Entropy as a Philosophy

Abstract

The ancient Greeks considered philosophy as the mother of sciences engulfing the essence of all human achievements. It is therefore, natural to associate her with elements of universal scientific developments. The intention of this article is to present the current point of view of the situations governing our planet, our societies, our environment, and attempt to foresee their future developments. Entropy, the thermodynamic measure, is an analytic tool that may serve to evaluate phenomena that dominate our lives, and therefore belongs to the realm of philosophy. Since the trends show a universal trend for equalization, like the concepts of codification and globalization, an increase in global entropy is appearing as an obvious result. Is this going to create an "equivalent thermal death" to our planet? Is there a cure to this phenomenon? The recently developed theory of Chaos, introduced by Ilya Prigogine gives us some hopes for a possible redemption of this catastrophe. This will be discussed scientifically in the sequel, by considering the various elements of our present situations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA515701

Entities

People

  • George N. Saridis

Organizations

  • National Institute of Standards and Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Communication Systems
  • Complex Systems
  • Control Systems
  • Control Systems Engineering
  • Control Theory
  • Digital Computers
  • Economic Systems
  • Engineering
  • Environment
  • Information Theory
  • Manufacturing
  • Philosophy
  • Quality Of Life
  • Religion
  • Societies
  • Statistical Mechanics
  • Thermodynamics

Readers

  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Systems Analysis and Design