Our event horizon is called an entropy watershed. In the course of human history, critical watersheds are reached when all of the accumulated increases in entropy result in a qualitative change in the energy source of the environment itself.

A shift to a new energy environment occurs with the advent of new technologies. 2nd law tells us that each shift is more harsh and exacting in terms of available energy. The demand to hold entropy at bay is ever increasing, while the amount of available energy is always decreasing.

Since there is not enough time to do more work each day, we must come up with labor-saving or time-saving technologies just to maintain the status quo.

If you think that just because machines are doing our work for us that less work is being done, then you don't yet have a grasp of 2nd law.

I think climate change is going to be the next entropy watershed.

Anyone out there know the Author or ISBN no of the above.

I read it about 25 years ago and found it fascinating. The author basically expanded second law to encompass all sorts of interesting areas. eg Social Science, Town Planning, Crime etc

Basically taking that all communication transforms energy, so the more energy used, the more waste/less useful energy. So basically large scale industrialisation and cities cause human fallout as well as pollution.

I bought it, but someone I lent it to didn't return it.

Happened to me as well, especially in the case of LP's...



I had the original one that unfolded like a newspaper!

Wasn't me - Honest!

Heya, yeah I read it, it was okay, but there were the usual problems associated with trying to bungle everything into one neat theory.

His premise was basically that with every technological advance we are actually unwittingly taking a step backwards because every added layer of complexity speeds up the rate of entropy.

AFAICT it works for a lot of things, but not everything--because sometimes technological advance can make systems less complex. E.g. advances in information storage and transmission do mean that we are able to use less and less energy for these functions, while they are also expanding in capability.

point taken, my recollection is that it wasn't just complexity, but more a matter of scale and volume.

i recall the main idea being the more we do the quicker the end.

i cant remember the whole book, but found it interesting.

btw do you recall the authors name

jeremy something has just sprung to mind.

How's this?

http://www.foet.org/books/entropy.html

Thats the one thanks very much!!

I remember the book well. Great read, until he starts going off on a religious tangent during the latter part.

A little while ago I came up with the idea that, lo and behold, I had discovered the meaning of life. Well, I think I was close but it was still one step away. I have NOW discovered the Meaning of Life.

Here is my first, nearly correct, definition. Life is, by definition, the ability of something to reproduce itself, to make an exact or partially exact copy of itself. It is self perpetuation. So what is the Meaning of Life (MOL) for bacteria? Simply to make more bacteria. And for an ant, bee, rabbit, oak tree, or what ever? Simply to do perpetuate the species. So, what is the MOL for humans? Well the very same thing, simply to perpetuate the species. Ocam's Razor, the simplest answer is ususaly correct.

Then....and this is a little more difficult but eventually more elegant.

Why have life? Is there yet some simpler explanation. By example lets ask "Why does water flow down hill?" It seems like a simple question but it is not quite so easy. It took Issac Newton to discover the laws and put an explanation to the phenomenon. Yet none of us now disputes it. So is there some law as simple and undeniable as gravity that would explain us in a similar fashion?

To clarify the language first lets rephrase the water question to ask it from the rivers point of view. "Why does water want to flow downhill?" Admittedly this is a bit of an anthropomorphism but it helps the transition. Of course water does not "want" in the same sense as you and I but it is still driven by a unrelenting force to do something. That force, gravity, drives water and much of what is around us to make the world as it is. So it is somewhat reasonable to say "Water wants to go down hill because it is driven by some unseen but felt force acting upon it."

Besides gravity another one dimensional force acting upon us all is Entropy. Simply put entropy is Natures desire to move everything to its lowest energy state, to its most disorganized state possible. It is also known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It is similar to gravity, or time, in that it has one direction only.

My theory or postulation is that nature "desires" entropy just as water "wants" to go down hill. It is equally valid to say "Nature wants to obey gravity." as it is to say "Nature wants to obey entropy." So nature has rivers to move water down hill. So nature has created life to increase entropy, and to do it rapidly.

Without life Nature has limited resources to decompose things, to move them to their lowest energy state. Stars exist with high energy levels and in the process of decaying, burning, they create heavier elements and decomposed or radiated energy. But the net effect is to always lower the total energy and organizational level. In that process some smaller, compact pockets of temporary high energy/high organization matter exist. Nature "needs" to get rid of those pockets much as Nature "needs" to obey gravity.

