[MD] The Anti-entropic Miopic

[ian glendinning]

Mark, Case,
Quoting Leslie "life is parasitical on entropy"

I like that. I didn't get into this thread earlier. Personally I also
subscribe to the view that life and intelligence create a "negative
entropy gradient", but entropy is such a nebulous concept to start
with (a statistical macro-scale view of many complex micro-scale
outcomes) that it's hard to see views like this as anything but
approximate (sloppy) metaphors, even if I believe them for practical
purposes.

Ian

On 2/4/07, Squonkriff at aol.com <Squonkriff at aol.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> [Case]
> I think you should think about this a while. I have not been  very accurate
> in describing entropy. I was working around the points you were  making and
> taking liberties in the process. But I would say you are getting  close. I
> have always thought your stuff with the sweet spot and coherence and  all are
> close they just need to shift up a notch. What you just said here  about
> boundaries. Boundaries are where things get interesting. For example  what is
> the boundary between the inorganic and biological. I would like to  call it
> carbon chemistry but not all organic chemistry is living. Viruses are  seen
> as the most primitive life forms but they are little more than DNA  and
> protein. Any time you draw a distinction the edges are fuzzy.
>
> Mark 04-02-07: Hi Case,
> On page 119 of John Leslie's, 'Infinite Minds' he suggests that life is
> parasitical on entropy.
> I like the way he puts that, but being a parasite is a long way from
> disobedience.
>
> <snip>
>
> [Case]
> No problem at all. Believe me I understand.
>
> Many years  ago I read Jeremy Rifkin's book Entropy. I remember thinking,
> "this is  Wrong!" Wrong in a moral as well as actual sense.
>
> This is called denial;  then came anger. Then I tried to figure a way out of
> it. Then I was  depressed. It took years but I followed Kubler-Ross to the
> letter and you  know, it's not so bad.
>
> What's bad is that, all this original source...  where did it all come
> from... seeking after a unity... Perfect order is a  single point where all
> is one and before that point? ...Nothing. From perfect  order to perfect
> disorder; ashes to ashes.
>
> But these things are really  only troublesome if you insist on thinking in
> "ultimate" terms. Ultimately,  schmultimately! It has been at least 13
> billion years since the point of  perfect order. The estimated time until
> perfect disorder is something like 10  with 150 zeros after it.
>
> Life as we know it took 4 billion years to get  here. That is a lot of time.
>
> All we really need to know is that it has  been this way a really long time
> and it is not going anywhere soon. As long  as the inorganic level remains
> static the biological level has something to  play with.
>
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>