[MD] The Anti-entropic Miopic

[Case]

[Ian]
That is the whole point about negative entropy. Low grade waste energy
CAN be upgraded in to more useful stuff, but not by traditional
"mechanical engineering".

Think of this.
Adult 1 builds power station.
Power station loses waste heat in cooling water.
Adult 2 farms bigger fish in the (warm) cooling water outlet pond.
Child 3 eats more fish, grows an intellgent brain.
Adult 3 designs and builds better power station.
Ad infinitum ...

You can do the same story starting with the warmth of the sun ... the
original point in here somewhere.

It's the biochemistry, life and intelligence that reverses the
(otherwise natural) entropy gradient.
Or am I missing your point. I joined this thread late, as I said ?

[Case]
In your example above energy in the form of waste heat is lost at every step
in the process. You are merely describing successive transformations of
energy into higher levels of organization. However with each transformation
there is a net increase in disorder. Life is a process for using the
existing energy efficiently but still net disorder increases. Life does not
reverse the gradient it just allows more work to be done with the energy
that is available.

If it were in fact possible to reverse the gradient we would have perpetual
motion machines. This would solve global warming, wars to save our oil
supplies and all manner of social and political evils.