At 14:36 01/02/01 -0500, you wrote:
> >From Marxism and sciences
>
>This statement is imprecise. Not a closed system, but an isolated one, to both
>matter and energy flows in and out. The confusion, deliberate or not, between
>closed and isolated systems led Georgescu-Roegen and his populizer Jeremy
>Rifkin
>to fallacious postulates regarding solar energy and economic growth. See my
>paper, "Solar Communism", 1996, Science & Society 60, No.3: 307-331 (heat
>death
>is also discussed).
>
>Haines Brown wrote:
>
> > The Second Law states that any closed system must experience an increase in
> > entropy, which means that
> > in relation to its initial state, it becomes more homogeneous,
> diffused, lower
> > in free energy and predictable.
The idea of a closed system is, as Charles implies, an abstract fiction.
The debate will probably continue more on the marxism and sciences list,
but generally I feel that the mechanical character of the "second law" is
being correctly undermined. I support resistance to any simplistic
extrapolations to economics.
Chris Burford
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