Replying to LO29480 --
Dear mental modellers, dear At,
Change (and decay) remain(s) an illusive phenomena. It's both easy and
difficult. Thank you for your clarifying remarks.
What struck me in the quoted article was, that when a simple processes,
like diffusion, has dissipated or is cut of from its (free) energy source
it "dies off". A more complicated process, like ourselves, will scan the
environment and search for new sources of energy. I got the impression
that the authors wanted to tell me that "search and assimilate"-behaviour
is a simple ordering principle. Therefore evolution is a consequence (or
the same as) of the entropy production processes. In a way, our current
behaviour, to deplete our fossil energy resources rapidly, is both a
consequence of this and must lead to new behaviour, new and more
complicated organisations, new learning, search and assimilation of other
energy sources. I now know why i'm busy ordering and installing
solar-panels and how this will give rise to new ways of organising
society. Soon (geologically speaking) everything will have his/hers/its
own solar power convertors: phones, radio's, televisionsets, computers,
cars, camera's, houses and even our humanoid offspring. Guess what
countries will profit from this the most! And the trees will have legs at
last!
When, refering to your question, any (un)orderly mind becomes inactive, it
might also have been cut of from its energy sources. It might have choosen
so, was forced to or was unable to find refreeshment* in time. I think it
is no coincedence that artists keep on working, producing until they drop
dead. I saw a documentary about De Konink who was still painting his - in
my opinion beautiful - paintings while being totally taken over by
Alzheimer.
Change but don't decay,
Jan
AM de Lange wrote
> I can recommend at that site Swenson and Turvey's "Thermodynamic
> Reasons for Perception-Action Cycles". [Fellow learner's will
> remember that i differ with Swenson on only one issue -- the "entropy
> maximisation" principle.] Their article makes a heavy demand on one's
> cognitive capacity, but that is how anything complex works.
>
snip
> The fact that a system has many forms of energy making up the total
> energy E is nothing else than that the system has an organisation. The
> entropy S of a system is the measure of this organisation. Some of the
> total energy E is locked up in maintaining this organisation. The rest
> of the total energy is known as the free energy F. It is with this F and
> only with it which the system can act. No action of whatever kind is
> possible without available free energy F.
>
> One collorary is than an over organised system will have little free
> energy available so that little action can be expected from it. Another
> collary is that a disordered system, having used up most of its free
> energy in the disordering, also will have little free energy left over so
> that also little action can be expected from it. This brings me to the
> following question. When a person's mentality is such that his/her
> behaviour changes little, is it because of an over organised mind or
> a disordered mind? I leave it up to fellow learners to contemplate
> the answer to this question.
--Drs J.C. Lelie (Jan, MSc MBA) facilitator mind@work
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