Thermodynamics of Youthfulness

Contextual Quote

For Peter Pogany, in his book Rethinking the World, culture is thermodynamic, i.e. it expresses the availability of matter and energy, and the level of complexity of its organizational forms. Paradoxically, the more we exercise our anti-entropic human activities, the more we create entropy at the edges.

But here, he makes the remarkable connection between the youthfulness of a population, and its anti-entropic capacity:

In human beings, the motive force, i.e. "the human expression of the anti-entropic movement" (but which actually increases its tempo), stands against the 'death wish', i.e. "the human angle on accepting entropy's advance. Since the force motrice grows and declines in the individual, its .. sum is bigger in a younger population." (p. 284)

(excerpted and paraphrased from Michel Bauwens' booknotes on Rethinking the World