Perhaps I am dull from lack of sleep or too much time at the keyboard. I've
missed something.
I have found numerous attempts by so-called creationists--the nutty
fundamentalists who deny evolution--to use the 2nd Law to deny that
evolution is the formative process of life, precisely because life is an
intervening/organizing structure.
The 2nd Law doesn't state categorically that energy always becomes more
entropic. It says that it does so when it is (1) not interfered with by
counter-entropic structures or (2) when it is used for work. Dissipation
occurs during all SPONTANEOUS processes.
The pertinence of the 2nd Law, at least to this non-scientist, is at the
much more tangible (not philosophical) level of using it for work, as we do
with fossil fuels and so forth FASTER than life as an intervening structure
can re-concentrate it... thereby leaving less and less of the useful,
pre-concentrated (life) energy to meet the needs of the concentrators (life
forms).
Intuition, not always reliable, leads me to think that entropy is a process
that applies to all spontaneous systems. I haven't thought this completely
out, but capitalism seems to be just such a spontaneous system. Certainly
it is a system that is wasteful because it lacks organization between its
parts. Don't all systems require energy?
Cheers to all.
Headed out to visit my Mom. She's getting on and I'm going to spend the
holidays with her and my siblings and all their progeny in Arkansas for a
few days.
Rest, all, and refresh for the struggle. There's miles to go.
Yours,
Stan Goff
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