What is enthalpy's relationship to entropy? — schopenhauer1

A simple answer is the two talk about things at different levels of generality. So enthalpy is a measure of useable heat. Entropy is a measure useable information. One focused on the primary interests of the steam age. The other on those of the current information era.

So two different, yet related, ways of reducing reality to mathematical quantities that make sense from their respective embodied points of view.

Pessimism could surely pull the same trick and quantify the notion of burden as yet another thermo-metric? The level of disappointment that could be generated by some amount of simply being alive and so generating the steady metabolic heat equivalent of running a 100 watt bulb?

The higher the initial expectation of a life of effortless joy, the greater the “work” to be extracted in terms of generating a sense of crashing disillusionment. Is that the ethical equation you had in mind? :smile:

The level of disappointment that could be generated by some amount of simply being alive and so generating the steady metabolic heat equivalent of running a 100 watt bulb?

The higher the initial expectation of a life of effortless joy, the greater the “work” to be extracted in terms of generating a sense of crashing disillusionment. Is that the ethical equation you had in mind? :smile: — apokrisis

Haha, that is an interesting take. I am thinking more on the idea of creating work to counteract the forces of entropy. Animals are fighting this all the time.

@apokrisis Edit: Looking back at your response, I think you were saying that, so yeah.

What is enthalpy's relationship to entropy? I am asking for a broader ethical point. — schopenhauer1

Maybe this: right conduct's unintended, or unforeseeable, consequences á la local ordering that increases global disorder.

Indeed that’s @apokrisis big one.

More precisely: denials of complexity, uncertainty, contingency ...

Exergy would likely be the better term for what you want then. Biology prefers it because it is the useful work that can be extracted by a system coming to equilbrium with its environment.

This speaks to the particular energy potential being dissipated. It might be chemical bonds, solar radiation, whatever.

Or even better are still more specific measures like ascendency. This deal directly with the material closure that sets ecosystems and societies up as dissipative structures which can repair the living fabric that is metabolising it’s environment.

Ascendency is derived using mathematical tools from information theory. It is intended to capture in a single index the ability of an ecosystem to prevail against disturbance by virtue of its combined organization and size.

One way of depicting ascendency is to regard it as "organized power", because the index represents the magnitude of the power that is flowing within the system towards particular ends, as distinct from power that is dissipated naturally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascendency .

That is the fun of thermodynamics. From the super abstracted notion of entropy (and information), you can derive all sorts of metrics based on the same fundamental maths.

Out of the ground of a “heat death”, we can conjure up all we hold dear. Including vibrant rain forests or the throb of daily city life.

Exergy would likely be the better term for what you want then. Biology prefers it because it is the useful work that can be extracted by a system coming to equilbrium with its environment. — apokrisis

Or even better are still more specific measures like ascendency. This deal directly with the material closure that sets ecosystems and societies up as dissipative structures which can repair the living fabric that is metabolising it’s environment. — apokrisis

Energy is energy is energy until it has a point of view. Then it is just cruel-ty. Are humans causing other humans which need to do their little ascendencys and exergys necessary to cause? A rock rocks and rolls. A human eats and poops out its a-holes. Why the need for this?

To pretend there isn't a reason and an agenda is ignorant.

Energy is energy is energy until it has a point of view. — schopenhauer1

If you want to talk in terms of psychic energy, then Bayesian information is as close as you could get I guess.

But it sounds now like you are falling back into the incoherence of substance dualism. And even physics, let alone the sciences of life and mind, has been doing its best to move on from the substance ontology that talk of “energy” once implied.

Science now takes the systems view where gradients must be constructed down which outcomes flow. Teleology is built in to animate the Cosmos.

Your complaint is that intelligence has been dropped into the heat bath that is the Universe and is being required to do work. A planet was orbiting a star. The laws of entropy demanded that life and mind arise to accelerate the dissipation of the resulting thermal gradient.

All this effort we humans are putting in to burn all that accumulated fossil fuel. My god, what is it all for? Etc.

If you want to talk in terms of psychic energy, then Bayesian information is as close as you could get I guess. — apokrisis

Neural networks?

Your complaint is that intelligence has been dropped into the heat bath that is the Universe and is being required to do work. A planet was orbiting a star. The laws of entropy demanded that life and mind arise to accelerate the dissipation of the resulting thermal gradient.

