The notion of entropy is related to energy. But it is also surprising even the notion of energy isn't intuitive:
From the physics perspective, energy is just a characteristic of a system that is time-invariant. That is, doesn't change in time. That is, it is conserved. That is, it is a symmetry with respect to time.
Indeed it is odd that humans employ a metaphoric construct (i.e. energy) to frame their theories:
Energy in the metaphoric sense not understood as a time-symmetric property of a system. Rather, it is understood as a resource that makes possible the production of work. Work is the consumption of energy in a constrained direction.
The intuition behind the embedded statement is that it takes useful energy to maintain complexity.
From the perspective of technology, energy is the currency that enables technology to perform work. From this perspective, one can see how financial constructs like credit can have a catalytic effect of accelerating work.
At the macroscopic scale energy is in two states. Useful energy and disordered energy. The flow of time is characterized by the transition of energy from the former state to the latter state. The consumption of energy creates complexity and dissipates entropy.
In fact, life itself (see: medium.com/intuitionmachi… ) involves maximization of entropy as a consequence of generating complexity.
Complex systems are multi-scaled. At each scale, the thing that takes the place of energy is of a different nature. The energy of biological systems like humans is this thing known as ATP. Our cognition seeks out energy that our body translates into ATP.
What we thus see in all complex systems is a parallel hierarchy of energy consumption mechanisms and energy seeking mechanisms. The evolutionary motivation for movement (that lead to brains) is the search for energy.
One can thus argue that at an even more abstract level that all cognition is motivated by the search for energy and the consumption of energy. Of course, with the motivation to maintain the 'self'.
The objective of biological systems is the preservation of self. Thus biological systems seek to reduce the need to consume energy. It is incorrect to argue that biological systems seek greater complexity. Biological systems only seek to fill a niche.
The specific niche that multi-cellular creatures occupy is a consequence of a survival strategy that is based on the cooperation of many specialized components. (Note: one can argue that any system is composed in this way)
With larger and more complex multi-cellular organisms, the search for energy becomes more complex. The competitive forces that emerge in the interaction of more complex individuals leads to the development of more complex strategies. It is an arms race in complexity.
But it is important to note that these complex organisms have evolved and are composed of the same energy seeking components that it originated with. The collective's purpose is to serve the energy needs of its parts.
In a more abstract sense, a collective's purpose is to maintain its collective self.
The brain is constructed to support the seeking of energy and the consumption of energy. In fact, it is the latter where the most primitive brain originates from. Our gut is lined with 100 million neurons all for the purpose of coordinating with our gut microbiome.
The brain evolved to be able to manipulate our bodies for movement with the purpose to seek out energy. Plants do not need brains because energy is abundant from the sun. Animals don't have this advantage.
In fact, it is a repeating narrative that evolution develops more complex cognition as a consequence of a deficiency in capability. Animals move because animals can't get energy from the sun. Humans walk because our hands aren't as capable in the jungle.
The ratchet effect of evolving to greater cognitive capabilities is a consequence of deficiency of capabilities and having the right innate capabilities to reuse. So humans have dexterous hands and vocal cords that allow us to create tools and coordinate that leads to advantage.
An organism evolves by reusing what it already has or by taking over with what already exists. The invention that evolution performs is in the re-combination of what exists into new capabilities.
Biological complexity only emerges out of what already exists. Like technology innovation comes from 3 places: (1) recombination, (2) recursive composition and (3) leveraging a physical effect.
One can think of this from the perspective of language. Recombination are the sentences. Composition are the books. The latter is the vocabulary.
Brains accelerate evolution in that brains can invent new vocabularies independent of the physical substrate.
Which gets us back to how I started this tweetstorm. The concept of energy is expressed in a brain's vocabulary. Every concept is based on recognition of an intuition that is analogous to energy. Energy in the sense that it takes us from one thought to another thought.
@threadreaderapp unroll thanks!
