On Jan 26, 9:36am, GSCHERL wrote:
> David writes:
> > He says that physical evolution appears to violate the second law of
> > thermodynamics, namely that left to themselves natural processes will
> > degenerate to a state of entropy, or complete lack of differentiation at
> >the lowest energy level.
>
> I can't speak to how evolution works, but this put me in mind of a story.
>
> Met a gardiner one day, and he had a beautiful garden full of lovely
> flowers, trees, sculpted bushes. I remarked how beautiful this was, and
> he responded -- Yes, but you should have seen it before I got here, when
> God has this place all to himself!
>
> Part of the miracle is reserved for us. Things, left alone, will
> degenerate to the lowest state of entropy, there's a force called life
> that keeps coming back and regenerating and adding differentiation. Call
> that whatever you will, but it's not pure energy! As human beings we can
> take it to another level of organization. That's the miracle!
>
> Gary Scherling
Hi:
I'm new on the list, but being a biologist with studies y eduaction and
B.A. I may contribute a litte on this topic. The concept of evolution has
underlying it a sine qua non: life. This very abstract concept itself has
many manifestations, but the essential one is a tendency to go against the
second law of thermodynamics. In the context of this list, a very
important question comes to mind: are we to avoid the Neo-Darwinian focus
on evolution, which broadly states survival of the fittest
...individual?... I haven't been able to find conclusive evidence of the
fact that the human species tends towards an evolution as a group (like
ants, bees or termites) which follow a very specific pattern of redundancy
and seem to function as a macr-organism. On the whole, the problem of
organizations seems to stem at the level of establishing commitments,
which usually have their source in what the individual perceives he will
accomplish by belonging to a given organization. This creates a really
complex situation because each person has motivations of their own and
different degrees of tolerance towards frustration related to the speed at
which "things" are moving in the direction he expects. I strongly beleive
that THIS is the source of entropy in an organization and requires a large
ammount of energy and resources so that the system can move to greater
levels of efficiency. How that energy is to be applied is a matter for the
experts, but it must surely imply a greater effort to understand the
individuals at all levels of the organisation and a process of gradual
adaptation and involvement. Hope it was not too much for a first
incursion...
-- Enrique Fuentes O. eofuente@campus.mor.itesm.mx