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4. Consider the entropy budget of a dissipative system and its immediate environment (S lif e and Senv respectively). Dissipative systems have a low internal entropy maintained by the export of entropy to the environment: dS = dS lif e + dSenv ≥ 0. If the system is such that its order is increasing, dS lif e < 0, this necessarily happens at the expense of the environment and we have dSenv > |dS lif e |. The decreasing entropy of life does not violate the 2nd law since dSenv more than compensates for the lowering of entropy inside life. As life evolves and its metabolic paths become more efficient at extracting available free energy, this should lead to changing slopes as shown in the diagram (see also Chaisson, this volume)
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The Maximum Entropy Production principle (MEP) seems to be restricted to reproducible dissipative structures. To apply it
to cosmology and biology, reproducibility needs to be quantified. If we could replay the tape of the universe, many of the
same structures (planets, stars, galaxies) would be reproduced as the universe expanded and cooled, and t...
Citations
... In an urban system, the lack of energy input will result in an increase in entropy. Adapted from [29,48]. . City as a dissipative system and the entropy budget of Urban System and the Natural Environment. ...
... In an urban system, the lack of energy input will result in an increase in entropy. Adapted from [29,48]. Finally, some other aspects of the urban system and entropy addressed by revised papers are that entropy addresses three main features in the urban system: the position or location, the mechanic flow network, and the system scaling or size [7]. ...
Cities are critical to a sustainable future for our planet; still, the construction and operation of cities rely on intensive resource and energy use and transformation, leading to the generation of waste, effluents, and pollution, representing negative externalities outside and inside the city. Within every process, transformation implies the use of energy and the increase of entropy. In an urban system, the transformation of energy and materials will trigger the creation of entropic landscapes, mainly in the informal city and in unguarded natural landscapes, even hundreds of kilometers away, which generates substantial economic, social, and environmental impacts. In this sense, cities are significant contributors to the environmental crisis. Upstream, degradation of landscapes and ecosystems is frequent. Cities’ externalities and exogenous consumptions are directly linked with entropy and entropic landscapes, which are recognized as pollution (in the air, water, and land) or waste and in the degradation of natural ecosystems and communities. Through a systematic review of existing literature, this paper first outlines briefly how entropy has been applied in different disciplines and then focuses on presenting recent developments of how entropy has been defined, used, and characterized in urban studies concerning sustainability in cities and architecture, and presents a definition of the concept in relation to urban systems and key aspects to consider.
... The second law of thermodynamics is universal: it acts on everything. So the MEPP also is universal too (Lineweaver, 2006). Thus, all things are more or less animated by spirit-itself. ...
If we take on board the classic Durkheimian (1995 [1915]: 208) notion that religions and societies reflect and maintain one another—that societies create “God” in their own image—it is unsurprising that animism’s popularity as a religious path, often referred to as the “new animism” (Harvey, 2005, 2013), is growing amid current global anxieties about the destruction of natural environments, species depletion and extinction, pollution and climate change. This is happening even as many indigenous heirs of the world’s traditional animisms find themselves increasingly absorbed into cosmopolitan societies and urban contexts where their worldviews are a minority and access to traditional territories, food sources, trans-generational knowledge and lifeways is now more difficult, diminished or threatened. Many indigenous heirs of animism and non-indigenous “new animists” find themselves configuring heterodox paths within the cosmopolitan societies they now inhabit—embracing worldviews which are arguably broadly similar to one another, but needing to negotiate the fallout from the ongoing, often fraught socio-politics of indigenous/non-indigenous relations over the last half century and more.
... Prigogine and Nicolis (1967) noted that 'such instabilities should play an essential role in biological processes and especially in the first biogenetic steps.' Subsequent research has demonstrated that a biological organism may indeed be viewed as a dissipative system, composed of multiple hierarchical levels of dissipative structures with increasing levels of complexity, for example, proteins, organelles, cells (e.g., Prigogine et al. 1972;Davies et al. 2013). The general evolutionary trend of increasing complexity over time may be the result of preferential retaining of structures and systems that are more efficient at generating entropy (Schrödinger 1944;Prigogine et al. 1972;Arrhenius et al. 1997;Michaelian 2011), suggesting that the driving force behind biological evolution is statistical maximization of entropy production (e.g., Swenson 1989;Lineweaver 2005;England 2013). Since the advent of photosynthesis, living organisms produce the majority of entropy at the planetary scale arising from Earth's interaction with its solar environment (Kleidon and Lorenz 2005;Mejía and Michaelian 2018). ...
