Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

It has long been a basic concept in thermodynamics that entropy effects all systems, and causes natural systems to degrade into greater confusion and disorder as time passes. Entropy defines the direction of time and prevents time from spontaneously reversing. The ultimate effect of entropy over the next tens of billions of years will be to create a temperature equilibrium in which maximum disorder has been achieved and no useful energy sources remain. This is referred to as the heat death of the Universe.

In apparent contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics (entropy), observations of Life and other aspects of the human accessible Universe indicate a predisposition toward the creation of ever more complex systems. Proponents of increasing complexity point to the record of evolution on Earth as proof of their position. While there are plenty of short term exceptions, the overall trend does appear to favor evolving toward ever more complex lifeforms.

On the inorganic side, I think it is generally accepted that regardless of what happened before or during the "big bang", in the first couple of seconds after, the disassociated plasma of the singularity precipitated into the simplest elemental form possible - hydrogen. Ever since that first moment, the Universe has been hard at work converting that original hydrogen into ever more complex structures.

All of the higher order elements were created inside of stars as the by-products of the fusion of what was originally hydrogen. Iron is a more complex element than hydrogen - it contains a larger number and greater variety of subatomic particles. Iron is a common end product of stars that started out with nothing but hydrogen. But there isn't any known process that turns iron back into hydrogen - short of the singularity that was theoretically involved in the "big bang".

Rather than contradicting, I believe the two concepts of entropy and complexity are symbiotic. In fact, I believe a reasonable case can be made that entropy is the driving force behind the trend toward complexity. The key is that entropy applies solely to the energy density of a system, not its organizational complexity. Iron is favored by entropy as an element because it represents a lower energy density level per unit of atomic mass than the same number of units of mass expressed as hydrogen. In the same way that water becomes structurally more complex as it loses energy and phase shifts from vapor to liquid to crystalline solid, natural systems lower their energy density by increasing the complexity of their structure.

It takes a nuclear furnace burning in the heart of a star to perform the alchemy of elemental transformations, but entropy gets a lot of help from some of the less violent forces loose in the universe as well. It has long been suggested that there is some power that drives the organic system humanity exists within. Most cultures have some sort of accommodation to this perceived power - creating spirits, goddesses, mother nature, or other symbolic representations of the elusive life-force that they see in evidence around them.

When entropy is factored into the organic equation, the source of the power driving Life becomes more apparent. By concentrating elemental mass in complex organisms with lowered energy density, Life creates a relative energy differential between the surrounding external energy level and organic structures. The greater the energy differential, the stronger the life-force becomes. Life - that most glorious process (at least in subjective human eyes) which specializes in binding elemental mass into complex organic structures - actually derives its power from entropy.

The prevailing perspective of most studies of the Earth's ecosystem have been as an energy production system. Plants capture the "free" solar energy and combine it with minerals from the soil to produce energy rich biomass. Animals acquire energy by eating plants - or by eating other animals that eat plants. Viewed in this way, it appears that Life on Earth is an accelerating system constantly increasing its complexity and energy flow - and running exactly contrary to the universal law of entropy.

By concentrating on tracking the input energy flow, the primary role of the elemental mass has been overlooked. It's like looking at a siphon and only seeing the energy increase at the intake end while ignoring the larger picture revealing that the system is actually driven by the overall energy reduction at the discharge end.

Only when one steps back and views Earth's ecosystem as part of the big picture does the intimate relationship between Life and entropy become apparent. When the role of the Sun is factored in, Life becomes part of an overall energy density reduction system. Those points in the system where energy appears to be concentrated become nothing more than temporary side effects or input energy that powers processes that ultimately result in greater energy density reductions overall - slight bumps and aberrations on the otherwise relentlessly downward slope. Concentrating on the enabling energy also misses the point that entropy is a net sum game. Only totals really count.

The solar energy that powers the Earth's ecosystem is actually rejected waste heat (entropy) from the Sun's nuclear processes. Only a small percentage of the solar energy reaching the surface of the Earth is captured into the organic ecosystem. The rest forms the higher energy environment relative to which Life creates its energy differential.

Like the suction on the intake side of a siphon lifting water over an obstacle, the captured solar energy content of the biomass provides the input energy to perform the various "down stream" conversions, and is largely dissipated as waste heat rejected into the environment during the process. By allowing relatively small amounts of input energy to flow through the system at strategic points, the organic system moves a greater amount of mass into the more complex higher order lifeforms - which have a lower energy density. The more mass it can move up the food chain, the greater the total mass bound into the system and the lower the total energy density of the system - which results in a larger total energy differential and stronger total life-force.

Most plants are relatively short lived and their accumulated biomass dropped out of the organic system fairly quickly before the advent of animals. By consuming plants and transforming their biomass into ever more complex structures, animals further concentrate the elemental mass drawn into the organic system by the plants. Once elemental mass has been drawn into the organic system, the complex recursive structure of the ecosystem keeps it in the system by recycling it through carnivores, scavengers, various agents of decay - and if all else fails, once again the plants.

Life works on many levels in response to entropy. Hydrocarbons - the basic building blocks of all organic lifeforms - contain a lower energy density than their component elements, and are among the most complex naturally occurring molecules on Earth. In a world powered by the latent energy of combustible hydrocarbons, it's hard to conceive of organic materials like gasoline or naphtha as having a low energy density. But even the apparent energy content of a combustible hydrocarbon like gasoline pales to insignificance compared to the energy that would be needed to restructure the carbon and oxygen in gasoline into the elemental hydrogen it started out as before being "burned" at least once to power a star. In addition, most organic materials created by Life are relatively stable and represent substantially lower energy densities than their previous unbound forms.

Groups of molecules are mostly bound into larger structures by atomic attractions - sharing their electrons to mutually "fill" their outer electron shells. The stronger the bond, the greater the number of shared electrons, the more complete the outer shells of all participating molecules, and the more stable the resulting assembly. But because the molecules are all sharing the same electrons, their collection represents a lower energy density than the same number of stable "free standing" molecules.

Collections of bound molecules assemble into cells, which by means of bonding and other chemical interactions, further lower the energy density of the component molecules. Cells are then grouped into ever larger organic structures - commonly referred to as organisms. Each stage further reduces the total energy density of the assembled elemental mass. For a given number of cells, a single human organism contains a lower energy density than the same number of cells expressed as trillions of single celled amoebas - and orders of magnitude lower energy density than the assembled mass would contain expressed as free standing elemental atoms.

The superficial economies of scale give Life a predisposition toward creating the most complex stable organic structures possible. On an individual level, this predisposition toward greater complexity and cell density accounts for the tendency of many species to grow larger over time. It has also given Life a recurrent tendency toward giantism. These past forays into the extreme have proven to be unstable ecosystems, requiring a restart at a lower cell density level (smaller organism size). These restarts are documented in the fossil record as recurrent mass extinctions.

Note however, that entropy doesn't necessarily favor systems composed of large complex individuals - such as the dinosaurs. A symbiotic structure of more numerous smaller individuals will likely result in a stable system that can achieve a greater overall complexity and lower total energy density than an unstable exploitive system dominated by smaller numbers of larger and more complex individuals.