All this effort we humans are putting in to burn all that accumulated fossil fuel. My god, what is it all for? Etc. — apokrisis

Indeed, but your systems view discounts that procreation is a choice. Ascetics exist. Birth control exists. Abstinence exists. Pessimism exists. Realism (informal) exists. Reasons exists (not just causes). There is an agenda behind every human point of view. The "agenda" of entropy barreling towards a heat death does not necessitate humans shooting out another POV into the world. Exergy from a POV is different than a rock rolling.

Neural networks? — schopenhauer1

Semiotic networks now. Bayesian mechanics has been generalised to include life and mind.

Indeed, but your systems view discounts that procreation is a choice. Ascetics exist. Birth control exists. Abstinence exists. Pessimism exists. Realism (informal) exists. — schopenhauer1

The “other” must always exist. The systems view adds the constraint that the fundamental dynamic must express a win-win dichotomy. That is how nature works. That is how we could measure the degree of pathology in the current stage of the human story.

You want to deal in absolutes. If things ain’t perfect, then they are a disaster. But that isn’t how systems thinking would set up its metric. The spectrum would have to be instead based on complementary limits on being.

With a society for example, it would be how well does it maximise both local differentiation and global integration? You want a relation where each is reinforcing its other rather than negating its other.

There is an agenda behind every human point of view. The "agenda" of entropy barreling towards a heat death does not necessitate humans shooting out another POV into the world. — schopenhauer1

We are entrained to the telos of the Cosmos. But that doesn’t prevent us showing our mastery over entropy gradients by surfing, dancing, gardening, cooking, procreating, and all the other ways of just having a little fun.

You can choose the misery of not having hobbies or activities. You can dismiss these as worthless diversions. But don’t expect me to agree that this is a sensible point of view to have just because I’m human.

surfing, dancing, gardening, cooking, procreating, and all the other ways of just having a little fun. — apokrisis

The bolded one is much different. One you are fighting your own entropy. The other you are creating another (POV!) creature fighting entropy. We want to see others fight the entropy. How strange. Just fight your own entropy. Don't pass it on. Don't assume other should fight the entropy. If only everyone had MY point of view. How narcissistic. I like X, therefore others should like live out a lifetime of X.

This was inspired by this little exchange:

The OP frequently writes on what is known as ‘antinatalism’ which is apparently a philosophy that stresses it would be better not to have been born or not to exist. Like many traditional philosophies, it sees existence as being inherently imperfect and painful. Gnosticism is another example. It sees the world as the creation of an evil demiurge, usually identified with the OT Jehovah, and the only hope being an escape from the created world and return to the Plelroma through gnostic insight.

Yet unlike the ancient world-denying philosophies modern antinatalism seems to have no conception of there being anything corresponding to the ‘release from suffering’. Existence is a mirage, a trap, a painful charade, but there’s nothing higher to aspire to. Only the wan idea that maybe if we don’t procreate, then we’ve made a meaningful gesture towards non-being.
— Wayfarer

My question to you iswhy do the majority keep on (making the mistake of) trying to make a meaningful gesture towards being? I noticed you never answered me directly but wrote generally, or to DA.

I have maintained that there is a political implication to this- that people ought to be making gestures towards being, the great IS. But why? Anything less than a paradise done on other's behalf should be justified. You cannot deny it is putting people through not only good but trials of varying degrees and kinds. That in itself means societally, and individually, it is deemed as some sort of goal to direct others towards. But, as Cioran points out, the decision, once made, is not reversible, even by suicide. So why make this choice for someone else? Thomas Ligotti called the concept, "The Cult of the Grinning Martyrs". But why more martyrs?

We want to see others fight the entropy. — schopenhauer1

I talk of play and mastery. You turn it into fight and misery.

Why not ask a surfer or procreator and discover what actual metric seems more accurate of their experience.

Pessimism is projection. As bad as the pollyannarism it welcomes as its congenital “other”. A systems view speaks to the balance of flow states and habits that integrate selves and their worlds.

Entropy is a measure useable information — apokrisis

That differs from the dictionary definition.

