Entropy.

Entropy:
It sounds like an Andrew Bird song. Or, better yet, the subject of an Andrew Bird song. Maybe the inspiration for an entire album by him.

The word entropy was brought up for discussion today in my maths class, believe it or not. My course is linked with my literature class, so we often bring up pieces from our readings into the math lessons. It makes math a lot more enjoyable for the mathematically challenged. After reading Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 the discussion of Maxwell's Demon where a physicist attempted to violent the second law of thermodynamics... which increases entropy. The decaying of an organized system... it just sounds so wretched and beautiful.

This evening, to further our topic on entropy, our professor emailed us a follow-up thought that I began to think about whilst having a late-night shower. Here it is:

3/10/09

Part of what’s so compelling about Pynchon’s metaphorical deployment of entropy (both physical and informational) is that it can begin to take over how you see the world.

Even each of our lives can (should?) be understood as a temporary stand against entropy, our biological existence an extremely organized (and bogglingly complex) organism (note the shared root in “organized” and “organism”) that houses whatever “mind” is (whether it is a localized lack of informational entropy, physical entropy, or both at once, is a debate long waged by the philosophers (though using other words, naturally)). We continue to exist, preserving our anti-entropic state, by consuming other organized bits of matter (plants, animals, etc.) and using them to preserve our organization (mental, genetic) for the time being, excreting those previously organized bits of matter in more entropic, less organized forms. (Pay attention to that: it is where we can truly grasp that preserving our own organization in the face of encroaching entropy requires us to impose entropy upon other organizations.)

In the end, of course, even as we live entropy encroaches: our skin wrinkles, our back aches, our eyes lose their acuity, some of us develop cancer (a disorganization (increase in entropy) of the proper instructions for cell growth) or other diseases. We persist, we survive, keeping entropy at arm’s length as long as we can. If we live long enough, of course, the informational entropy begins to wreak havoc in our mind, randomness and failed connections become more and more common there, memories are scrambled. Finally, we cease to draw in oxygen and combine it with carbon and we die, and all the marvelous information encoded in our flesh and brain begins instantly to break down, to rot. Entropy will now have its way rapidly.

What then do we learn? How does this information aid us?

Perhaps we should simply take care to savor our organized and anti-entropic days. For now we can exchange a sober nod with Entropy, a recognition without welcome.

David

He has a valid point here. It is interesting to see entropy being viewed in a sense of human life. We build up against this disorganization. We collect ourselves to be strong until our bodies can no longer handle it, and we decay... slowly die. I do like to think we start out against entropy, until we reach our physical prime (ages 16 to about 30) and then things just start to crash. But, the human race has begun to have advancements in our lifespan. Will we reach an adaptation where we can eventually live as long as trees? Should we stop trying to make ourselves immortal by trying to find cures for every harmful thing or defect on the planet? This human entropy is supposed to happen. It is a cycle... but people do not want to accept dying. They don't want wrinkles, they don't want to age. They all wish to stay forever young.

I do have many moments where I think that, of all the things I have fulfilled in my life, I feel I have made a lot of safe choices. Now, I'm thinking, were those the best choices? I only live once- where do I want to go before my system shuts down? What do I want to accomplish before I start to spiral from the pinnacle of my prime? Many, many things.

There isn't anything to be worried about- if you screw things up, you do. There are over six billion people on earth. It'd be very hard to piss off every single one of them. Take a chance, here or there. I am preaching to the choir... but this is all starting to sound like a smart way to approach life.


Well then, what is stopping me?
More importantly, what is stopping all of us?

Hej hej,
Any