• agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    The notion is that entropy increases. That is, the amount of energy you can extract to do work decreases. You need differentials to do work, for example a water wheel works because water at elevation has potential energy which you can use to turn the wheel as it flows downhill to a lower potential energy. When everything is evenly distributed, you can’t extract any more energy to do work.

    • Triumph@fedia.io
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      1 day ago

      Oh yes, I understand that. My issue is with describing that as “chaos” or “disorder”.

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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        3 hours ago

        Chaos is the base, undifferentiated reality. Order, and consequently disorder, is a subjective human concept.

        Entropy is described as disorder because the layperson doesn’t know what entropy is, and disorder is equated with chaos because they don’t know what chaos is. Language is inconsistent.