Home

Paradoxical Regularity - Temporary Shortage of Disorder

Paradoxical Regularity at its best ?

 

To start with, some definitions:

entropy (n.) = the measure of a system's energy that is unavailable for work. 
Since work is obtained from order, the amount of entropy is also a measure of the disorder, or randomness, of a system. [Encyclopędia Britannica]

regularity (n.) = indication that a system has not reached maximum disorder. Such indications may include shape features, symmetry, balance, direction, repetition, and above all true life. A system that has reached maximum disorder does not have any sign of regularity.

process (n.) = identified proceeding within a bounded but generally not isolated system

 

For creation of regularity, useful energy is needed 

Let us call a process non-trivial if it executes a non-trivial set of rules, producing some output or state-change of a target. All processes are limited in time, with a beginning and an end. Before beginning, a process may be scheduled to start on a certain point in time, or - more generally - it starts on a specified condition. For an ongoing process, the time for finish may not yet be known. Also, all processes are limited in space. A process may embed processes, recursively. The only process that may be eternal and unlimited is Cosmos itself, or the Two Cosmoses themselves - more likely two (?).

The purpose of a process may be to reach a predetermined [pseudo-]stable state of a target, like building a house, a dam or a bridge. To reach and maintain stability under dynamic conditions is more advanced, like a bird hovering, or a person riding a bike or flying an airplane. Even if standing on four legs is a stable state, running on four or two legs are advanced pseudo-stable processes. Running takes the individual from point A to B, or leaves a predator behind. Even just standing on two feet, like birds and persons do, is a pseudo-stable state. All those examples require energy and dissipate heat. The life process of a warm-blooded animal includes advanced thermal regulation at 37 to 40 °C, with additional rules for emergencies and stress. Heat regulation is a pseudo-stable process requiring useful energy. Hibernating animals have another level of complexity in their rules for heat regulation, in order to save energy when food is sparse.

The human mind with its consciousness and cognition seem to be very fascinated by dynamic processes. We see it as a challenge to watch and take part in pseudo-stable processes and to set new targets for pseudo-stable states rather than steady states. Change is termed Progress, becoming a target in itself, a meta-target. The bad news is that "progress" often has side-effects that are harmful to someone somewhere sometime.

The fascination for pseudo-stability is easy to illustrate. The above picture is one example which is easily extended to beauty and games in general. A fresh rose is more beautiful than a silk flower, partly because we know that the biofact will fade. 

Each machinery that "wants" or "is told" to fulfill a purpose must have access to useful energy, in order to reach that purpose. From the available energy, the machinery has to pay a toll to the universe in currency of wasted energy. The second law of thermodynamics makes sure that all non-trivial processes have to contribute to the entropy (disorder) of the universe through dissipation of heat.

A process can temporarily increase the order of a local target, in other words increase the shortage of disorder for that target, as long as a surrounding process pays the toll in wasted energy. The efficiency of a machinery can never reach 100%. A "smart" process can use more than 50% of its available energy to execute some rule, that is to gain regularity of its target. 

Snowflakes get their regularity when vapour of water dissipates its thermal energy to the atmosphere. A fridge can increase the thermal order of a package of milk - cool it - as long as the total dissipation of heat from the machinery is positive. An electrical motor gives the compressor of the fridge the wanted regular rotation, as long as the motor spills some of the electrical energy as heat. The power plant can provide the electrical energy...

Sailing a boat from location A to location B is an example of a process making use of energy. Sailing is an interesting example, because one can sail with the wind, or against the wind. Even if you sail with the wind, turbulence in the air and in the water converts some kinetic energy of the air to heat while you reach your purpose. If you sail against the wind, you have to increase your potential energy in a pressure field. So, you have to spend more time converting more wind energy into heat, in order to reach your goal.

The life process of an organism is able to increase and maintain the internal regularity of that organism, as long as the organism's metabolism is able to also pay the toll in entropy. Plants embed organelles (chloroplasts, mitochondria) working as brokers of energy. Animals do not embed chloroplasts in their cells, but host a flora of bacteria in their gastrointestinal tract. Essentially the purpose of those guests is to make solar energy from plants available to the host animal. The bacteria pay a toll to the host (for the nice stay) and a toll to the universe in terms of entropy.

