Entropy, my Love

Permaculture is definitely a methodology intending to bend the vector of chaos and reduce the pace in which disorder degrade our world. In this process, considering the incredible amount of energy coming from the sun we, as permies, are able to produce abundance by orchestrating the creation of a biodiverse ecosystem.

Mainstream scientists have claimed lately that entropy is not really disorder and found an ultimate shelter in the postulate that it is about information conservation and the manipulation of mathematical sets which include statistical trends and probability.

There could be another perspective, related to anthropocentrism. Let’s consider Chaos as a vector based on the notion of quantity, and Order as a vector based on the notion of quality (structure, meaning).

In this new perspective and considering universal laws like synergy and emergence we could induce that entropy is producing order . I give you an example ; by repeating a basic pattern a large amount of time (here quantity of disordered identical elements is involved) can emerge a structure identified as unique and particular (here quality is involved). In an anthropogenic perspective now; if I don’t like to scratch the bottom of a pan to remove the attached remaining food I let the pan soak so that the degradation of the glued remaining food will dilute in water and allow me to clean the pan. In my perspective (a higher level of emergence; human organisation) the final result has more structure and quality even if in a lower physical state the entropy has increased.

The question becomes ; does the notion of information conservation needs to take into consideration the quantic leap in quality in information transformation ?

It is intellectually stunning to consider that if entropy could be more fundamental than the arrow of time another law of the universe is as well extremely fundamental; Emergence. E.g. the big bang, or the infinity of proto-parrallel-universe producing our interesting universe.

… and they seem to be linked somehow.

This could be a fundamental question related to the perspective in which we consider mathematics as well. Are mathematics a product of our universe or a product on a higher emergent level; we, human.