We apply a novel definition of biological systems to a series of reproducible observations on a blockchain-based distributed virtual machine (dVM). We find that such blockchain-based systems display a number of bioanalogous properties, such as response to the environment, growth and change, replication, and homeostasis, that fit some definitions of life. We further present a conceptual model for a simple self-sustaining, self-organizing, self-regulating distributed ‘organism’ as an operationally closed system that would fulfill all basic definitions and criteria for life, and describe developing technologies, particularly artificial neural network (ANN) based artificial intelligence (AI), that would enable it in the near future. Notably, such systems would have a number of specific advantages over biological life, such as the ability to pass acquired traits to offspring, significantly improved speed, accuracy, and redundancy of their genetic carrier, and potentially unlimited lifespans. Public blockchain-based dVMs provide an uncontained environment for the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) with the capability to evolve by self-direction.
... But two entropic principles are working on these simple things. The maximum entropy production principle (MEPP) states that physical systems tend to maximize their entropy production rates (Martyushev and Seleznev 2006;Lineweaver 2006). The orderly flow principle states that orderly flow produces entropy faster than disordered flow (Swenson 2006: 318). ...
I argue that it is rational and appropriate for atheists to give thanks to deep impersonal agents for the benefits they give to us. These agents include our evolving biosphere, the sun, and our finely-tuned universe. Atheists can give thanks to evolution by sacrificially burning works of art. They can give thanks to the sun by performing rituals in solar calendars (like stone circles). They can give thanks to our finely-tuned universe, and to existence itself, by doing science and philosophy. But these linguistic types of thanks-giving are forms of non-theistic contemplative prayer. Since these behaviors resemble ancient pagan behaviors, it is fair to call them pagan. Atheistic paganism may be part of an emerging ecosystem of naturalistic religions.
... Swenson summarizes the argument like this: 'the world can be expected to produce order whenever it gets the chance....[The world] is in the order production business, because ordered flow produces entropy faster than disordered flow ' (2006: 318). The MEPP is original and acts everywhere in the universe (Lineweaver 2006). ...
Many religions and religious philosophies say that ultimate reality is a kind of primal energy (such as qi, mana, manitou, teotl, pneuma, and so on). This energy is often described as a vital power animating living things, as a spiritual force directing the organization of matter, or as a divine creative power which generates all things. By refuting older conceptions of primal energy, modern science opens the door to new and more precise conceptions. Primal energy is referred to here as ‘spirit’. But spirit is a natural power. A naturalistic theory of spirit is developed using ideas from information theory and thermodynamics, such as the maximum entropy production principle. Spirit drives the evolution of complexity at all levels of existence.
... Entropy budget of a city and its environment. As a dissipative structure, the city maintains relatively lower internal entropy through the export of entropy to the environment (adapted fromFigure 6.4 inLineweaver 2005). ...
This forum article explores thermodynamic understanding of the growth of cities, including theoretical foundations, observations, and analysis. The general theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics is reviewed, recognizing differences in interpretation between Prigogine and Schneider and Kay as well as discussing the hypothesis of maximum entropy production. Calculations of exergy gradients in a few cities and settlements, along with measures of anthropogenic heat loss in further cities, support the notion that cities are dissipative structures. The observation that primary energy use per capita increases in Singapore and Hong Kong as they grow is further evidence to support the thermodynamic understanding of the growth of cities, indicative of an increasing rate of entropy production. At the global scale, the strong linear relationship between global urban population and total global energy use, and the distribution of city sizes according to Zipf's law, can be understood as emergent results based on thermodynamics. Parallel results might be derived from models that represent underlying microscale processes, several of which are reviewed. Issues for future research include: development of nonequilibrium thermodynamic models specific to city growth; further study of exergy flows of cities with consistent methodology, including attention to solar energy exchanges in cities; and further exploration of links between thermodynamic and economic models of urban growth.
... The association of the rate of entropy production with the fitness criterion of natural selection is not a new notion (Bejan and Marden, 2009; Chaisson, 2001; Lineweaver, 2005; Matsuno and Swenson, 1999; Salthe, 1993; Schneider and Kay, 1994; Whitfield, 2007). However, when it is given in a mathematical form of the equation of motion, it can be analyzed to draw unambiguous conclusions (Annila and Salthe, 2010a; Sharma and Annila, 2007). ...
Sexual and asexual modes of proliferation are associated with advantages and disadvantages, yet a profound percept that would account for both ways of reproduction is missing. On the basis of the 2nd law of thermodynamics we find that both sexual and asexual reproduction can be regarded as a means to consume free energy in least time. Parthenogenesis is a fast way to consume a rich repository of free energy, e.g., an ample stock of food with a large number of individuals, whereas sexual reproduction is a fast way to consume diverse and dispersed resources with a large variety of individuals. Most organisms have adapted to their surroundings accordingly and some organisms switch from one mode of reproduction to the other depending on the amount and dispersion of free-energy sources. We conclude that the least-time free energy consumption in respective surroundings, as the general criterion of natural selection, determines also sexual and asexual modes of reproduction.
