Charles,
The extract you posted states well why life doesn't obey to the 2nd law but it
suggests that it behaves according to a law that would be the reverse of the
second law... Not totally convincing. If such a thing as the crash happens, it will be
caused by living organisms but will not be "a movement toward greater
organization, greater differentiation of structure, ...". Also, if I wander around, I
see
animals as well as humans doing things which doesn't look like a "struggle for free
energy". I doubt there is any law here. If there is one, it's probably about cycles
rather than movements in some direction.
BTW, I totally agree with the last post of Carrol. That's my contribution to common
ground. ;-)
Original message from: "Charles Brown"
>Does the below make a correct connect between the physics of the 2nd Law of
>Thermodynamics and life, ecosystems ?
>
>Charles
>
>
> I wonder if you are familiar with the evolutionary schools of thought in cultural
>anthropology derivative of Leslie A. White, who in "Energy and the Evolution
>of Culture" ( in The Science of Culture ) claimed:
>
>
>"The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that the cosmos as a whole is
>breaking
>down structurally and running down dynamcially; matter is becoming less
>organized
>and energy more uniformly diffused. But in a tiny sector of the cosmos, namely
>in living material systems, the direction of the cosmic process is reversed:
>matter becomes more highly organized and energy more concentrated. Life is a
>building up process. But in order to run counter to the cosmic current, biological
>organisms must draw upon free energy in non-living systems, capture it and put
>it to work in the maintennce of the vital process. All life is a struggle for
>free energy. Biological evolution is simply an expression of the thermodynamic
>process that moves in a direction opposite to that specified for the cosmos
>as a whole by the Second Law. It is a movement toward greater organization,
>greater differentiation of structure, increased specialization of function,
>higher levels of integration, and greater degrees of energy concentration "
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