⚖️ Entropy and Order
A Science Page of Similarity Theory
By Simon Raphael
🌀 Philosophical Reflection
🌿 Structure as Order
Every structure embodies order. Whether an atom, a solar system, or a civilisation, participation means living within shared rules. Without those rules, the structure cannot cohere; with them, it holds form, direction, and meaning.
🧭 Evolution as Rule-Stretching
No structure is final. With time, beings inside it learn, adapt, and push boundaries. Humans, once ground-bound, devised flight; later, we left Earth’s atmosphere. In this lens, entropy is not merely decay—it is the steady pressure of growth against the existing order. Sometimes that pressure refreshes the system; sometimes it fractures it.
✈️ Analogy — Altitude & Detail (metaphor)
From a plane, the ocean looks like a still image: a boat “frozen” on blue glass, a pale wake behind it. Drop to sea level and the stillness dissolves—waves, engines, voices, heat and turbulence.
From orbit, Earth appears serene; closer in, we find life, repair, industry, conflict—unceasing work.
The lesson: order and disorder depend on resolution. At a distance, structure reads as calm order; up close, we witness the ongoing work of entropy—energy spent, gradients flattened, repairs attempted. Both views are true; they are simply different resolutions of the same reality.
🦋 Collapse and Continuation
When inner pressures outgrow the holding form, structures fail. Yet collapse is passage, not annihilation: the cocoon falls away as the butterfly emerges. What the structure sheltered—consciousness, the organising principle—persists and seeks a wider order in which to re-cohere.
🎭 Two Faces of Entropy
Creative entropy: rule-transcendence that births higher order.
Destructive entropy: disharmony that drains a structure until failure.
Either way, transformation is unavoidable.
🔬 Scientific Grounding
Thermodynamic Entropy & the Second Law
In thermodynamics, entropy quantifies energy dispersal and the number of microstates compatible with a macrostate. In closed systems, entropy does not decrease: gradients flatten, heat flows from hot to cold, ice melts, and perpetual motion is impossible.
Information-Theoretic Entropy
In information theory, entropy measures average uncertainty. High entropy implies unpredictability and low compressibility; low entropy indicates pattern and order. This formalises “disorder” as uncertainty and complements the physical concept.
Cosmic Arrow of Time
The early universe was extraordinarily low in entropy relative to what’s possible. As the universe expands, entropy increases, defining a thermodynamic arrow of time. Local islands of order—stars, galaxies, biospheres, minds—arise and persist by exporting entropy to their surroundings.
→ Cross-link: Arrow of Time | Similarity Theory
Dissipative Structures & Local Order
Far from equilibrium, systems can self-organise into ordered states that persist while consuming gradients—Bénard cells, chemical oscillations, and living metabolism. These are examples of order sustained by throughput: local structure flourishing within global entropic increase.
Scale & Coarse-Graining
What altitude hides, coarse-graining formalises. Thermodynamics uses macrostates (smooth, averaged descriptions) that compress countless microstates (fine detail). The boat’s white wake is literal entropy production—energy dissipated into turbulent eddies. From high altitude, those eddies average to calm; up close, we resolve the non-equilibrium processes doing the work. The “still” picture is not wrong—it’s a lossy summary of busy reality.
Gaia (Non-teleological Systems View)
The Gaia hypothesis models Earth’s life–environment coupling as a self-regulating system that can maintain conditions favourable to life—not by foresight or purpose, but via feedbacks among organisms, atmosphere, oceans, and crust. This systems view aligns with Similarity Theory’s picture of order and repair emerging within broader entropic trends, without implying cosmic intent.
Mass Extinctions & Biodiversity Loss (Neutral Framing)
Earth’s fossil record includes several mass extinctions long before humans existed, driven by factors such as volcanism, climate shifts, and asteroid impact. Contemporary assessments warn of rapid biodiversity loss linked to human pressures; many researchers frame this as a potential or incipient sixth mass extinction, while noting that formal thresholds are still debated.
Entropy as Transformation
Taken together, physics and information theory show entropy’s rise as inevitable. Similarity Theory reframes this as the fuel of transformation—the background against which structures form, evolve, sometimes collapse, and give rise to new orders.
🪞 Similarity Theory Response
Order is structure. To exist within it is to follow its rules.
Entropy is pressure. Beings evolve and lean against those rules—sometimes creatively, sometimes destructively.
Collapse is passage. When a structure dissolves, the organising consciousness persists and seeks a wider order.
Entropy and Order are not enemies but partners: one stabilises, the other prevents stagnation. Their interplay underwrites becoming.
📚 References
Clausius, R. (1850). On the Moving Force of Heat.
Boltzmann, L. (1896). Lectures on Gas Theory.
Schrödinger, E. (1944). What Is Life?
Prigogine, I. (1984). Order Out of Chaos.
Shannon, C. E. (1948). A Mathematical Theory of Communication.
Lovelock, J. (1979). Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. (with contributions by Lynn Margulis)
IPBES (2019). Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Earth’s Five Mass Extinctions.
Our World in Data. There have been five mass extinctions in Earth’s history.
