I like this, very much. Gene
On Aug 24, 2013, at 4:42 AM, Julio Huato wrote: > On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Perelman, Michael <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > I don’t think Maxwell was agreeing with McCloud. I think he was sneering > > at him. > > Ha. I do not have a way to read the mind of Maxwell when replying to > McCloud, but I do know that physics is -- in a way -- sheer bookkeeping. > > > Phil’s point is that economic has no conservation principle, creating a > > gulf between economics & physics. As a result, economics presents a model > > of unlimited growth, something that Geogrescu-Roegen emphasized, but his > > work his much less influence than it deserved. > > If there's a person who showed the bookkeeping connection between physics and > economics transparently was precisely Nicholas G-R. Cf. his EEJ 1986 essay > on entropy and economics. > > Physics is (has to be) "human-centric" (and I believe this is textual or > almost textual Nicholas G-R, whom I am citing here by heart). The > conservation principle is based on direct practical, productive experience. > It sets the resource constraint for the physical world. > > It says that, if you take a closed system, then there's no magic. And the > universe is defined as a closed system. In fact, it is the only true closed > system in physics. It excludes God. The universe has a given mass/energy > budget, and in any physical process what gets in is what gets out. And > social life is, in an obvious sense, a physical process. > > (The following passages are extracted from my book draft.) > > Society is a physical system. Though distinct from other physical systems, > society exists in the physical world; it is a part of nature, and -- > therefore -- it is subject to its laws. In the terms used in physics, > society is an "open system," in that it continuously or recurrently takes > matter (mass or energy) from its natural environment and uses it to generate > and regenerate itself. > > Social life is a subset of the material movement of the universe. Our social > life is a flowing form of physical matter, and -- as such -- nothing but the > matter continuously absorbed from the rest of nature, and transformed into > the physical objects we produce, which -- ultimately -- are ourselves > personally and our artificial extensions: our material wealth. > > We are a part of nature -- a product of nature’s evolution -- with some very > distinctive characteristics. But, as powerful as we may be or become, our > power will always be the derived power of nature. Our labor power is nothing > but the power of nature that we humans have managed to capture or appropriate > from nature. We may learn how to circumvent and use natural laws in our > favor, but we cannot subtract ourselves from the conditions of the natural > world in which we are embedded. > > This means that any form of society, any social structure conducive to the > long-run development of human powers, must manage the fundamental > relationship between human society and the rest of nature in a sustainable > manner. A better management of our interaction with our natural environment > can only result from a more profound and detailed understanding of the > workings of the physical world, ourselves included. Basic results from the > physical sciences can help us to properly situate social life in the broader > context of the universe’s physical processes. > > The fundamental law of physics, the first law of thermodynamics (also known > as the conservation law) says that the total amount of energy in the universe > is constant and that what varies is its composition across its various forms. > This law extends also to any closed subset of the universe or closed physical > system, with the universe itself -- by definition -- regarded as a closed > system. > > The universe is in continuous motion. The second law of thermodynamics (or > the entropy law) establishes the overall direction of this motion. It says > that when energy is transformed within any closed system from one form to > another, then matter (mass/energy) will tend to "degrade," in that the amount > of entropy or disorder in the system will increase. Humans decide what, in > physics, is low or high grade energy. > > The energy constitutive of life in general -- and more so of intelligent life > and social life -- is deemed as "high-grade" or "highly-organized" energy > while entropy is a state of energy unusable for human activity. Then, higher > entropy means a lower usefulness of the natural environment for humans.3 > > 3 It should be noted that life -- the more "organized," the more so -- is > defined as energy on a path contrary to the increasing-entropy followed by > the rest of the universe. This is a definition, and not a result of > theoretical physics. The specific result of the second law of thermodynamics > is that the usability of the rest of the universe for the reproduction of > society decreases inexorably. One can hardly fault physics, a human > scientific endeavor, for being human centered. As encapsulated in a phrase > attributed to the Greek philosopher Protagoras: "Man [i.e. the human being] > is the measure of all things." > > As a result, of all the energy that human societies take in in a given period > of time, only a portion is transformed into social life. The remainder is > emitted back into the rest of nature as higher-entropy energy than the energy > that feeds originally into society. The total input and total output of > energy are equal, but on "average," the composition of energy on the output > side will be of a lower grade than in the input side. > > The universe is paying a high "price" for producing and sustaining life, > particularly human (social) life. Though generally speaking, life -- > including social life -- is defined as evolving in a direction opposite to > the increasing-entropy "arrow" of the rest of nature, i.e. from lower to > higher organization, it does so at the expense of speeding up the overall > degradation of energy that will eventually lead to the inevitable end of all > life in the universe. > > More specifically, a portion of the mass or energy that society ingests (an > increasing amount as human population and labor’s productive forces expand) > is returned to nature in the form of garbage; industrial waste; polluted air; > heat concentrations in the lower layers of the atmosphere; contaminated > waters; acoustic, visual, and electronic noise; etc. > > Instead of using the technical term entropy, we use the more common word > refuse to refer to all these "low grade" forms of matter, i.e. matter that > humans do not recover or recycle, but instead dump into the rest of nature. > Clearly, since we depend on it, our dumping refuse into it degrades the > natural environment, or makes it less useful to us, in that extracting > natural resources -- and therefore, other things constant, production > altogether -- becomes more costly to us, the productive forces of labor > reduced accordingly. In sum: > > Refuse: Unwanted, non-reusable, or non-recyclable wastage; mass or energy > emitted by human activities (production and consumption) that cannot be > recovered for human use and that reduces the usefulness of the natural > environment and, as a consequence, decreases human welfare, i.e. it decreases > our labor power. > > Notice that the degree to which our society generates refuse (say, per person > or per unit of wealth produced) is not fixed. The historical problem of > collectively "choosing" optimal social structures, given our existing wealth, > is in part the problem of how to use natural resources in ways that, other > things equal, minimize entropy, as -- again -- entropy is defined in terms of > the usefulness for us of the natural environment. > > A sustainable interaction with the rest of nature is increasingly a necessary > product we need to produce. In the last few decades, it has become > increasingly clear that human activities disrupt the natural cycles in our > planet, including the climate. Our relationship with the rest of nature is a > very complex process. We cannot easily regulate or control the overall impact > of our social life in the rest of nature. So, given the stakes, we have to be > particularly careful, because the forces that we unleash can backfire on us. > > We are all familiar with the changes in the planet's climate, with global > warming, which is attributed to certain gases that we emit into the > atmosphere that create a greenhouse effect on the planet and trap the heat in > the biosphere, which then disrupts our weather patterns. This phenomenon, > already in force, has the potential to cause even greater devastation to > human societies, especially those that do not have the resources and > technology to face these weather disruptions. That is why, increasingly, by > omission and by action, we need to deliberately produce a sustainable > relationship with the rest of nature. > > This has to be a conscious purpose and we then have to produce it, just like > we develop blueprints to build houses and then we go ahead and build them in > accordance with those blueprints. The output of this productive process will > be a richer human society. > > Making us aware of this need is the merit of the modern environmentalist > movement. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
