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I love this stuff. Like the one definition of death being an organism dying is one that starts failing to maintain itself. Maintenance being the essence of bein
by emsign 1mo ago
I love this stuff. Like the one definition of death being an organism dying is one that starts failing to maintain itself. Maintenance being the essence of being alive. Or in other words creating local order by sourcing energy from the environment and thus increasing entropy outside the organism.
The laws of thermodynamics are so universal and primordial, they even preceed all of fundamental physics. And once you "get them" which is more like accepting them to be universally true, you can use them to evaluate and explain a lot of things. They help you decern reality from magic for instance, or magical thinking. Ideas that would only work if the second law of thermodynamics makes an exception is magic and therefore impossible in this universe.
- sm-silversight 1mo ago>And once you "get them" which is more like accepting them to be universally true, you can use them to evaluate and explain a lot of things Can you give an example? This seems like the same confirmation bias I see psychology students make.
- elevation 1mo agoThe world is full of plausible-sounding but provably incorrect explanations if you understand the laws of physics. As a university student I happened upon a liberal arts undergrad who explained to me in earnest that electric vehicles could be powered for free if only we would mount wind generators on top of them. Once on the highway, they would have free energy! To this student, evil corporations were the main force opposing the proliferation of this technology. This is a silly example, but without some underlying principles, otherwise intelligent people will happily accept all kinds of other disprovable delusions.