Re: Understanding MinEP and MaxEP


"William Morse" <wdmorse@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dfr1h8$usp$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> The point of self organization is that the organization outcompetes the
> disorganized states by utilizing part of the available energy gradient
> to create a structure. This only makes sense if the resulting structure
> can process energy faster than the disorganized states. But "processing
> energy" is not the same as "producing entropy" - the processed energy
> can go into work (e.g. into maintaining the structure) as well as into
> entropy.

But if it is simply maintaining the structure (as opposed to creating
or growing it) then any energy that goes into maintenance is going to
be dissipated (converted into entropy) in pretty much real time.

Guy once used the metaphor of "the path of least resistance". I agree
with you and Guy that self-organization involves the 'creation' of a
novel 'path' which provides less 'resistance' than the paths which are
available without the self-organization. That is the sense in which the
self-organized system 'outcompetes' its alternatives.

It is important to realize that non-equilibrium thermodynamics deals
with generalized forces and generalized fluxes. If we take the 'resource'
for which the system is competing to be some kind of flux, then it
succeeds by reducing its resistance to the force. This will, in fact,
always result in increased dissipation in the system as a whole. But
it does not necessarily mean that the self-organized part of the total
system is the locus of the dissipation. The self-organized part may
dissipate very little energy itself. But it does so by making possible
even greater dissipation upstream or downstream of itself.

Since we now have a hydraulic engineer onboard, I would like to give
a hydraulic analogy for a 'living system', which, I claim is a concept
diametrically opposed to that of a 'self-organizing' system.

My analogy is this - an inverted U siphon in an aquaduct. The siphon
is 'alive' if it is filled with water. It remains 'alive' as long as it
is transmitting water. But it 'dies' if the water source is disrupted,
the flow stops, and the U bend becomes filled with air. And once it
'dies', it takes extraordinary efforts to resuscitate it.

I contrast this with a 'self-organized' system which, almost by
definition, is capable of 'spontaneous generation'. But 'living systems',
almost by definition, are not capable of spontaneous generation.

(Yes, as an OOL enthusiast, I see the irony.)


.

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