Entropy Pump
Posted 2017-06-25 11:49 PDT | Tags: blogging entropy
 
So .. WTF is an "Entropy Pump", and what does it have to do with "blogging against inevitability?
 
Entropy has to do with irreversible transformations -- once an egg is scrambled, one cannot put it back together.  Once energy is converted into heat, one cannot reclaim 100% of that energy from that heat.
 
Eventually everything runs down.  This is inevitable.  Entropy cannot be reversed.
 
But it can be shuffled around!
 
Entropy pumping is a characteristic of all living things, as they incorporate low-entropy substances into themselves (food, clean water, sunlight, etc) and export entropy away from themselves.  They keep themselves ordered and energetic at the expense of making the rest of the universe less ordered and less energetic -- accelerating the Heat death of the universe to delay their own.
 
Fortunately the universe is much, much bigger than living things, so it doesn't mind so much.  Our planet is feeling a bit of strain -- more on that in future entries.
 
One corollary to this is that all causes are ultimately hopeless.  In the end the universe will die, and everything that came before it will come to naught
 
In the much shorter term, living things die.  The entropy pump grows less efficient, disorder accumulates, order decays, and eventually the pump can't keep itself sufficiently ordered to keep pumping.
 
This, too, is inevitable.
 
But we keep pumping anyway, don't we?
 
That's what this blog is about.  All causes are hopeless, but we strive to succeed regardless.  The words I write might be whispers against the wind, but I write them anyway.  History marches stubbornly on, but that doesn't mean I can't dance my own jig.
 
All entropy pumps are doomed to fail, but I'll keep mine running as best I can.