Winding down or growing up?

 All around us, the battle between entropy (everything breaking down, winding down, decline, contraction, things coming to and end) and syntropy (creation, expansion, birth, growth). Old friends get ill, things that were once good turn less good, then bad, then disappear altogether. At the same time, babies are born, new ideas arise, things become more complex, systems organise – either spontaneously or with human intervention, and a purpose appears to be fulfilled. 

Entropy is a measure of the disorder, randomness, or uncertainty within a system. The core principle associated with entropy is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that the total entropy of an  system can only increase over time. Everything turns to shit, literally and metaphorically. Our food gets pooped out, strawberries left on a plate for a few days turn to slime, hot drinks cool, cold drinks warm up, atoms decay. 

Entropy marks the direction of time; from low entropy to high entropy, the only way it can go. A drop of ink disperses in water, but inky water never recoalesces itself back into the drop. A melted ice cube on a kitchen table will never regain its form. Time marks the direction of movement from a state of lower entropy (more order, concentrated energy) to higher entropy (more disorder, dispersed energy). The implication of the Second Law is that the universe as a whole is moving towards a state of maximum entropy, (the so-called heat death, at which point the last atom in the cosmos ceases to vibrate).

Our lives are part of that. Accept entropy with openness. You cannot defeat it in the material realm.

While we all observe entropy, reality is not all a one-way slide into oblivion. 

The concept of syntropy was proposed in 1941 by Italian mathematician Luigi Fantappiè as a complementary force to entropy. He posited that negative entropy has qualities associated with life: the cause of processes driven by negative energy lies in the future, in the same way that living beings work for a better day tomorrow. Fantappiè defined syntropy as the tendency towards energy concentration, increasing order, organisation, and complexity. Syntropy can be described as a 'converging' energy, as opposed to entropy's 'diverging' nature.

You can see it in biological system. Life itself seems to defy entropy. I am witnessing this in the form of Wenusia's kittens; living organisms that 11 weeks ago were a bunch of unfertilised eggs in her womb, that now have internal order, and grow and develop, and contradict the general tendency towards disorder. Syntropy suggests a 'pull' from future attractors or final causes – teleology; purpose; causality.

At first glance, the universe seems to be a battle between between entropy and syntropy, in which one is trying to dominate the other. Rather, it is about a dynamic balance between the two. Entropy and syntropy are essential – universal complementary behaviours of energy in space-time. Entropy pushes systems towards decay and disorder, while syntropy pulls them towards organisation and complexity.

Living systems are examples of this. They are constantly battling entropy by using energy to build and maintain their complex structures and functions (syntropy). However, this localised increase in order always comes at the cost of an even greater increase in entropy in their surroundings (cat food gets turned to cat milk, which gets turned into kitten mass, while the empty cat food tins pile up outside).

I would argue that syntropy strays into the metaphysical realm, beyond classical physics into the phenomenon of consciousness. And this, now, is a question of belief, an unfalsifiable proposition that consciousness is the fundamental property of the universe.

Syntropy is linked to consciousness in the opposite way to how entropy is linked to matter, energy and spacetime.

Syntropy gives us cause for hope. It simply isn't true to say "everything is turning to shit".

This time last year:
Tadeusz Lesisz – the exhibition

This time six years ago:
Jakubowizna in high summer

This time seven years ago:
Warsaw's Raffles Hotel opens

This time 10 years ago:
The ballad of Heniek and Ziutek

This time 11 years ago:
Yorkshire's yellow bicycles

This time 16 years ago:
Horse-drawn in the Tatras

This time 17 years ago:
Rain, wind and fire

This time 18 years ago:
The Road beckons