Chapter 22 - Entropy and Living Planets

Have you ever wondered if something deep in our primordial brain attracts us to a manicured garden, a gracefully set out meal—most of all to music? Have you ever sensed that these experiences encapsulate the essence of being alive? Have you ever wondered why?

I suspect the answer lies in structure. Metabolism is the process of living. But the downside of metabolism is that it destroys structure. The ability to maintain the structure within our body is what keeps us alive. So to stay alive we must continuously replenish the structure that metabolism destroys. We do this by mining and importing new structure from our surroundings. And to do that, we must live where there is structure to mine—the more abundant the better. We get our structure from the foods we eat. Carrots and trees get theirs from sunlight.

Until now, I haven’t mentioned entropy. That’s because entropy is not a measure of structure—rather it is a measure of disorder, or lack of structure.

 

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