[marginalium]
Thermodynamics as a metaphor
8 Jan 2025
Pinker using the Second Law of thermodynamics as a metaphor:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in an isolated system (one that is not taking in energy), entropy never decreases … any perturbation of the system, whether it is a random jiggling of its parts or a whack from the outside, will, by the laws of probability, nudge the system toward disorder or uselessness … The Second Law defines the ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order.
And then,
More generally, an underappreciation of the Second Law lures people into seeing every unsolved social problem as a sign that their country is being driven off a cliff. It’s in the very nature of the universe that life has problems. But it’s better to figure out how to solve them
I mostly see Pinker telling people to cool out and stop worrying so much about bad things because everything is fine, not to think about solving things, so this was also a nice change.
See also this note, for a more substantive interpretation of the influence of thermodynamics on live/evolution/etc.
Anthologies: Betterment, Thought Architecture, On Being Fruitful, On Leadership, Noetik