Jump billions of years forward and Nature creates life to "eat" and decompose stored pockets of energy more quickly than could be done by simply waiting for atomic decay. life is born. Life evolves into more and more complex forms that use more and more energy. Consequently these life forms hasten the decomposition of organization through burning (eating.) In this process however there comes to be a huge energy store contained by Nature. And as Nature abhors such high concentrations of organization and energy Nature develops (through her R&D lab we call Evolution") more complex critters that can get at and destroy that energy.

Thus Humans have been developed by Nature to facilitate Entropy by seeking out and burn up concentrated sources of energy.

In the process we make a few more highly concentrated pockets here and there but the net result is that we are using energy, burning energy, increasing Entropy at an astonishing rate.

Another way to look at this is to ask "What are humans really, really good at?" or "What is consistent about humans, what is it that they always do.?" The answer is simply "Increase Entropy." Surely you can list all the things we normally associate with the MOL, in improve the Human Condition, to leave good works, to leave the planet better than we found it, to do God's work, to improve culture or what ever. But we are not CONSISTENT in doing these things. For any one of them we can find many humans who are not concerned or even act counter to the goal. But we always find ways to create more Entropy.

We farm. That is a way to hasten the natural process to make the land yield more calories, which we then burn.
We eat meat. By so doing we have found a way to use up all the excess calories we made in farming.
We have wars. In wars we consume huge quantities of resources, and while we may kill a few here and there, undoubtedly wars consume more calories than peace.
We build big buildings. The buildings are grand edifices but are temporal. The stone of the grand pyramids is in a temporary state of high organization because it was piled high. But, it will fall someday. And in the end the total Entropy will have been greater than had the stone been left in the ground intact. All other building pale by comparison. How many homes, towns, cities, and grand edifices have we built that are now naught but dust.

And so it goes. To me it now seems oh so simple and obvious. Our Meaning of Life is simply to create Entropy. It is our destiny. Peak Oil is merely then the height of our success.

Thoughts?

On the micro level, I tend to think there really is no esoteric "meaning of life." Everything in nature really just operates as it does in accordance with the framework of natural laws.

On the macro level (and by macro I mean the universe), well, that's where the question gets really interesting.

From what I understand, we're reasonably sure there is an outer limit to the universe (we had the big bang, all that matter flew out from a central point and gets less dense the further out you get). So, the universe is finite even though space is infinite (what a hard concept for us, the infinity of nothingness).

Some theorists believe there are multiple universes not only in space but also time. The most interesting line of recent thought is that there are infinite copies of our own observable universe -- in short, every decision you make creates a new universe. Every possible outcome exists, simultaneously.

It's a bit touching to know that very likely, lost loved ones are very much alive in those parallel universes.

So anyway, when I wonder about the meaning of life, I wonder what the "grand plan" of the universe is. Who started it? Can something just exist without creation (Aristotle wondered the same thing, see his theory of the prime mover).

I have to conclude that "God" must exist, though the nature of God is something we can't yet comprehend. (and there's that old conundrum, who created the creator?)

As for your argument about entropy, I don't really think the Earth needs life to enable entropy. Venus and Mercury are doing just fine without any life.. seems to me life is just one of those planetary features that can pop up given the right circumstances.

The simplest answer? There is no ‘meaning’.

Let's call entropy by its common term;

DEATH

The universe is in the process of slowly dying. It's been that way since the big bang. Life, at least individual or societal life, is intended to maximize its own version of life. Unfortunately that comes at the expense of OTHER life, so there is an endless competition that goes on. Hence evolution. When one species falls behind, it goes extinct. When it breaks out from the pack and begins to dominate, then it can create problems. This is true of any invasive species, and is true of humans. Normally this imbalance is solved through die-off, and now we're running the first ever experiment on intelligent beings. Enjoy the show.

That´s true, that is the short answer by the way, if you want tha arguments behind that conclusion take some time and read this 2 books in this order:
1)

2)

I hope you are not easily depressed though.

There's a lot more to it than we have yet to figure out how to perceive in this existence.

The temporary life on Earth is just a freak sideshow.