Entropy is Not Our Anomie
(1)
Religion and other forms of blind faith are evaporating. What once filled all minds in a frighteningly beautiful harmony, like that of marching boots or monotone chants, has begun to loose value. This loss of old religion has been the natural effect of the sciences and a growing knowledge; We have dissected faith and found only simple mechanics. Born are the mentalities of nihilism and existentialism, both of which built upon the non-existence of universal truths. For nihilism, moral constructs act as a will to power and a simple solution to the unknown. The Judeo-Christian moral order and good/bad dichotomy was born as a “slave revolt in morality”, where the ressentiment of the lower class towards aristocrats, or subject towards master, is comforted by a religious scheme. Where despite class pure souls hold eternal bliss and the sinister, regardless of power, are condemned (Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality). Less ascribed to the philosophy of will to power, existentialism holds to the belief that existence precedes essence, that during our existence we build a valuation (Sartre). What is over looked with these philosophies is the new faith they provide. A new harmony of different shape and color. To avoid the blanket of apathy that now seems too common during this transition from god given purpose to a complete responsibility of actions the importance, the humanism, and beauty of our circumstance must take religions place. Attaining these goals relies on no longer resting against the luxury of given purpose but understanding that one must accept his responsibility. Responsibility to build the individual for self and surrounding.
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In an isolated system (the Universe being an example) entropy, change, and spontaneity will increase. For thermodynamics this is seen as the change in heat of a system multiplied by the integrating factor 1/T : T ≡ temperature (here heat is not temperature, but the transfer of energy between systems). The inevitable increase of entropy for any closed systems in this regard has come to be known as Heat Death. Statistical entropy is defined in terms of the micro-states composing a macro-state. The micro-state is the microscopic configuration of the total macro system. The increase of entropy from this perspective means an increase in micro-states. A closed system growing in entropy therefore grows in micro-states, in constituent variation. In nature, this is seen as a loss of organization, movement towards the chaotic, and a lessoning of order with time. Take for example a puzzle: The micro-states are each piece and whether or not they're connected to any other piece, the macro-state is the total configuration. Zero entropy would be the completed image, but a puzzle will not spontaneously build itself. Work is required. Entropy's natural progression towards change is the cause of our understanding of time. Time is the physical culmination of entropy, where time's arrow is in the direction of entropic increase.
Being in Time:
A key aspect of sentient man is the ability to relate the self as belonging to multiple events, to exist as a single persona existing in different times and different states. The spanning self is a projection of consistency sustaining within the growing entropy of our environments. This tendency becomes our identity. The ego is the surviving light among falling cities. This reflective self-definition, existing within past and current environments, and relating the self to a changing multiplicity, is the first aspect in the construction of an ego. The mind's understanding of inevitable entropic progression, change, and an arrowed time forces the self to question future states. Existing in time, we are forced to act as an entropic effect. Man as effect is the second aspect of ego. We are forced to not only exist in constant change, but we must also contribute to that change. To do nothing is impossible, entropy will increase, and our hand, be it still, is an effecting force. How then we dissipate entropy becomes a feature of the ego. Are you to build pyramids bound to crumple or bombs to hasten the process? To summarize: the ego is an illusionary projection of solidarity within a state of decay that must always ask itself how to further that decay.
Primum Movens?
Is man truly free, able to choose in which direction to propagate entropy? We are not the originating cause any more than a rock is, which when dropped into a pond produces a wave front. With respect to only the rock and pond, the rock is the protagonist, but by expanding the system the cause which dropped the rock becomes the originator. By continually expanding perspectives in this way we find additional sources. Say there is a tree that fell on a mountain that freed a rock to roll into a pond to produce a wave. Will this process continue infinitely? Or could there be a single, predictable event, say a calculable big bang? In either case, man is still no originating cause. Like the wave source, we are the culminating cause of other effects. Or maybe the effect of other recursive causes. Man is no cause, but rather has cause flow through him.
Relatively Free:
Unlike the rock/pond scenario, however, our system is more complex, composed of countably infinite effecting agents. Consider each effect on a timeline as a single thread. Take the numerable threads and braid a single rope: The rope becomes the individual. An increase in complexity would be like dropping two rocks, each producing waves of constructive and destructive interference. Or, more realistically, when dropping the rock it is raining, and with each droplet of rain comes a new ripple. The complexity of the human situation is the reason why man has until recently been seen as a free agent. However, our freedom is only an accurate approximation. Because of near-infinite causes we are able to continue viewing ourselves as free. Similar to the birth of Einstein’s relativity, Newtonian mechanics no longer could be seen as a natural law, but an accurate approximation at low speeds. Where low speed includes any speed you will encounter during your life. Our freedom, though non-existent, is relatively true. The relative complexity of entropic growth with respect to our ability to understand cause and effect allows man to be approximated as free-willed. Man can be approximated as a source despite being the intersection of various paths of spontaneous change. But it must always be remembered however that the ego and body are no end in themselves, but are states in passing.
