisation, enabled by the invention of the stock market,
who must be held responsible? No, they died many centuries ago. It is us
living in the present who will have to begin thinking what we are
responsible for.
The steam engine was invented by Savery and Newcomen. Then followed James
Watt with his many mechanical innovations, making it more efficient.
However, something puzzled engineers. The efficiency also depended on the
difference in temperature between the steam going into and leaving the
cylinder with its oscillating piston. The greater the difference, the
better the efficiency. What is going on since temperature is not a
property of Newtonian mechanics? Sidi Carnot invented the quantity
(heat/temperature) to explain this efficiency. Then Rudolph Clausius with
brilliant insight recognised a new universal law -- the Law of Entropy
Production (LEP). He gave the quantity heat/temperature the name entropy.
With arguments which anyone can follow he concluded LEP="The entropy of
the universe must increase".
Some dozen years earlier LEC (Law of Energy Conservation) was
discovered.
LEC="energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only be
transformed from one form to other forms".
Unfortunately, LEC and LEP became originally known as the First Law
and Second Law of Thermodynamics. Thermodynamics was originally
the study of the efficiency of steam engines, i.e., the conversion of
thermal energy to mechanical energy. Then thermodynamics became
a discipline of physics in which the purpose was to explain LEP in
terms of Newtonian Mechanics and Probability Theory. As a
consequence of it people began to think of entropy as a measure of
chaos. But neither could LEP be explained, nor is entropy merely a
measure of chaos. LEP remained an enigmatic law.
Through genial insight and diligent work J W Gibbs opened Thermodynamics
up to chemistry. The clue was the concept free energy F resulting from a
combination of LEC and LEP. It became known as Chemical Thermodynamics
(CT). In CT steam engines and their efficiency do not figure at all
anymore. What figures in CT is that any chemical reaction will happen
spontaneously so long as its free energy can decrease. When the free
energy cannot decrease anymore, the reaction stops in an equilibrium
state. Again, as a consequence of it, some people now think of increasing
entropy as indicating the approach of an equilibrium state. It is far more
than that.
Chemists and even biochemists were interested in chemistry rather than LEC
and LEP. They merely accepted LEC and LEP to be true and got on with their
study of chemical reactions using the concept free energy. They were not
interested exactly how a chemical reaction in front of them helps the
entropy of the universe to increase. But with brilliant insight Ilya
Prigogine discovered how entropy is produced by extending the original
work of Gibbs. The key to this discovery is the concept entropy(ic)
"force-flux pairs". This discovery bloomed into the discipline called
Irreversible Thermodynamics.
Most unexpectedly, Prigogine made another break through. When entropy is
produced, an increase in chaos is not its only outcome. When the entropy
production is high enough WHILE certain other conditions are met, a new
order emerges among the chaos of the existing order. Suddenly scientists
had a new contender to consider in addition to adaptation (Lamark),
natural selection (Darwin) and holism (Smuts) when trying to theorise the
facts of biological evolution and metamorphosis. This new contender was
LEP itself. LEP could even be used to explain geological evolution and
metamorphosis and thus the formation of fossil fuels.
There is more entropy in coal than in the same amount of methane gas. In
methane gas the molecules have the simple structure CH4. Most of the
entropy is manifested as the gaseous state as simple molecules moving
chaotically around. But in coal (solid) or crude oil (liquid) most of the
entropy is manifested in the complex structures of the compounds making
them up. It is this ordered entropy which the carbon based chemical
industry depend on. This industry produce things like plastic, paint and
medicine. Some of these things protect wealth machines and their operators
so that more wealth based on fossil fuel can be created.
With food it is even worse. The transport of food from the rural areas to
the cities became possible because of wealth machines. People began to
migrate to cities where they have to eat. Plants use sunlight and simple
molecules and ions (low in ordered entropy) to grow. They end up in having
produced carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins (high in ordered entropy)
which people eat. Animals also use plants as food. Some animals have been
domesticated to provide new sources of food. People in cities eat all
these kinds of food and the waste go to sewage plants. There it is
converted by bacteria into simple substances and then pumped into rivers
to be carried to the sea. Very little go back to the farms which produced
the food. Thus these farms began to require heavy applications of
fertilisers to keep them producing. The vast majority of these fertilisers
are produced and transported by using wealth machines.
It ought to be clear that just like nature, industry and technology also
had its own "evolution and metamorphosis". Many scientific discoveries
were put to practice by way of invention and innovation. Unfortunately, in
this practice the focus was increasingly set on manufacturing wealth
machines for every walk of life. Whoever came out with a new kind of
wealth machine and had patented it, smiled all the way to the bank.
International corporations flourished on such activities. Furthermore,
scientific information became as important as fossil fuels to keep up this
"evolution and metamorphosis" of wealth machines.
Today we have many kinds of machines to utilise sources of free energy
other than fossil fuel. Just think about nuclear reactors, hydroelectric
generators, solar photoelectric panels and fuel cells. However, even they
are wealth machines for the following reason. Although they do not utilise
a fossil fuel in their operation, they require fossil fuel to become
manufactured. Take a nuclear reactor as example. Steel and cement are
vital to its safe operation in a steel reinforced concrete building.
However, steel and cement cannot be manufactured without coal. Neither can
the mining, refining and enriching of uranium be done without fossil fuel.
This "metamorphosis and evolution" of wealth machines make ordinary people
think that scientists once again will discover a new source of free energy
to become harnessed. How can the future be any different to the past? They
never consider the possibility that harnessing all major sources of free
energy had been discovered. Yes, the past forty years there was not one
such a discovery! Even worse, should the harnessing of a new major source
of free energy indeed be discovered, they never consider the possibility
that the harnessing of that source will require a wealth machine. In
others words, fossil fuel will be needed to manufacture a converter for
this new source of free energy. Thus, as the supply of fossil fuels
becomes scarcer, the harnessing of this new major source of free energy
will become scarcer as with all other existing major sources of free
energy.
The fixed paradigm of the global economy of today is to "create wealth by
using wealth machines". These wealth machines depend on fossil fuel in
their manufacture or operation. In two centuries these wealth machines
have used up fossil fuels which took zillions of plants through millions
of years to evolve. These wealth machines convert millions of years of
natural evolution into a few hundreds of years of artificial evolution.
This conversion is known as economical growth based on industry and
technology using fossil fuels.
How did fossil fuels came into existence? It does not really matter for
die-off whether we believe in a scientific account involving billions of
years or a religious account involving six millennia. What matters is that
we shall become absolutely certain that
* sources of fossil fuel are limited, even those not yet discovered,
* sources of fossil fuel are becoming depleted,
* fossil fuel cannot be renewed in this third millennium.
Consequently all economies following the paradigm of "creating wealth
by using wealth machines" will crash into rubble like the two WTC
towers. This crash into rubble is known as DIE-OFF.
Behold the beauty of all nature
far surpassing machines' lustre
Compare the service of life
with greed leading to strife.
Who will change everything
for the life of a human being?
Winter's cold and summer's heat
will overtake machines which eat
fossil fuel to give them stature.
With care and best wishes,
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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