“Man” came up with the entropy law about 150 years ago, at a time when we knew a great deal less than now, but also at a time when a great many scientific “discoveries” were being made in various fields. At the time, and following on (until now) it was quite understandable that from the surprisingly accurate experiments within science in both physics and chemistry labs that the “arithmetical” aspects of the entropy law did certainly pan out as predicted. It is indisputable that the law has its uses.BUT, and this is the bit that really matters, we then extrapolated from that as a starting point to an outcome that reflected our wider context / mentality at that time to the “heat death” scenario. It wasn’t so much the science that was inaccurate, it was our viewpoint which had retained all the fears of Neolithic man (or earlier), which fears we largely still hold dear, and are thus in most instances so very fearful of “letting go”. Not letting go in the bra-free sense, but in letting go of our multitude of prejudices about how to be more “secure”. It is such irrational fear that “dangerously” divides science from religion, so that around 50% of the population of the most powerful nation in the world still virtually deny the self-evident manner that creation has been made manifest. They don’t mind “using” science to facilitate virtually all aspects of their daily lives, but they cannot bravely face up to questioning the world with their “God-given” intellect, thanks to surely nothing other than fear, due to blind ignorance, a catch 22 scenario. ( See Kindergarten science )
It is perfectly possible to really believe in something or other, to the extent that it can “move” you, and much later find out that whatever it was in fact is less than helpful, besides being a total fallacy. We can get very “precious” about our own ideas, or own culture our orthodoxies, intended as a guide, too often trod to then become entrenchments. How many young men have killed each other in wars, both sides believing that they are the righteous? How many party politicians have undermined each other destroying trust in / usefulness of governance? Sometimes what we apparently pretend to ourselves is logic in fact is irrational. But long held ideas become part of the endemic cultural mechanisms of the thinking process itself: we accommodate, don’t challenge.
We don’t just have the art, music, architecture, laws and religion mankind comes up with that reflect the current agenda, mentality, hang-ups, of the society from which they sprang, very often, certainly and especially in this entropy case example, our science, as in what is interpreted from what is accurately observed is likewise so rooted. What one has to realise in order to have the courage (some will say in my case “audacity”) to challenge any of the man-made assumptions, rules, laws and other endeavours that we live by is to keep in mind that they are conceived not only by “mere man” all of whom are fallible, even the geniuses, (and I’m not going to turn myself inside out trying to be politically correct about 52% of mankind actually being women, with boobs this size I am fully aware that I am female as well as a Jack of all Trades, so not a genius) but that those “mere men” besides being fallible, are, just like everything else, “of their time”. I insist on calling our species “Man” as the scientific term, Homo sapiens, is certainly a misnomer. (Wise we are not).
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