What is so impressive about life processes is their ability of to "sail against the wind" in two very different time scales. The embryology of an individual organism make sure that the purpose written in that individual's DNA is reached. Even more impressive, over time the Tree of Life grows and Evolution develops more complex recipes for organisms. This second order of increased regularity includes "product definitions" for organs like the brain of Homo Sapiens. Evolution also developed organs, the function of which the human brain can not imagine. (Who can imagine what image a bat experiences from sonar echoes in complete darkness?)

We have already mentioned snowflakes as spontaneously created regularities. In Cosmos, complex "organic" molecules like amino acids are also created spontaneously. Although no one can yet imagine how Life first came about, we understand that Life is a unique process in Cosmos. (This does not mean that Life is unique to Earth. Actually, there are no good reasons to suppose that the principles of Life are executed on Earth only.)  No other process than Life is able to define its regularity in digital information and then increase its regularity of regularity, its rule base. This is what has happened over geological time, a time span we can only understand as a notation -  3 800 000 000 years. The biological rule base, the genome, is carried by each individual organism. In fact, a multi-cellular organism is a perfectly tuned society of cells, where each cell carries the common rule base. The biological variation and selection processes as described by Darwin are together exceptional, to use an understatement. 

Each single-cell organism is a wonder of regularity. During the first 3 000 000 000 years of its history, the Tree of Life seems to have been happy with that. During the last 800 000 000 years, one of the three main branches of the Tree of Life developed a twig of multi-cellular organisms. Organ structures of multi-cellular organisms represent a higher level of regularity. One such organ was given the ability  to deal with abstractions and play freely with the concept of time. This is a third level of regularity that appears on one bud only, as far as we know. The mind of Modern Man often considered to be the highest level of regularity ever reached by the Biological Evolution. It must be stessed, however, that our judgement is highly biased. We must not be tempted to believe that Modern Man is superiour to every other organism in the universe, or the goal of Evolution.

 An alternative third level of regularity is the inherited ability for building a society. In its simplest form, this ability is manifested by ants and termites. But, humans certainly carry genes for social interaction and co-existence in a social structure. In fact, human intelligence combines abstraction, planning and social schemes.

In other sections of this material, three levels of regularities are called Cosmofacts, Biofacts and Artefacts. The third level, Artefacts, refers to products of the human mind, concrete or abstract products of arts in its widest sense. Biofacts are products of a biological processes. This means that all Artefacts are also Biofacts. Everything else in the universe is cosmofacts, things that do not require biological organisms or processes. (The term biofact makes no difference between single-cell and multi-cellular organisms.)

The above distinctions may be helpful when Mankind tries to define and implement her responsibilities towards the rest of the Universe and towards The Tree of Life. Our children are not products of an intellectual art. So they are Biofacts, and I believe most people are very happy with this view. In the future, if and when a human person is cloned from a single "parent" person, the new individual will become the first person to also be an artefact. I am also sure that many people are alarmed by this view. In the future, when (not if) a spare part organ is grown from a stem cell of the target person, such a spare part is obviously an artefact. The thought we can not bear is if the spare part should have a mind and a personality. Even worse, with a mind and personality, she will be able to perform arts like cloning persons ...

Life is a temporary shortage of disorder. Each organism makes use of some source of energy to increase and maintain its regularity. When an individual life-cycle is over, that biological regularity contributes to the regularity of other organisms, or is replaced by cosmic disorder (of ashes). Personally, I think there is something grand about both prospects and nothing really frightening about returning to star dust. 

Gravitation

The disorder of the universe is balanced by gravitation, the only force working over unlimited distances and not balanced by complementary forces. What exactly the balance between entropy and gravitation means on a cosmic scale, nobody seems to know. Still, everyone should be thankful for gravitation, locally on the surface of Earth slightly below 10 m/s2. Lower gravitation on Earth may have meant loss of all water, like the loss suffered by Mars. A higher level gravitation may have meant much more water and no land to exploit. Compared to no water, that would have been a much less serious blow to Evolution and Life on Earth.

Notes