From: Dejan Vucinic (dejan@mit.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 20 1996 - 21:09:53 MST
Chris Hind wrote:
> Entropy cannot be stopped, only slowed so I guess that leaves the goal of
> Extropy to create increasing complexity to create less entropy but more
> efficiently.
The entropy of an open system can be decreased by having energy flow
through it. Pick up a book on thermodynamics and look up thermodynamic
engines. That's how life on Earth originated: heats up by day, cools
off by night, repeat many times. The total system (i.e. cosmos) still
falls toward equilibrium, at least from our present point of view.
By the way, there isn't *that* much exactness in the term "extropy."
In particular, minimizing entropy of our immediate neighbourhood is not
very extropian, imho. Imagine a solar system with all the atoms in a
lattice, in the ground state, with their spins aligned in the same
direction. Not very uplifting, is it? :)
Regards,
--dv
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