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1 total messages Started by francois.grieu Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:33
@@@@@ she may lend besides, unless Ibraheem marrys trades against Ghassan's notion @@@@@
#5263
Author: francois.grieu
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:33
41 lines
2592 bytes
Check it out. Hang in there too, it's worth it.

*   "Platform for Change", by Stafford Beer, 1978, ISBN 0 471 06189 1
*   
*   The term 'entropy' began life as a subtle measure of energy flow.
*   
*   When something hotter is systemically bound to something cooler, the
*   greater energy of the hotter stuff migrates---inexorably migrates---
*   into the cooler stuff. This is one manifestation of the Second Law of
*   Thermodynamics, which everyone of education has encountered.
*
*   This is sometimes referred to as 'the universe is running down'.

Okay, 'entropy', yeah I remember that kinda. Keep going:

Our solar system is a lot of matter that is NOT sitting in a situation of
entropy: the sun is radiating heat at the planets. Instead of just matter
smoothing out to a common low-energy state, a burning fireball is at work.

Cybernetics states that under conditions
like this, matter does something special.

*   "Platform for Change", by Stafford Beer, 1978, ISBN 0 471 06189 1
*
*   If we have a universe, which is improbable though it exists, it is
*   because the Second Law of Thermodynamics has two forms. One is concerned
*   with the pressure to even out energy; that is the form which belongs to
*   our stereotyped conception of the universe. It betokens death.
*   
*   The other form is about information content, which leads to greater
*   organization and increasing complexity. That form betokens life.

What would be a specific example of energy causing matter
to be formatted by information, becoming "more complex"?

*   "The Human Use of Human Beings", by Norbert Wiener
*
*   A light quantum is a very small thing, but it turns out the energy
*   transfer which is necessary for an effective information coupling
*   is quite small.
*
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