expanding and the way the mechanics of the universe work, it's all based on something that's called entropy . Entropy -- or chaos theory, if you want-- that describes that behavior of the universe,is the tendency for physical phenomena to break down, to go out of control.
we have to figure out how to do it ourselves. Entropy in a closed system, one without input of energy, disorder increases.Things fall apart. Stuff happens-- not because the universe has it in for us, but because they are vastly more ways for things
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. Entropy is the way that we have of talking about the disorderliness, the randomness, the disorganization of stuff over time.
in the sense that death can be thought of as the increase in entropy , the increase in disorder in a physical system. And when the entropy gets too large, the system can't function the way it once did. And that's really what we call death, right? That's
And life never gives us that control as a matter of fact. Through entropy , life is designed to break that illusion of control. That's one thing. The other thing, of course, is the effort, just the fact that you're constantly putting in effort to keep so many pendulums off their center
The idea is that there's areas in the brains of most mammals that allow them to navigate and understand space, in a manner of speaking. that entropy increases. Now entropy by itself doesn't explain the arrow.
world that's designed for us we Face other kinds of challenges than children do but their challenges nonetheless climate entropy accident heartbreak we're we're really fools to think that we're in in control of the universe any more than kids are the difference is that children um they allow the the humility of their smallness uh to rule
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. When entropy is very, very small, it's impossible to be complex because there's not that many possible arrangements you can be.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. The entropy of the universe increases monotonically through its history, but the complexity comes and goes.
And then it has this entropic sort of thing. And entropy is another thing I'm not sure I fully understand. But as I understand it, it has do with the general dissipation of energy over time.
And that is with the idea of entropy . So entropy 's one of these words that's thrown around. It's generally considered to be-- we talk about it as something like disorder, for example.
It's generally considered to be-- we talk about it as something like disorder, for example. But entropy , we think about entropy with gas molecules, for example, and entropy , to a physicist, is really just a measure of possibilities. So what we've got here is a little cartoon of gas molecules in a box.
as we teach our students, our physics students, describes how there's a tendency of the universe to go from states of order toward disorder, states of low toward high entropy . And indeed, we see that phenomenon playing out right along the cosmological timeline.
The receiver is our bodies in the future, let's say an 80-year-old, and we lose a lot of that information over time. We succumb to entropy . But we are biological organisms.
And an answer from the Enlightenment is that it's possible through benign institutions which allow us to deploy energy and knowledge, to push back against entropy , to magnify the better angels of our nature-- as Abraham Lincoln called them, such as reason and sympathy-- while marginalizing our inner demons-- our biases, illusions, our tribalism, our thirst for dominance and vengeance.
It's more than just going upstream because, really, what's going on is we are going against the flow towards the degeneration, everything falling towards entropy , randomness, disorder, falling apart and petering out. So a very simple, straightforward question.
complex. And what it does is it says this is me, and if another cell expresses differences, it's not me, and your body tries to kill it. You got entropy to deal with.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. That's because entropy is increasing.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. The reason the entropy of the universe was lower yesterday than today is because it was even lower the day before yesterday.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. This is low entropy .
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. That's high entropy . But this low entropy configuration with the cream on top, coffee on the bottom is also very simple.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. It's high entropy . It's all mixed up, but still simple.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. So while entropy in the universe just increases monotonically, complexity first increases and then goes away.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. But when entropy is very, very large it's impossible to be complex, because everything is smooth and homogeneous.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. It's because entropy is increasing that it can possibly happen.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. and the entropy would be much higher.
book, "What is Life." So Schrodinger in his book "What is Life" already acknowledges and recognizes that life is a machine that is going against the second law of thermodynamics. It's minimizing entropy internally and obviously, we are producing heat at our seams to make sure that the entropy in the universe at large continues to increase.
I cannot stress this strongly enough, because this is a very popular misconception, even when people have encountered thermodynamics in high school and college. But going from low entropy to high entropy , something that is so well-established that it is known as the second law of thermodynamics, is not really a law at all.
It's extremely difficult. It's extremely unlikely. So the increase in entropy is a probabilistic statement of the universe. It's just there's so many particles out there that those probabilities become almost certainties.
This is something known as Maxwell's demon, the idea that we might be able to make a low entropy and a high entropy -- make a low-entropy system merely by having a robot or some other brain open a box and let particles through depending on the nature of those particles.
So in this case, we might imagine Maxwell's demon takes the high-energy particles and tries to sort them to the left side of the partition and the low-energy You've got an entropy arrow, which is the increase in
And it has never been discussed before, but it's something we really need to have a conversation about. There's a deep paradox in human history. It's the empathy/entropy paradox. And that is, as we create more complex energy-consuming civilizations and bring them together with more sophisticated communication so we can extend the central nervous system -- bring more people together -- heighten our sensibilities and our empathy, become more cosmopolitan, those same more-complex, energy-consuming
extend the central nervous system -- bring more people together -- heighten our sensibilities and our empathy, become more cosmopolitan, those same more-complex, energy-consuming civilizations increase the entropy bill. More energy, more depletion of resources, a bigger footprint. Today, we live in the most interconnected, interdependent civilization in the world. We're connecting the central nervous system of the entire human race. And the same technologies that we are using
And it's not really going to spark a kitchen revolution in the near future, because this is nanotechnology. the information is destroyed and the entropy of the system rises.
You have to dump the extra entropy somewhere else.
The sad truth of reality is that entropy always marches forward.
The idea is that there's areas in the brains of most mammals that allow them to navigate and understand space, in a manner of speaking. But the tricky thing about entropy is if I say there's a state of medium entropy here, that predicts that the next time step
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. Why is it true that entropy was ever low?
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. There are more ways to be high entropy than to be low entropy .
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. The universe started very simple and low entropy , hot dense expanding universe near the Big Bang.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. It will end very simple and high entropy .
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. And that is a low entropy configuration.
But the two levels can be compatible with each other. What the sun gives us is low entropy energy.
And what he realized is that the systems that were out of equilibrium satisfied a different objective function. The systems that are in equilibrium maximize entropy . The systems that are out of equilibrium, Prigogine showed in a very particular example, they minimize the rate of entropy production.
We say that living things have negative entropy .
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy tends to increase over time, which means that systems become more chaotic, more disordered.
But obviously there is a complication-- one that shows up in a fairly complicated way. And that is with the idea of entropy . So entropy 's one of these words that's thrown around.
But possible. That said, this is our biggest clue as to how the arrow of time works. The idea that things go from low entropy /high order to high entropy /high disorder. It is within the realm of physics that if I break a set of cue balls, a racked set of cue balls, that they're going
each person we measure the entropy of the trajectory. Now, what is entropy ? The entropy of this particular system is zero. It says that there is completely order system. You
human need to fight against entropy .