Incidentally there's a well-known anecdote concerning a conversation that occurred in in around 1940-41 in a discussion between Claude Shannon and John Neumann, during Shannon’s postdoctoral research fellowship year at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, where Neumann was one of the main faculty members. During this period Shannon was wavering on whether or not to call his new logarithmic statistical formulation of data in signal transmission by the name of ‘information’ or ‘uncertainty’ (of the Heisenberg type). Neumann suggested that Shannon use neither names, but rather use the name ‘entropy’ because: (a) the statistical mechanics version of the entropy equations have the same mathematical isomorphism and (b) nobody really knows what entropy really is so Shannon would have the advantage in any argument.

This is sometimes dismissed as an urban myth but I believe that there is documentary evidence of Shannon himself attesting to it. I like the fact that rhetorical considerations come into it.

Pessimism is projection. As bad as the pollyannarism it welcomes as its congenital “other”. A systems view speaks to the balance of flow states and habits that integrate selves and their worlds. — apokrisis

That's an error to muddle deliberation with necessity. No decision has to be made one way or the other. People have reasons and act upon them. As for projection, projection is simply self-involved X. Procreation is other involved. You should not muddle that either. Your happiness at X moment does not mean it is another person's lifetime of ? happiness.

A systems view speaks to the balance of flow states and habits that integrate selves and their worlds. — apokrisis

:cool: :up:

A systems view speaks to the balance of flow states and habits that integrate selves and their worlds. — apokrisis

That's an error to muddle deliberation with necessity. — schopenhauer1

The problem I have here is self-fulfilling prophecies. Buddhists do it when they say that humans need to be born to suffer to escape suffering. But you can just not have humans that suffer. It's suspiciously post-facto reasoning for why procreation is justified in an obvious knock-down rebuttal to the cycle of karma and samsara. It mixes up impersonal things (the cycle of suffering that is beyond human) with the deliberate (the human being who can at least not cause a point of suffering).

Apokrisis has just now written about this notion of an impersonal balance of the system, implying necessity despite the fact that humans can deliberate about things like suffering and understand the very fact of suffering. In fact, it seems ethically imperative to not throw more POVs into the entropy EVEN THOUGH, it is a necessary thing for other entities. Again, humans can at least not cause a point of suffering. Same kind of flaw of self-fulfilling prophecy, just different costumes.

More broadly, animals must deal with homeostasis, of FIGHTING entropy (decay, dissolution). But decay and dissolution sound tame if it is a rock, a molecule, a star. It takes on something different from a POV, a self-understanding POV.

Apokrisis has just now written about this notion of an impersonal balance of the system, implying necessity despite the fact that humans can deliberate about things like suffering and understand the very fact of suffering. — schopenhauer1

That's just misreading. What isn't constrained is what is free. The Second Law absolute forbids perpetual motion machines. But humans can build any kind of motion machine for which they can stack up the entropic budget.

What's your preference? Roller skates or a Lamborghini? Pink or gold? Leather seats or vinyl? The customer is king.

That's just misreading. What isn't constrained is what is free. The Second Law absolute forbids perpetual motion machines. — apokrisis

Yet if you admit deliberation than deliberating the ethics of creating another POVs dealing with entropy is an example of this. More existential and significant than leather or vinyl but yes, both are points of deliberation.

Buddhists do it when they say that humans need to be born to suffer to escape suffering. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, it wouldn't make any sense if there were no real good.

Yeah, it wouldn't make any sense if there were no real good. — Wayfarer

You mean like higher love?

Yet if you admit deliberation than deliberating the ethics of creating another POVs dealing with entropy is an example of this. — schopenhauer1

But I simply don't accept your one-sided view of existing as a human. If it is a reason for you not to breed then that's fine.

I have often enough expressed my concerns about the way civilisation is going. But that is quite different from your claims that life can't be fun and feel the opposite of a burden.

But that is quite different from your claims that life can't be fun and feel the opposite of a burden. — apokrisis

You’re dodging the question at hand. You know entropy and POVs. I am not questioning if it’s good to gift

fun — apokrisis

more if you make others deal with entropy. Fun is not the whole of entropy upon a POV.

You’re dodging the question at hand. — schopenhauer1

You are badgering me for no good reason. I answered your question. How is it ethical for you to keep burdening me with more work?

