Mnn AM de Lange writes:
" Bill, first of all, I am very happy that you distinguish between
"entropy" as a being (like a noun) and "entropy production" as a becoming
(like a verb). You fear that you might mess up the concepts, yet you make
such a distinction. It is something to be proud of. "
First off, I expect that I will be roundly criticized for what I am about
the write by any postmodernists in this group who will state that the
meaning of a word is what you want to make it (and that we each create our
own reality). I've been through that fight in more listserves than I care
to mention, so I hope that people who feel that way will just "let it go"
because I know that that is how you feel.
[Host's Note: OK... we probably don't need another round of that here.
...Rick]
Now, on to my point, which is definitional.
The description of what happens relative to entropy in this posting (ie
that it happens throughout the universe, and the examples given) are all
good examples. What bothers me are the definitional conclusions.
First, entropy is not a producer of creativity or anything else. As Ilya
Prigogine has eloquently written, it is a measure of the evolution of a
system. Although Prigogine first described this to me personally in an
interview in 1993, he also explains it in his excellent new book, "The End
of Certainty" In the interview, he explained to me that entropy was the
physicist's method for incorporating the concept of evolution (in the
Darwinian sense) into the physical sciences. In his book he more
specifically writes: "in Greek, entropy simply means evolution.") (p. 19).
He goes on to write: "... irreversible processes produce entropy." which
would mean that irreversible processes cause the system to evolve.
Since entropy does not produce anything, it cannot produce
self-organization. Self-organization is not a magical process. It requires
energy, and is a function of probability, reinforcing (positive) feedback,
and fitness. Entropy can occur without energy, and becomes dissipation.
In addition to Prigogine's book, I would recommend Stuart Kauffman's "At
Home in the Universe" and Murray Gell-Mann's "The Quark and the Jaguar" to
learn more on what really constitutes entropy and self-organization.
Mark Michaels
People Technologies
michaels@ipat.com
"To move a mountain, start with one pebble at a time."
--"Mark Michaels" <michaels@ipat.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>