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Don't know if this helps at all, or hurts. But I see Mojo's comments as implying that if we allow ourselves to, our lives will tend toward increasing disorder.


You're on the right track in terms of what I was implying about our ability to "live" in the future or effect our future lives. Evolution does occur. Growth towards increasing order does occur in an open system. What also fascinates me about the concept of entropy is its relationship to information theory. I read Claude Shannon's "Mathematical Theory of Communication" but I must admit that I don't quite understand it. I was implying that the only reason we can't "live" in the past is that white noise degrades the quality of our memories.

When I say entropy is the devil, I mean that if we give in to despair that is the equivalent of seeing ourselves as closed systems, helpless pawns falling victim to statistically random processes. We become more fully human when we act as conduits of the sun's energy and see ourselves as living in an open complex system in which we can act to create even greater complexity or order. We can rage a little bit against the heat death of the universe by painting a picture, nursing a baby, canning some pickles, sanding a floor, singing in harmony, hanging the laundry out to dry, teaching a theory or even (especially?)f*cking like monkeys.

Just a little religion I created for myself one night after eating mushrooms when I was a physics major. So, grain of salt.-LOL


"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver