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Does Evolution Drive Entropy or Vice Versa?
If our universe, and everything in our physical experience, is continuously moving toward a more disorganised state, and we as physical beings are continuously adapting to a higher state of chaos, then how can we evolve into a more perfect organism?
The cold truth of the matter is we can’t. Evolution is the continuous adaptation to a more chaotic world.
That is a bit depressing isn’t it? This dilemma also creates numerous philosophical arguments, as we’ve always thought we were evolving into a higher state of being, but we’re not.
These two scientific theories, when merged and considered in combination, force us to accept that we continuously have adapt to a higher state of disorganisation, or at reduced state of organisation. A fundamental question is which law takes precedence? More relevant to us as beings living on this planet in this space/time, which law acts on us first?
If we consider the peppered moth mentioned in the previous post about entropy versus evolutiont, then it’s obvious that the introduction of a new system (industrial soot coloring the tree) created a more disorganized state of being, especially for the moth, so evolution followed the entropy.
As humans, we are continuously creating more systems, so we’re continuously adding more chaos to the universe. We must continuously evolve to try and reduce the entropic effect of time.
In our perception of time moving forward, as postulated by the second law of thermodynamics, it is difficult to imagine a situation where evolution would lead entropy. The absolute best we can hope to achieve is to slow the entropy down, allowing us more time to evolve. We are actually very good at figuring out how to do just that.
If you live in a house with any external wood, you’ll notice it will be painted. The viscous paint can be tinted with color for aesthetics, but its real purpose is to slow down the entropy. Left unpainted, the sun, wind and rain would degrade and rot the wood much more quickly than when sealed by the chemicals in the paint.
I mentioned rusting metal as an example of entropy in the previous post, and once again you’ll see most metals will be painted for the same reason.
Billions of dollars are spent every year in the hope that this or that face cream will stem the effects of time on our looks. The entropy in our world is constant, unremorseful and the natural state of things.
You can’t escape it.
So it’s easy to understand the effects of entropy on a piece of matter, but what about a system of organisms? What happens when we apply these laws to human society?
Entropy states civilisation must erode into a more chaotic state, while evolution forces us to comply with a less ordered state.
History abounds with stories of great empires crumbling under their own systems. Egypt, Greece and Rome were each the most powerful nation in the world. All are now only remnants of their former selves.
What will become of today’s most powerful nations? Will they too go the way of the pharoahs?
We are witnessing some very unsettling things in our world with drought, famine and natural disasters on the rise, not to mention the way in which some government and financial institutions have been allowed to speed up financial entropyby introducing new financial instruments (new systems) into an already highly complicated existing system.
It is very difficult to have any effect on the entropy or evolution of large existing systems (like civilisation) as an individual. So how can we slow down entropy in our own experience of the world?
If each of us were to put intention toward reducing entropy, it might act as a shield, like the paint protecting the wood.
We’ll explore this a bit further in Part 3.
Write On!
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