Forfeit of will, our single freedom:
One freedom does exist. To be free we must escape the mechanisations that build us, escape the drives and collected effects that induce our “choices”. But all actions are produced by systems of cause and effect. The exception being what is truly random. Random can have no originating cause. It is an event void of significance, and comes into existence in itself. Our freedom then is to give up our choice and act at complete random. This does not mean you act spontaneously, or even roll dice. To make a choice, for example, and to have that choice be random, you could number your options then use a random number generator to determine which one you will act on. For example when confronted with a choice you have even numbers mean yes, odd mean no, or, if odd take the path right of the mountain, even the path left, and if prime go over the mountain. In all, to be free, and to escape being an effect, you must choose to make no choices.
The All State:
All named things, all units, are built on the change leading to the “it.” The “it” is the photograph we take of these events, keeping one form frozen in time. The rope threaded together with various events. The “it” or “I” must undergo entropic change after its naming. The image therefore does not last, but fades, and looses solidarity. With this comes a loss of unitization, a falsity in titles. The atomic unit of rock, house, my house, and the I are only imaginative lingual tools, not actualities. Language is lost and no one thing has a name. There does not exist a distinct divide between thing and not-thing. The thing, the snap shot image, changes, graying the separation between it and other. The atomization of self is lost in this way also. Universal entropy illuminates the fiction of language and identities. In truth, no item can be generalized, but rather each item is unique and in constant change. No general form of an item exists. Each item is the embodiment of entropic growth, the culmination of events that led to its creation. But this process does not stop. It continues after naming, changing into other forms. No single unit can even remain constant to its self. Entropy is corrosive to language. Things become unstuck to their names. The atomistic projection of language and our outlook is lost. The entire system is seen, not as being composed of units such as man, earth, star, and galaxy, but as a totality, a continually reshaping form in time. Change and entropic growth is then a mass fluctuation on an incomprehensible macro scale. It is this entropic growth that destroys boundaries. A unifying change between all things, to no things, to one thing in flux.
(4)
Progression and alteration is forced upon us. If we are to remain conscious, we will always be subject to a changing environment and a changing self. Two forms of man come from this entropic state. One sees only disparity and apathy, the other opportunity. The former are overwhelmed by the burden of change. The despondent see their situation as an aimless descent. They are rag dolled by the elements, where chaotic winds constantly change their path, and they are to land only where exterior forces have brought them. Unable to take rein, the apathetic allow the universe to improvise in their place. The latter of the two acknowledges their condition, accept themselves as another means for entropy to propagate, and as a result are able to choose the focal points to direct this change. Pregnant with the future, the opportunistic look on our entropic circumstance as a gift.
Thou Art God:
Man is forced to act as change when viewed as a self-defining node through which entropy transgresses. To be a cause for change is to create. Some are overburdened by this responsibility and use destruction as their only form of creation. These are the apathetic and despondent. Others develop the changing self, focusing their wave fronts. The self affirming individuals understand themselves to be a creator, granting the perspective of life as art. Is not art ones own creationism? Man's identity is then an aesthetic projection, for our existence is an act of perpetual artistry. In truth little choice is involved. Our creationism, our art, is forced. Our art is the effect of culminating threads. We then form a fictional projection of self, wound from these threads, and this self is inevitably an aesthetic phenomenon. More practically however, being relatively free willed, we may use our freedom to build the aesthetic individual. The despondent forget life-purpose out of spite, feeling wronged that value and morality is not the third element after space and time. They claim each day is their purpose. For only in the suns passing can you jump over the earthly burden of your shadow. The artists know the shadow to be a template; a form of what they know they can become. The artists work to become these shadows, praising noon, the time when they are nearest to it. As creators we may produce the self and master our artistry, where artistry becomes a synonym for life.
The Aesthetic Experience:
Life as art means to understand art and aesthetics serve to illuminate the human condition. The aesthetic experience comes without effort or consent. Whats more, the spectator is exposed to an element, realistically neutral in existence (the movement of air at varied frequency, a drop of oil with dye, a urinal) and unavoidably experiences it in a very non neutral manner. The aesthetic experience is as unavoidable as laughing when being tickled, and equally as forced. It comes as a will-less knowing. We can not approach art looking to exhibit authority over it, rather, the temperament with which art appeals is one of receptivity. As aesthetic phenomena we are subjugated by art, and this subjugation is the aesthetic experience. The aesthetic experience then acts as a window onto our aesthetic existence, a mirror reflecting the human condition as aesthetic projections condemned to a creationism onto the world around us.
On Evolution, the Authors Moral:
Life as art, but to what ends? A short lived aesthetic insight or a simple satisfaction? But what matters my happiness? What matters my epiphany? My anger, or my tranquility? Is not all a neutral change within this All State? Our life is our responsibility. A burden to be taken as a light and playful jest, or as a weight to drag each action. No longer is there “thou shalt” but rather: “and so I make it.” Responsible for the value our actions hold, becoming apathetic is all to easy. Too feasible is it for man to become stagnant water. But remember, no man is an end in himself. To live for oneself is to act onto and on the behalf of all. Ones actions mold the shape of our All State. Remain aware your artistry uses existence as its canvas. Whats more, the child of our changing universe is evolution. All change is inevitable. Our adaption is inevitable. We change the environment that changes us. With our creationism, our artistry, we must make man our masterpiece.