... All actions are subject to the irrevocable consumption of free energy, which leads inevitably to the irreversible increase of entropy. Evolution will take its irrevocable direction of energy dispersion irrespective of the energy transduction mechanisms involved [26,[59][60][61][62], and regardless of how complicated these mechanisms might be, or to what degree its complete dissipation might be delayed, for example, when passing through a food chain. Entropy not only increases by necessity, but it will increase in the least time, consistent with local constraints. ...
The concept of time’s arrow is examined using the principle of least action as given in its original non-Abelian form. When every entity of nature is considered to be composed of quantized actions, such an entity will change, either by absorbing quanta from surrounding actions or by emitting quanta to the surrounding actions. In natural processes, quanta disperse from high-energy density actions to low-energy density actions in quest of consuming free energy in least time. We propose that the flux of quanta embodies the flow of time, and therefore the irreversible consumption of free energy creates time’s arrow in a fundamental physical sense. The cosmological arrow of time results from universal processes that take place, most notably, in stars and other celestial systems, where matter, that is, bound actions, combusts to photons, that is, freely propagating actions. The biological arrow of time manifests itself in maturation processes where quanta absorb to emerging functional structures, leading eventually to aging processes where quanta, on balance, emit from disintegrating organs. Mathematical analysis of an evolutionary equation of motion, given in general terms of a spontaneous symmetry breaking process of actions, reveals the reason why future paths—and the future itself—remain inherently intractable.
... First Law: For the conservation law to apply there must be a source of energy to conserve; hence the singularity is postulated to be that source. Second Law: For the entropic law to apply the singularity must have had some entropy, albeit very low (see Lineweaver, 2010), otherwise the Second Law would have nothing to increase. Fourth Law: For the maximum entropy production law to apply the Second Law must ensure a nonnegligible rate of entropy flow from the singular source, otherwise the Fourth Law would have nothing to expedite. ...
Are intelligent systems necessarily biological or might they be only physical? We propose that a system be deemed intelligent if its actions exhibit intentional dynamics. A lower bound on intelligence appears in such diverse physical systems as black holes making anticipatory adjustments to approaching matter and particles choosing among myriad possible steps the next least action step. While thermodynamic laws are known to govern black hole dynamics and cosmological evolution, we show their role in intentional dynamics is analogous—suggesting a new field of intentional thermodynamics. Perhaps systems are intelligent if they conserve the action potential identified by intentional dynamics—one comprising information and control as interacting duals. Hence a foundational mini-max principle is proposed, namely, that the rate at which entropy production is maximized varies inversely with the rate at which this action potential is minimized. Intentional thermodynamics' geometry is shown to be a path space whose solutions are goal-paths, i.e., paths that conserve the action potential. Finally, we ask if physical intelligence might not have been produced during the Big Bang.
... The central concept in the statistical mechanics approach is that of the state space. Layzer introduced the distinction between potential, i.e. maximum entropy and actual entropy, which allows to analyze the case of an increasing state space, which is the regular situation in an expanding universe (for a critical view on this, see Lineweaver, 2005; compare the discussion in Penrose, 2006: 696 ff., or Callender, 2009. From this follows that in an expanding state space, accumulation of information is possible as long as there is an increasing gap between potential and actual entropy (see Fig. 7). ...
The paper explores the relevance of recent developments in the Maximum Entropy hypothesis for reinstating
Georgescu-Roegen's natural philosophy, with special emphasis on the concepts of evolution and time. The key
point is the naturalization of the notion of ‘subjectivity’ in both the Georgescu-Roegen framework and Jaynes's
subjectivistic interpretation of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. I introduce the concept of ‘observer
relativity’ with reference to the evolution of ‘physical inference devices’. Then, the MaxEnt formalism can be
understood as a principle underlying natural selection. Further, given natural selection, maximum entropy
production (MEP) results from the confluence of maximum power (Lotka) and the maximization of
information capacity, driven by energy dispersal. In these processes, hierarchical structures of gradients of
energy dissipation reflect alternative positions of system boundaries, and hence different perspectives of
observer-relativity. Thus, I can distinguish between observer relative EntropyOR and observer independent
EntropyOI. This allows to reconstruct conceptually the two notions of time proposed by Georgescu-Roegen,
with subjectivistic time seen as time relative to the evolutionary process involving incommensurable
qualitative change. I claim that this philosophical view offers a powerful conceptual framework for recent
empirical research into the energetics of economic growth.
