Energy to build it, energy to maintain it.

[GliderGuider]

3. A bit on my view of the role of thermodynamics

Last edited Mon May 27, 2013, 12:48 PM - Edit history (1)

Thermodynamics came into existence as a science in the early 1800s through the efforts of Carnot and Clausius to understand and improve steam engines. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is popularly understood to say, "Entropy always increases". While that is a pithy quote, it's not quite true. The overall entropy (disorder) of isolated systems always increases. However, the situation in open systems, especially ones that exhibit strong energy flows, is much more interesting. In such systems, self-organization appears as a matter of course. In inanimate systems, we see evidence of this in whirlpools, tornadoes and hurricanes.

Once this self-organizing principle was well recognized, scientists began asking whether life itself might be a product of the same thermodynamic process. The answer turned out to be yes.The idea that living organisms and ecosystems are products of the operation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (in the presence of suitable conditions, of course) now has a significant and respectable scientific history going back at least 60 years. It is now generally accepted that 2LoT drives the autocatalytic processes that underpin all life. The topic has been deeply investigated by many top-notch scientists, including:

Erwin Schroedinger
Ilya Prigogine
Eric Scheider
James Kay
Eric Chaisson
Jeffrey Wicken
Ludwig von Bertalnnfy
Howard Odum
Alfred Lotka
Manfred Eigen
Robert Ulanowicz
Erich Jantsch
Manfred Eigen
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
Stuart Kauffman
Frank Lambert
Charles Lineweaver
Charles Hall

The self-organizing, autocatalytic quality of energy flows within both inanimate and living open systems has been well documented, as has the resulting entropy that is discharged into their surrounding environments. It is no longer a novel or controversial scientific concept that the operation of 2LoT is a necessary (if not sufficient) condition for the appearance, structure and behaviour of living things - including humans.

The speculative jump that I make beyond simple biology is to extend thermodynamic involvement out past these systems to the autocatalytic, self-organizing structure of human civilization. In effect I treat civilization as a meta-organism or abstract ecosystem that is formed and sustained by energy flows, just like its organic counterparts.

This isn't as big a jump as it might seem. Life emerged from the thermodynamic interplay of inanimate molecules, and in consequence is shaped by the same rules. Humans emerged during the development of life, with novel features that enhance our ability to detect, acquire, control and amplify energy sources. The things we have done in this pursuit include our use of fire, the development of agriculture, the development of energy-related technology ranging from the fire drill and water wheels to automobiles, nuclear reactors, 3D seismic imaging and Geiger counters. This technology has enabled the emergence of our global industrial civilization. All of it is built on the foundation of 2LoT.

To carry the extension a bit further, I see evidence of the very same autocatalytic processes in human culture that shape less abstract events. The emergence of hierarchy in corporations, for example, is foreshadowed by the hierarchic complexity of living systems like trees. Even human beings are structured hierarchically, with our neural, skeletal, muscular , circulatory, and digestive networks. Analogous systems in human culture include political, legal, corporate, communications and energy-distriution systems, all of which carry the hierarchic structure that is the hallmark of complex autocatalytic systems. This is completely understandable in the context of autocatalytic complex systems in general, where essential control feedbacks are made possible by their hierarchic structure.

It all comes home to roost in the concept of growth. The growth of inanimate systems like hurricanes are naturally limited by the energy they can extract from the environment they encounter. Living systems develop sensory, mobility and interpretive capabilities (e.g. eyes, noses, legs, fins, phototropism and neural nodes that become brains) in order to extend their search for life-sustaining energy through more distant space and time. This capability enhances survival by pushing out the limits . The main limits in the animal world involve the loss of food supplies, changes in the physical environment, predation, disease etc. In each case, the organism evolves the ability to defeat these limits to some degree, in the interest of individual and species survival.

Because of the high likelihood of encountering such limits, along with the limited ability of most organisms to overcome them, life has also developed the natural tendency towards over-reproduction as a survival strategy. From the "point of view" of 2LoT, this strategy enables more rapid and extensive processing of any energy available, with a higher probability of success. The processing also produces as much entropy as quickly possible, a requirement that satisfies the inherent order/disorder symmetry of 2LoT.

The interesting part of the problem arrived in the form of the human brain. From the thermodynamic point of view, its main function is to act as a limit-remover in the task of finding and using energy. Game runs too fast? Develop blinds, snares, spears, arrows and guns. Not enough food in the forest? Plant it ourselves in big open fields. Not enough firewood? Experiment with coal. People stealing the food? Invent the hierarchic concept of police. Need to travel farther and faster to get work in order to buy wood, coal and food? Invent cars, ships, trains, and airplanes. This is the "Vicious Circle Principle" described by Craig Dilworth in his book "Too Smart for Our Own Good".

The human brain is an exceptional limit-remover. It's not so good at enforcing limits however - especially when group-think and herding behaviour come into play. In situations where decisions are made by an aggregation of people, the decisions are almost always in favour of growth, and only very rarely in favour of any sort of limits to growth. This is exactly what I would expect from an organism that had evolved for growth and complexity in the service of destroying gradients as fast as possible, wherever they can be found, and turning them into exergy and entropy in the process.

Political and social systems resemble ecosystems because in effect, they are ecosystems. As a result they march to the same drummer and play by the same rules. We're about to find out the truth of that statement, as we encounter limits we can't defeat with brain-power.