Entropy Demystified: Potential Order, Life and Money

Although the concept of entropy has been under discussion for one and a half centuries, its philosophical depth has still not been properly explored and it is still one of the most complicated and controversial concepts of science. Its application to the study of social processes has started only in recent decades and no doubt this trend will continue. The author's first goal in this book is to provide those who are interested in social studies, but not familiar with physics, with a comprehensible explanation of the concept of entropy. The value of the knowledge of entropy for the social scientist is at least twofold: 1. Entropy is characteristic of a level of disorder in any statistical system and for this reason can be successfully used for the description of the communication process, music or economic activity as well as the behavior of inanimate matter. In this use, one is dealing with the order and disorder of a system independently of physics: en-tropic characteristics can be used no matter what makes a system orderly or disorderly, be it the laws of mechanics or our manipulations with symbols, like the alphabet letters of musical notes. The example of the use of the entropy concept as a characteristic of any statistical system is the well known Shannon's Theory of Information which found its application not only in the technology of communications but in biology, linguistics and other areas. 2. Whenever we are dealing with matter and energy be it heat machines, biology, economy or the use of natural resources, we must take into account the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the level of disorder (entropy) in an enclosed system can not decrease and that one has to spend energy to decrease disorder in any part of the system. The processes of life and social life are characterized by increasing local order, but are still subject to limitation as dictated by the second law of ther-iv modynamics. This brought scientists to the development of the physics of open systems thanks to the ideas of Schrodinger, Prigogine and others. Now we understand that the world is a place where destructive tendencies coexist with creative forces. For many decades the traditional topic for passionate debate among scientists and moralists has been whether we are masters of our behavior or whether and to what extent we follow biological prescription-instincts. In this book, the author …