Natural and Cultural Increases LO29098

From: janlelie@pi.net
Date: 09/02/02


Replying to LO29076 --

Dear At, dear readers,

You wrote in a very instructive mail:

snip

>The way in which Swenson sees "maximum entropy production" can
>be illustrated tentatively as follows with increasing numbers
>1 2 4 7 11 16 22 29 37 46 56
>The difference between succesive numbers is also increasing by
>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
...snip

>Now, this is not how LEP (Law of Entropy Production) works.
>Illustrated tentatively by increasing numbers it works as follows:
>10 20 29 37 44 50 55 59 62 64 65
>It is these increasing numbers which is reflected by the "production"
>in the concept "entropy production" (two words, one concept). The
>differences between them
>10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
>are actually decreasing! So if we want to reflect this also in the name,
>we should speak of "minimum entropy production". Now this is
>exactly the opposite to Swenson's "maximum entropy production"!
...snip

>But let us not forget that the system is part of the universe on which
>Swenson has nothing to say . So, to reach a bifurcation, the entropy
>of the system has to increase in the manner
>1 2 4 7 11 16 22 29 37 46 56
>But the entropy of the universe still has to increase in the manner
>10 20 29 37 44 50 55 59 62 64
>Should we subtract the top series from the bottom series we get
>9 18 25 30 33 28 26 22 16 8
>which represents the change of entropy outside the system in the
>rest of the universe. What does this series tell us?

.. and here i'm lost. Why is the last series not:

9 (10 -/- 9) 18 (..) 25 30 33 (44 -/- 11 so far so good)
but then: 34 (50 -/- 16) 33 (55 -/- 22) 30 (..) 25 18 9 (65 -/- 56) ?

This gives also the decrease, but is now symmetrical around 34 (the
differences are 9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9).

Your message though comes across very clearly, but i do have a question
regarding the last part.

>Dear Dwig, as i am writing this, the biggest summit ever sponsored by the
>UN is the WSSD happening in Johannesburg close by. People are pleading,
>argueing, debating and demonstrating. Worst of all, many delegates who
>attended the previous one in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro, feel that this WSSD
>is beginning to undo the promising developments of the previous one. They
>think that the G8 countries have become crazy with their selfish agendas.
>To counteract this many of the poor countries begin to push their own
>crazy agendas for political survival.

It does remind you of the parabel by George Orwell, doesn't it? Towards
the end, the pigs and the human meet in the farm house and the animals are
looking in. The pigs and humans run around the table and look more and
more the same.....

>It is not the survival of politicans, industrialists, businesses and farmers
>which are stake. It is not crazy people who oppose each other. It is a
>complete ignorance of how LEP works and what the outcome of LEP
>is. The G8 countries are caught up in the course of "maximum entropy
>production" like in
>1 2 4 7 11* 16 22 29 37 46 56
>The 80 poorest countries are caught up in the bifurcationless and
>increasing poverty of the series
>9 18 25 30 33* 28 26 22 16 8
>But Mother Earth is just going on with the course of "minimum entropy
>production" like in
>10 20 29 37 44 50 55 59 62 64
>She does not know of an aterisked number.

>Where exactly are we in this series, before the aterisked numbers, at
>them, or after them? I myself wake up often at night in cold sweat, a pain
>in my groin and a mind flashing vividly images of a great catastrophe in
>the making. We are already after the aterisked numbers. We need a grand
>bifurcation involving all walks of culture (politics, ecomomics, social
>and education) over the whole globe NOW.

Doesn't the asterix depend on the starting number of the universe?

> But such a bifurcation is
>prevented because we know too little of the 7Es. We do not know how their
>impairing is preventing that bifurcation. What then lies ahead? The
>inevitable destructive immergence which will involve the globe itself.

Why would knowledge - or noknowledge - of the 7Es play a role? Didn't
nature apply these rule already in the past? Is there a reason why they
will not be evoked now or in the near future? (for instance after the
coming collapse, when we start to really realize how limited our knowledge
was - forgive us, because we didn't know what we did. Perhaps we're
witnessing a destructive learning cycle).

>The past billion years Mother Earth experienced 5 such cataclysmic
>catastrophes. Each of them had been caused by a natural event like an
>asteroid hitting the earth or volcanoes erupting when two continents were
>rifted apart. The sixth one is now being made by humankind itself.

Why only 5? Are we no natrural event ourselves? And isn't it a kind of
progress that we now are learning to engage cataclyssmic catastrophes. One
of my rules is that the best way to get people moving is to set fire to
their chairs. It is - as our new princess has put it - "hij is een beetje
dom" ("he has been a bit stupid").

Take care, all the best,

Jan Lelie

-- 

janlelie@pi.net

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