You are badgering me for no good reason. I answered your question. How is it ethical for you to keep burdening me with more work? — apokrisis

Now magnify that over a lifetime with no escape.

@Wayfarer@apokrisis@BC

Going back to enthalpy. Why is it we would want to burden people rather than quietude?

Wayfarer said “gesture towards non-being”. I do take that serious. It is good to not cause the burdens of being. Yet people keep perpetuating it. Grown adults not connecting the dots and going for tradition and selfish material or existential reasons.

What’s wrong with “nothing”. Of diminishing the amount of burdens, of not initiating another enthalpy machine to maintain. It’s like the noisy neighbors who can’t stop setting off fireworks. Burdening over and over and over because they like boom boom sounds.

The gods were pissed off from the noise of the humans and created a flood in one of the oldest written myths, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Humans can’t seem to keep their angst contained so they splatter it with noise and work and burdens and more and more people.

Wayfarer said “gesture towards non-being”. — schopenhauer1

I said that for modern anti-natalism, as distinct from gnosticism 'Existence is a mirage, a trap, a painful charade, but there’s nothing higher to aspire to. Only the wan idea that maybe if we don’t procreate, then we’ve made a meaningful gesture towards non-being'. The difference being that in gnosticism there is still the understanding of salvation from suffering or release into a higher realm, albeit perilously hard to attain.

There's absolutely zero point in wringing your hands about the fact that you exist. You can wish all you want that you didn't exist, but that horse has, so to speak, already bolted.

I don't really want to think about this just right now.

There's absolutely zero point in wringing your hand about the fact that you exist. You can wish all you want that you didn't exist, but the horse has, so to speak, already bolted. — Wayfarer

Questioning why we create burdens and increase our version of enthalpy machines is not a futile endeavor even if it’s too late for me. Precisely because I am living out the enthalpy does it matter most as the central question that everything returns to. Religious thinking wants you to think it’s necessary because they can’t justify it otherwise.

Human facticity / adaptivity – insofar as misery needs ("loves") company, miserable bastards are homeostatically hardwired to breed more miserable bastards ad nauseam. 'Reduce misery' (how?) in order to voluntarily reduce breeding. 'Eliminate misery' (how?) in order to voluntarily eliminate breeding. On the other hand, antinatalism puts the proverbial cart before the horse by, in effect, absurdly attempting to 'destroy the species in order to save the species'. :eyes: :mask:

Human facticity / adaptivity – insofar as misery needs ("loves") company, miserable bastards are homeostatically hardwired to breed more miserable bastards ad nauseam. — 180 Proof

I agree with the sentiment but contend the particular point. Are humans "hard-wired" to have children or are we a more complex (albeit still animal) that have an existential nature to it? With deliberation, we can have reasons rather than instinct. There isn't a breeding season, etc. Pleasure is good, but we regulate it all the time, or at least have that capacity to. It would be the same error of self-fulfilling prophecy I was discussing earlier to say, "We are doomed to keep the enthalpy machines fighting against entropy / create yet more POVs that feel burdens etc. so therefore we shouldn't act accordingly". That's the same post-facto justification as Buddhist's needing humans to be born to escape suffering (rather than simply not procreating in the first place), or apokrisis' systems ideology whereby we are just balancing out energy in a greater system and denying that we have reasons and choices. It's all kind of like, "Don't look at the man behind the curtain". Trying to obfuscate a deliberation with some sort of futility on a systems level.

However, I do agree that misery loves company. That speaks to this existential aspect that we are not content, so why spread discontentment? It is self-refuting to say thus, "I am discontented thus I should create people to alleviate that". Rather, the very fact of your own discontentment is a signal of the discontentment you will thus be creating. It is misguided.

On the other hand, antinatalism puts the proverbial cart before the horse by, in effect, absurdly attempting to 'destroy the species in order to save the species' — 180 Proof

This is just a kind of sophistry to make antinatalism logic look absurd. Rather, AN isn't trying to "save the species"; And the goal isn't to destroy the species. It's to not bring more suffering beings into the world. Not to create more little burdened things that need to overcome burdens. Not creating things that must continually fight entropy whilst having a POV that knows the situation they are in.

A doctor doesn't stop saving a patient because they can't save "all of humanity". They do what they can, and recognize what is in their capacity.