Entropy.

I think you did well!

Actually Entropy is one of the more commonly mischaracterized terms in science. Entropy does not refer to chaos, it refers to the level of order or disorder in a closed or open thermodynamic system. The level of entropy for any system can be defined by its ability to do work through heat. An open system such as our planet is actually in a state of decreasing its entropy through increasing complexity. However the entire universe, which is a closed thermodynamic system is in the process of increasing its entropy.

Think of a deck of cards stacked neatly in order from lowest to highest number and according to suite, sitting next to another deck of cards that is all mixed up. Which one has more entropy? Which one has more chaos? In fact the two decks of cards have the exact same amount of entropy (ability to do work) but the second deck has a greater state of chaos. To equate this to the universe, it is heading towards an eventual state of maximum entropy but also one of maximum uniformity. (that first deck of cards now spread out, side by side) This is referred to as the heat death of the universe – the end of the ability for the universe to do work through heat. But this does not mean maximum chaos. It actually means a state of maximum equilibrium! i.e. maximum balance.


This is not me being a bitch so please don't take these comments personally. Its simply an open and honest attempt to correct a common misconception about a scientific term.

Brought to you by the Kamikeedi Temple. The Journey begins tomorrow...

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Brought to you by the Kamikeedi Temple.

Tell me more about this. Where do I find it. Google doesn't seem to know (or it may, but won't tell me).

I was thinking we were referring to personal chaos. Not scientific or cosmic.

Edit: because that is how I read the code. Like...a social or metaphorical chaos.

That's great thank you. You cleared things up for me. I was confused about it because I was also thinking heat death was a state of balance too, not a chaotic state! It seems to me that energetic states are always moving toward a state of equilibrium.

I was inquiring about it on a cosmic level and scientifically. However I normally dont draw a line beween natures laws cosmically, and my personal life or society. I often try to merge them actually.

For the whole Code perhaps, where there is (an excess of) x, seek y.... but the scope of an application of it then might become where/how one elects to seek. It probably can be subjective contexts (changing points of view) or objective natures (balancing). In effect, keep your head above water!! :blink:

Are chaos and disprder the best terms or is it really more like "complexity" (or even something romantic like "mystery")?
It might be chaos and disorder but since we are limited to the perceptual capabilities of our own individual bodies we cant really know the difference between if the universe is chaotic or if its just complicated beyond our understanding.

But either way, what we can do in the face of it is to create a little space of orderliness out of our personal lives -which is way more involved than just cleaning our bedrooms- Its more like each of us taking our individual existence and treating it as if it is something that is valuable; something that should be preserved and especially something that should be cultivated. Which implies a fairly comprehensive set of specific behavior patterns, such as general cleanliness of our bodies and personal spaces, eating healthy, exercising and being active, doing our best to learn about the world and how best to behave in it, learning how to interact with others in mutually beneficial ways, planning for our futures, developing useful skills, facing our fears, and basically "finding our place in the world" or (slightly different) MAKING our place in the world.

Of course its not anyones place to look at someone else and say "youre a failure because youre not meeting x requirement on this here check list". But that doesnt mean we should blow smoke up each others tail pipes either.
If we dont brush our teeth they will rot. If we dont clean our personal spaces they will become breeding grounds for bacteria, bugs, and other parasites and pests. If we dont learn to do things even though we are afraid then we will constantly back down from opportunities that would improve our lives. The consequences of not doing these things tend to cause a lot of regret.

Expressing these basic realities isnt the same thing as judging people by them or being some kind of dictator.

Thats how i answer the question of how we reconcile the chaos of the universe with the jedi ideal of harmony and balance; the orderliness of our personal lives is the counterbalance to the disorder of the universe

I think when it comes to being a Jedi we have the choice to decide what things/ideas/code do we uphold. Here at the TOTJO... the guessing is already done. The things we vowed to uphold are written in our beliefs/code. When it comes to balance it still comes down to a decision on which action to take that tips the scale... I believe that it is wise to first know that it is not our burden to be keepers of universal balance (meaning i did 5 good things today, now i must do 5 bad things today to keep my jedi balance). But, we should be students of universal balance. Understanding that control is balanced by a few things (i think)... What we can control and what we cannot control. And further decide... of the things that i can control, what will I decide to control?

Could it be that from chaos...order or harmony arises and then brought down by chaos...which again may bring about a new order or harmony. I feel in this society "chaos" comes without effort.

It has been proven that ultimatley there is no Good or Bad thing. But there are desructive and nurturing actions. Chaos doesn't neccesarily mean destruction...it just means no appearance of organization. And order is simply an arranged system or cycle.
(And this insight may be one that is incomplete and possibly relating nothing to the original opening statement)

Mostly what Kyrin said. Entropy is a descriptive quantity used to predict measurements on thermodynamic systems. It's not a mystical concept intended to be done Big Thinking with, so much as a tool used to describe measurable states of affairs. It has several consistent (albeit arguably not equivalent) definitions in experimental and theoretical thermodynamics, probability theory, and information theory (and probably sometimes even game theory).

Anyway, disorder/chaos is but one interpretation of entropy, or rather to the extent that we can quantify things like order and disorder, for some applications entropy might just describe the same thing. But we do mean something very specific by that, not just a vague philosophical "chaos". Suppose, for instance (to keep the example within thermodynamics), that you have a gas enclosed in a cup with a piston. For better or worse, you know that all of your gas will be inside that volume at the bottom of the cup, held in place by the piston. If you move the piston out any amount though, you cannot say of any one particle if or when it will be inside that initial space it was in before. There is still a probability that it will be there, and you can even say that given an arbitrarily large amount of time the fraction of that time that the particle will be spending inside the initial space the piston allowed for will be the ratio of that volume against the total volume of the space it is now enclosed in by the piston's new location. That loss in order, in certainty, in your knowledge of the system, can actually be quantified by that ratio, and there is a strict correspondence between the increase in volume and the increase in entropy (for this example).
What the second law of thermodynamics says about this example is that unless you slide the piston back to its former position or apply any sort of other external force, the gas will never ever gather in the volume it was in before you moved the piston. In a closed system (and that is a very important antecedent right there) entropy never decreases. It need not necessarily always increase, but once it does, there is no going back without breaking the bounds of the system. The development of entropy in open systems is determined by what crosses the bounds.