This “it gets worse if you try to deal with it” isn’t necessarily true in every case. In this way adaptive entropy is actually unlike thermodynamic entropy: it’s possible to reduce adaptive entropy within a closed system.
Actually naming whether this bolded part is true would require defining what “closed” means in the context of an adaptive system—it’s clearly different than a closed system in the physical sense, since all adaptive systems have to be open in order to live.
I agree. I was being fast and loose there. But I think it’s possible for, say, someone to sit in meditation and undo a bunch of entropic physical tension without just moving the problem-ness around.
Right, yeah. And that (eventually) requires input of food into the person, but in principle they could be in a physically closed system that already has food & air in it… although that’s sort of beside the point. And isn’t that different from someone meditating for a few hours between meals. The energy is already in the system for now, and it can use that to untangle adaptive entropy.
Well, I mean that there’s something like a “more closed” to “more entangled with larger systems” spectrum for adaptive systems, and that untangling adaptive entropy seems to be possible along the whole spectrum in roughly the same way. Easier with high entanglement with low-entropy environments obviously! But if the entropy doesn’t crush the system into a complete shutdown spiral, it seems to often be possible for said system to rearrange itself and end up net less entropic.
I don’t know how that relates to things like thermodynamic energy, other than that all adaptive systems require it to function.
Actually naming whether this bolded part is true would require defining what “closed” means in the context of an adaptive system—it’s clearly different than a closed system in the physical sense, since all adaptive systems have to be open in order to live.
I agree. I was being fast and loose there. But I think it’s possible for, say, someone to sit in meditation and undo a bunch of entropic physical tension without just moving the problem-ness around.
Right, yeah. And that (eventually) requires input of food into the person, but in principle they could be in a physically closed system that already has food & air in it… although that’s sort of beside the point. And isn’t that different from someone meditating for a few hours between meals. The energy is already in the system for now, and it can use that to untangle adaptive entropy.
Well, I mean that there’s something like a “more closed” to “more entangled with larger systems” spectrum for adaptive systems, and that untangling adaptive entropy seems to be possible along the whole spectrum in roughly the same way. Easier with high entanglement with low-entropy environments obviously! But if the entropy doesn’t crush the system into a complete shutdown spiral, it seems to often be possible for said system to rearrange itself and end up net less entropic.
I don’t know how that relates to things like thermodynamic energy, other than that all adaptive systems require it to function.