On Entropy (1980-1989)

"Thus, in physics, entropy is associated with the possibility of converting thermal energy into mechanical energy. If the entropy does not change during a process, the process is reversible. If the entropy increases, the available energy decreases. Statistical mechanics interprets an increase of entropy as a decrease in order or, if we wish, as a decrease in our knowledge." (John R Pierce, "An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals & Noise" 2nd Ed., 1980)

"Time goes forward because energy itself is always moving from an available to an unavailable state. Our consciousness is continually recording the entropy change in the world around us. [...] we experience the passage of time by the succession of one event after another. And every time an event occurs anywhere in this world energy is expended and the overall entropy is increased. To say the world is running out of time then, to say the world is running out of usable energy. In the words of Sir Arthur Eddington, 'Entropy is time's arrow'." (Jeremy Rifkin & Ted Howard, "Entropy: A New World View", 1980)

"In microscopic systems, consisting of only a few molecules, the second law is violated regularly, but in macroscopic systems, which consist of vast numbers of molecules, the probability that the total entropy of the system will increase becomes virtual certainty. Thus in any isolated system, made up of a large number of molecules, the entropy - or disorder -will keep increasing until, eventually, the system reaches a state of maximum entropy, also known as 'heat death'; in this state all activity has ceased, all material being evenly distributed and at the same temperature. According to classical physics, the universe as a whole is going toward such a state of maximum entropy; it is running down and will eventually grind to a halt." (Fritjof Capra, "The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Turning Culture", 1982)

"The phenomenon of self-organization is not limited to living matter but occurs also in certain chemical systems […] [Ilya] Prigogine has called these systems 'dissipative structures' to express the fact that they maintain and develop structure by breaking down other structures in the process of metabolism, thus creating entropy­ disorder - which is subsequently dissipated in the form of degraded waste products. Dissipative chemical structures display the dynamics of self-organization in its simplest form, exhibiting most of the phenomena characteristic of life self-renewal, adaptation, evolution, and even primitive forms of 'mental' processes." (Fritjof Capra, "The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Turning Culture", 1982)

"The difference is that energy is a property of the microstates, and so all observers, whatever macroscopic variables they may choose to define their thermodynamic states, must ascribe the same energy to a system in a given microstate. But they will ascribe different entropies to that microstate, because entropy is not a property of the microstate, but rather of the reference class in which it is embedded. As we learned from Boltzmann, Planck, and Einstein, the entropy of a thermodynamic state is a measure of the number of microstates compatible with the macroscopic quantities that you or I use to define the thermodynamic state." (Edwin T Jaynes, "Papers on Probability, Statistics, and Statistical Physics", 1983)

"There is no end to this search for the ultimate ‘true’ entropy until we have reached the point where we control the location of each atom independently. But just at that point the notion of entropy collapses, and we are no longer talking thermodynamics." (Edwin T Jaynes, "Papers on Probability, Statistics, and Statistical Physics", 1983)

"Thermodynamics knows of no such notion as the 'entropy of a physical system'. Thermodynamics does have the concept of the entropy of a thermodynamic system; but a given physical system corresponds to many different thermodynamic systems." (Edwin T Jaynes, "Papers on Probability, Statistics, and Statistical Physics", 1983)

"The third model regards mind as an information processing system. This is the model of mind subscribed to by cognitive psychologists and also to some extent by the ego psychologists. Since an acquisition of information entails maximization of negative entropy and complexity, this model of mind assumes mind to be an open system." (Thaddus E Weckowicz, "Models of Mental Illness", 1984) 

"The increase of disorder or entropy with time is one example of what is called an arrow of time something that gives a direction to time and distinguishes the past from the future. There are at least three different directions of time. First, there is the thermodynamic arrow of time - the direction of time in which disorder or entropy increases. Second, there is the psychological arrow of time. This is the direction in which we feel time passes - the direction of time in which we remember the past, but not the future. Third, there is the cosmological arrow of time. This is the direction of time in which the universe is expanding rather than contracting." (Stephen W. Hawking, "The Direction of Time", New Scientist 46, 1987)

"Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases." (Stephen W Hawking, "The Direction of Time", New Scientist 115 (1568), 1987)

"Somehow, after all, as the universe ebbs toward its final equilibrium in the featureless heat bath of maximum entropy, it manages to create interesting structures." (James Gleick, "Chaos: Making a New Science", 1987)

"Just like a computer, we must remember things in the order in which entropy increases. This makes the second law of thermodynamics almost trivial. Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases."  (Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time", 1988)

"The view of science is that all processes ultimately run down, but entropy is maximized only in some far, far away future. The idea of entropy makes an assumption that the laws of the space-time continuum are infinitely and linearly extendable into the future. In the spiral time scheme of the timewave this assumption is not made. Rather, final time means passing out of one set of laws that are conditioning existence and into another radically different set of laws. The universe is seen as a series of compartmentalized eras or epochs whose laws are quite different from one another, with transitions from one epoch to another occurring with unexpected suddenness." (Terence McKenna, "True Hallucinations", 1989)