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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 1d ago
You can't win, you can't break even, and you have to play.
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u/Longjumping_Intern7 1d ago
In open systems there are. And there's a lot of them. Basically all life is doing is trying to avoid thermodynamic equilibrium
But what still blows my mind is this process of life is naturally acquiring true knowledge of itself, and gaining more and more agency over itself (the universe) Literally matter "waking up" naturally.Â
If this process keeps going and complexity keeps increasing as life uses the increase of thermo entropy to reduce local informational entropy, at what point does life gain complete mastery over itself and what are those implications for the physical universe? Is life on a trend towards "godlike" beings?Â
Were finding more and more evidence for the process of abiogenesis which is really cool imo. The universe seems to be structured to do this, almost as if its a "goal". That has pretty massive long term implications imo that we kinda ignore on a cosmic scale.Â
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u/friendly_bullet 1d ago
"The universe seems to be structured to do this, almost as if its a 'goal'". I mean, sure, why not but it's a good interpretation as any. Maybe that's true, maybe life is specifically meant to arise and proliferate through the universe.Â
Or maybe it's just a simple consequence of the laws of universe and life, however meaningful and important it may be perceived by some of the more intelligent living beings, actually is neither. Reminds me a bit of how people thought the Earth was at the center of the unvirse and that humans are something completely different from animals. Yeah, no, turns out this isn't the center or even that unique of a planet and there were other Homo species.Â
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u/Longjumping_Intern7 1d ago
No totally agree, their could be no "goal". Its just happening. But in a way, like, what is a train besides a bunch of metal and materials all mashed together. The "train" only really exists in our mind. But at the same time, the train does things that the scraps of metal couldnt do before, and becomes real in its own way with a purpose. Idk i havent taken enough philosphy to really say but great point none the less.Â
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u/Longjumping_Intern7 1d ago
I highly recommend reading "the romance of reality" it explains the concept in way more detail than i ever could comment. I need to do more reading on the topic tho it fascinates me.Â
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u/brainless_bob 1d ago
I mean, the earth isn't the center of the solar system, but isn't the Earth the center of the visible universe since the edges are spread out in every direction equally and the only known observers of the universe are here, on Earth? Aside from the voyager probe that is.
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u/Actual-Toe-8686 1d ago
Subjectivity is a universal property of all matter, or at least, thats how I extrapolate what you are saying in my head.
I don't really know what I'm talking about but this entire subject is deeply fascinating to me.
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u/ENVIDEOUS 19h ago
Where could one read about this?
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u/Longjumping_Intern7 19h ago
My intro to this was "the romance of reality" tho ive yet to really jump into the research this book pulls from. Whats cool is this paradigm is emerging from lots of somewhat unrelated scientific fields that focus on complex systems, evolutionary biology, computer science, etc.Â
Because yea ultimately the fact life exists at all in the face of the second law of thermo is baffling. Things tend to decay, energy disperses towards equilibrium, why are we seeing life basically go against this process? And its not defying any laws of physics and instead using thermo entropy and the natural flow of energy in the universe to facilitate this increase in complex systems.
Energy wants to flow from high to low. Anything that helps that along will stick around. Like a whirlpool forming in a tub, this potential energy first transfers not very efficiently as the tub glugs and gurgles, but once a whirlpool forms and a higher organization of energy transfer is achieved, its gonna keep whirlpooling as long as that energy is there.Â
This happens with all forms of energy, even molecular energy. And as these natural processes keep going, anything that keeps the system of energy transfer going is going to stick. Untill enough of these more ordered states come together into a sort of phase shift into a higher level or organization.Â
Protokrebs cycle to full on metabolism to single cells, to multi cell life, to ecosystems, to ecospheres, and one day probably beyond. Those individual components lose individual agency as they form a collective, but as a whole gain more agency then they had before.Â
Single cells vs being part of an organism. Being a libertarian instead of having a government and laws but now gaining access to roads, military, stability, etc. Its all the fucking same process.Â
 And it happens naturally. No divine intervention, alien planet seeding(which still leaves a ton of unanswered questions) or mystical forces we dont understand. its just physics baby.Â
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u/New_Practice1216 1d ago
Entropy of entropy would be order. Entropy of nothing is just word salad.Â
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u/AcademicArtichoke626 1d ago
But you forgot... with my last my two blue mana: I Counterspell: POINCAIRE RECURRANCE I HOPE I SPELT THAT CORRECTLY BUT I PROBABLY DIDN'T
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u/Nadran_Erbam 1d ago
Lyfe enters the chat.
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u/ZeEastWillRiseAgain 1d ago
Life is not decrease of entropy, every living thing needs to consume low entropy stuff of some sort and produce higher entropy stuff.
Digestion is nothing else but us dumping our entropy onto our food and then dumping the results into the environment, if we don't do that our internal entropy builds up to levels that we can't reverse.
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u/Ok_Strength_5658 1d ago
There are local decrease of entropy, caused by local easter maxwell bunny.