adamjesionowski said in #4186 5d ago:
You are an organism in an environment that contains free energy. What do you do?
We may pick out two extremes:
* Nietzschean thermodynamics: utilize 100% of the free energy for your own will's ends.
* Christian thermodynamics: utilize as little as free energy as you can, giving to others.
As applying empiricism to the natural world is the suggested standard of sofiechan, what nature actually does should be considered correct act. What does It do?
A critical mistake made by poasters who emphasize thermodynamics is to focus solely on dissipation and ignore flow. Dissipation must be less than or equal to flow--the naive approach sets the two equal.
We know that:
> Energy flow through a system acts to organize that system. (Harold Morowitz)
> Energy and structure are interdependent on every level. (Ray Peat)
Maximizing the flow of energy at least up to the maximum capability for metabolism and repair is thus correct for nature. Has Nietzschean thermodynamics thus won?
Not so, says Adrian Bejan of Duke University. He posits the constructal law of nature:
> For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve in such a way that provides easier access to the currents that flow through it.
To unpack this I'll quote "Design in Nature" at length here.
> Everything that moves, whether animate or inanimate, is a flow system. All flow systems generate shape and structure in time in order to facilitate this movement across a landscape filled with resistance (for example, friction). The designs we see in nature are not the result of chance. They arise naturally, spontaneously, because they enhance access to flow in time.
> Flow systems have two basic features (properties). There is the current that is flowing (for example, fluid, heat, mass, or information) and the design through which it flows. A lightning bolt, for example, is a flow system for discharging electricity from a cloud. In a flash it creates a brilliant branched structure because this is a very efficient way to move a current (electricity) from a volume (the cloud) to a point (the church steeple or another cloud). A river basin's evolution produces a similar architecture because it, too, is moving a current (water) from an area (the plain) to a point (the river mouth). We also find a treelike structure in the air passages of lungs (a flow system for oxygen), in the capillaries (a flow system for blood), and the dendrites of neurons in our brains (a flow system for electrical signals and images). This treelike pattern emerges throughout nature because it is an effective design for facilitating point-to-area and area-to-point flows. Indeed, wherever you find such flows, you find a treelike structure.
From the assumption that flow systems provide easier access to currents, Bejan derives several equations relating an organism's mass, size, organ size, metabolic needs, speed, and so on. These equations match empirical measurements. Then: nature prefers systems that do not dissipate 100% of available free energy, but prefer ones that distribute it to others.
We can see a similar argument being made by Wolf in his anti-singleton essays. If nature preferred that systems which persist in time maximize energy dissipation, we would see the tendency for singleton entities to arise and dominate. Nature is not like that: it prefers to create complex societies that make flows easier to access. The best configuration for enabling this kind of flow is treelike, which implies both hierarchy and rhizome. This hierarchy exists because the root enables the maximization of flow to its subjects. A Gnon-fearing monarch is not an extractive lord, his pleasure is a brutal ordering of easier flow.
cont.
We may pick out two extremes:
* Nietzschean thermodynamics: utilize 100% of the free energy for your own will's ends.
* Christian thermodynamics: utilize as little as free energy as you can, giving to others.
As applying empiricism to the natural world is the suggested standard of sofiechan, what nature actually does should be considered correct act. What does It do?
A critical mistake made by poasters who emphasize thermodynamics is to focus solely on dissipation and ignore flow. Dissipation must be less than or equal to flow--the naive approach sets the two equal.
We know that:
> Energy flow through a system acts to organize that system. (Harold Morowitz)
> Energy and structure are interdependent on every level. (Ray Peat)
Maximizing the flow of energy at least up to the maximum capability for metabolism and repair is thus correct for nature. Has Nietzschean thermodynamics thus won?
Not so, says Adrian Bejan of Duke University. He posits the constructal law of nature:
> For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve in such a way that provides easier access to the currents that flow through it.
To unpack this I'll quote "Design in Nature" at length here.
> Everything that moves, whether animate or inanimate, is a flow system. All flow systems generate shape and structure in time in order to facilitate this movement across a landscape filled with resistance (for example, friction). The designs we see in nature are not the result of chance. They arise naturally, spontaneously, because they enhance access to flow in time.
> Flow systems have two basic features (properties). There is the current that is flowing (for example, fluid, heat, mass, or information) and the design through which it flows. A lightning bolt, for example, is a flow system for discharging electricity from a cloud. In a flash it creates a brilliant branched structure because this is a very efficient way to move a current (electricity) from a volume (the cloud) to a point (the church steeple or another cloud). A river basin's evolution produces a similar architecture because it, too, is moving a current (water) from an area (the plain) to a point (the river mouth). We also find a treelike structure in the air passages of lungs (a flow system for oxygen), in the capillaries (a flow system for blood), and the dendrites of neurons in our brains (a flow system for electrical signals and images). This treelike pattern emerges throughout nature because it is an effective design for facilitating point-to-area and area-to-point flows. Indeed, wherever you find such flows, you find a treelike structure.
From the assumption that flow systems provide easier access to currents, Bejan derives several equations relating an organism's mass, size, organ size, metabolic needs, speed, and so on. These equations match empirical measurements. Then: nature prefers systems that do not dissipate 100% of available free energy, but prefer ones that distribute it to others.
We can see a similar argument being made by Wolf in his anti-singleton essays. If nature preferred that systems which persist in time maximize energy dissipation, we would see the tendency for singleton entities to arise and dominate. Nature is not like that: it prefers to create complex societies that make flows easier to access. The best configuration for enabling this kind of flow is treelike, which implies both hierarchy and rhizome. This hierarchy exists because the root enables the maximization of flow to its subjects. A Gnon-fearing monarch is not an extractive lord, his pleasure is a brutal ordering of easier flow.
cont.
referenced by: >>4190
You are an organism
