Entropy at Work
Entropy at Work
Murphy's Law states: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong".
Life has a nasty habit of causing trouble and making things hard. Problems seem to pop up on their own. But solutions always require effort, energy, and attention. We can't just expect life to work itself out. In fact, our lives become more complicated and gradually devolve into disorder, rather than remaining simple and orderly.
Murphy's Law is often thrown around in conversation, but it really refers to one of the most powerful forces in the Universe. We are influenced by this force in almost every endeavour we undertake. Many of our problems can be attributed to it.
This is the force that governs every aspect of our lives - ENTROPY!
Why does Entropy matter?
Imagine that we take a box of puzzle pieces and dump them out on a table. It is theoretically possible for the pieces to fall into place and create a completed puzzle as soon as they are taken out of the box. However, that never happens in reality. Why? The odds are overwhelming against it.
In order for the puzzle to be completed, every piece must fall exactly where it should. There is only one possible state where every piece will be in order. However, there are nearly an infinite number of possible disordered states. Statistically speaking, an orderly outcome is highly unlikely to occur by chance.
The same applies if we build a sandcastle on the beach and then return a few days later. There is only one combination of sand particles that looks like our sandcastle. At the same time, there are an infinite number of combinations that don't look similar. Again, in theory, it is possible for the wind and waves to move the sand around and create the shape of our sandcastle. In reality, it never happens. There is a high probability that sand will be clumped together in a random manner in this simple example of entropy.
Entropy is a measure of disorder. The number of disorderly variations always outweighs the number of orderly variations.
What is the importance of Entropy in our life?
Here's what's crucial about entropy. It always increases over time. Things tend to lose order naturally. It is inevitable that life will become less structured over time if left to its own devices. Sandcastles are washed away by the tide. Gardens are overrun by weeds. Ancient ruins crumble. Rust begins to form on cars. Over time, people gradually age. Even mountains erode and eventually become rounded. It is inevitable that things will become less organised over time. This is known as the second law of Thermodynamics. This is one of the foundational concepts of chemistry and a fundamental law of the Universe.
Let's not get too depressed, though. Entropy can be fought back. The scattered puzzle can be solved. Weeds can be pulled out of our garden. A messy room can be cleaned. Individuals can be organised into cohesive teams. But because the universe naturally slides toward disorder, we have to expend energy to create stability, structure, and simplicity.
Order requires effort.
The ultimate purpose of life, mind and human endeavor is to combat tidal entropy and preserve beneficial order. It is not easy to maintain order in the face of chaos. The hardest thing in the world is to simplify our life because everything pulls us towards complexity. Entropy will always increase by itself. It is only by adding energy that things can be made orderly again.
The key to any successful relationship is attention and care. A good home requires regular cleaning and maintenance, and a good team requires communication and collaboration. Things will decay without effort. As disorder increases over time, we can counteract it by spending energy revealing our core purpose in life. Creating resilient types of order that can withstand Entropy's relentless forces requires effort.
Many of the mysteries and experiences of daily life can be explained by Entropy.
Why is life remarkable?
Take a look at the human body. There are virtually infinite ways to arrange the atoms in our body, and nearly all of them result in no life. In mathematical terms, our presence is overwhelmingly unlikely. We are a very unlikely combination of atoms. Yet here we are. In a universe dominated by Entropy, the presence of life with such organisation, structure, and stability is remarkable.
What makes art so beautiful?
Entropy offers a good explanation for why art and beauty are so aesthetically pleasing. It is unlikely that the universe would create order and symmetry without the help of artists. In the grand scheme of things, it is so rare. The number of beautiful combinations is much lower than the number of total combinations. Similarly, seeing a face with symmetrical features is rare and beautiful in light of the fact that there are so many ways for a face to be asymmetrical. In a world of disorder, beauty is rare and unlikely. This gives us good reason to protect. It should be protected and treated as sacred.
What makes marriages so difficult?
According to Tolstoy, happy families are all alike. A family that's unhappy is unhappy in its own way. It is possible for a marriage to fail for many reasons, such as financial stress, parenting issues, crazy in-laws, conflicts of core values, infidelity, lack of trust, etc. A deficiency in any of these areas can ruin a family's happiness. However, we need some degree of success in each major area to be happy. Thus, all happy families share a similar structure and order.
Order can occur in only a few ways, but the disorder can occur in many ways.
Optimal lives are designed, not discovered.
In life, perfection does not come by default. It must be defined and designed. As an individual, we possess a unique combination of skills, interests, and talents. But we also live in a larger society and culture that were not designed with our specific abilities in mind. According to what we know about Entropy, what are the chances that the environment we grow up in is also the best for our talents? It is very unlikely that life will offer us a situation that matches our strengths perfectly. Our chances of encountering a scenario that doesn't suit our skills are far higher than those of encountering one that does.
Evolutionary biologists call a condition "mismatch condition" when a species is not well adapted to the environment. There are common phrases for mismatch situations, such as "fish out of water" or "bringing a knife to a gunfight".
To succeed, to be useful, and to win is more difficult. Life is likely to present us with mismatched conditions. At the very least, life will not be optimal. We may not have been well served by the culture in which we were raised. Perhaps we were exposed to the wrong subject or sport. Maybe we were born at the wrong time in history. Knowing that we are far more likely to be living in a mismatched situation than in a well-matched one, we should design our ideal lifestyle ourselves. Mismatch conditions must be turned into well-matched conditions.
To conclude, let's return to Murphy's Law. "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". Entropy explains why Murphy's law appears so frequently in life. The chances of things going wrong are greater than the chances of them going right. There's no cosmic force conspiring against us or misaligning the planets that cause difficulties in life. It's just Entropy at work!
In a sense, Entropy is like Murphy's law applied to the entire Universe. No one is to be blamed for life's problems. It's just a law of probability. Given the odds against us, life has numerous disordered states and only a few ordered ones.
What is remarkable is not the existence of problems or disorders, but the possibility of overcoming them.
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