"The motion of the mind is conveyed along a cloud of meaning. There is this paradox that we get to meaning only when we strip the meaning from symbols." (David Berlinski, "The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World", 2000)
"Entropy [...] is the amount of disorder or randomness present in any system. All non-living systems tend toward disorder; left alone they will eventually lose all motion and degenerate into an inert mass. When this permanent stage is reached and no events occur, maximum entropy is attained. A living system can, for a finite time, avert this unalterable process by importing energy from its environment. It is then said to create negentropy, something which is characteristic of all kinds of life." (Lars Skyttner, "General Systems Theory: Ideas and Applications", 2001)
"Limiting factors in population dynamics play the role in ecology that friction does in physics. They stop exponential growth, not unlike the way in which friction stops uniform motion. Whether or not ecology is more like physics in a viscous liquid, when the growth-rate-based traditional view is sufficient, is an open question. We argue that this limit is an oversimplification, that populations do exhibit inertial properties that are noticeable. Note that the inclusion of inertia is a generalization - it does not exclude the regular rate-based, first-order theories. They may still be widely applicable under a strong immediate density dependence, acting like friction in physics." (Lev Ginzburg & Mark Colyvan, "Ecological Orbits: How Planets Move and Populations Grow", 2004)
"Physically, the stability of the dynamics is characterized by the sensitivity to initial conditions. This sensitivity can be determined for statistically stationary states, e.g. for the motion on an attractor. If this motion demonstrates sensitive dependence on initial conditions, then it is chaotic. In the popular literature this is often called the 'Butterfly Effect', after the famous 'gedankenexperiment' of Edward Lorenz: if a perturbation of the atmosphere due to a butterfly in Brazil induces a thunderstorm in Texas, then the dynamics of the atmosphere should be considered as an unpredictable and chaotic one. By contrast, stable dependence on initial conditions means that the dynamics is regular." (Ulrike Feudel et al, "Strange Nonchaotic Attractors", 2006)
"Heat is the energy of random chaotic motion, and entropy is the amount of hidden microscopic information." (Leonard Susskind, "The Black Hole War", 2008)
"Perhaps the simplest way to explain symmetry is to follow the operational approach used by mathematicians: a symmetry is a motion. That is, suppose you have an object and pick it up, move it around, and set it down. If it is impossible to distinguish between the object in its original and final positions, we say that it has a symmetry." (Michael Field & Martin Golubitsky, "Symmetry in Chaos: A Search for Pattern in Mathematics, Art, and Nature" 2nd Ed, 2009)
"Chaos provides order. Chaotic agitation and motion are needed to create overall, repetitive order. This ‘order through fluctuations’ keeps dynamic markets stable and evolutionary processes robust. In essence, chaos is a phase transition that gives spontaneous energy the means to achieve repetitive and structural order." (Lawrence K Samuels, "Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action", 2013)
"For a moving object, time contracts. Not only is there no single time for different places - there is not even a single time for any particular place. A duration can be associated only with the movement of something, with a given trajectory." (Carlo Rovelli, "The Order of Time", 2018)
"If one section of the molecules is still, it becomes stirred up by the frenzy of neighboring ones that set them in motion, too: the agitation spreads, the molecules bump into and shove each other. In this way, cold things are heated in contact with hot ones: their molecules become jostled by hot ones and pushed into ferment. That is, they heat up." (Carlo Rovelli, "The Order of Time", 2018)
"The entropy of the world does not depend only on the configuration of the world; it also depends on the way in which we are blurring the world, and this depends on what the variables of the world are that we interact with. That is to say, on the variables with which our part of the world interacts. [...] The difference between past and future does not lie in the elementary laws of motion; it does not reside in the deep grammar of nature. It is the natural disordering that leads to gradually less particular, less special situations."" (Carlo Rovelli, "The Order of Time", 2018)
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