metonymy4u

Many of the most entrenched problems of thought can be referred to this question: what is life? And how does it fit into a universe of non-life? How do bodies, composed of inanimate matter, suddenly wake up and think? One traditional solution has been to postulate a life force that is linked with our inanimate corporeal shell for a time, but which outlasts it. Plato explored this idea as it was handed down to him by the Pythagoreans of Classical Greece. We, however, can now look at it from another perspective. The perspective of modern physics. The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that the order of an isolated system never increases, but always decreases. This is the law of entropy, or randomness. The problem with this model, is that there are no isolated systems. All we can really talk about are systems that we are aware of. When we look at it this way, from a more global perspective, there are indeed systems in which order is increasing. In fact, this is the definition of life. Molecules that tend to replicate themselves with few variations from generation to generation (that strengthen order and weaken entropy) are the basis of the continuity of living cells. And we know that in some systems these molecules are preserved, at least for a time.

True, the “system” requires the input of energy to maintain order. But remember our assertion that there are no truly isolated systems. So, the point here is not to posit some non-material life force that sets the whole process in motion and call it God, but rather simply to observe that the universe contains such local systems within its more global system. What this means is that the universe is not wholly governed by the laws of entropy. Some regions of the universe exhibit an anti-entropy feature. Life is a feature of such systems, which are wholly and completely a part of the material world.

So it seems that life is a feature of non-life. The two are actually one and the same. While the distinction pragmatically does help solve certain problems like how to care for our young, survive predation or build homes and till the earth, it does not help us solve problems like the question of freedom and thought. These are problems that must be addressed by collapsing the traditional dialectic. And affirming that the universe is not in fact an in-animate place. Life then becomes less of an anomaly, less of a mystery, to be sure. And some may not like that. Probably, I would have been burned at the stake for suggesting it a mere 500 years ago. But that can make no difference to those of us who live in time. And entropy does seem to measure that, at least.