François Roddier, thermodynamics and society

[Janic]

A society reorganizes during its phase of depression. Our society went through such a phase between 1918 and 1939, that is to say between the two world wars. There have been numerous teacher training colleges where education was excellent. The teachers thus trained educated the generation that followed and of which I am a part. I have a book on my desk, titled science lessons, from that time. It describes the subjects taught for the certificate of studies. I would like all young people who pass the baccalaureate today to have this minimum knowledge!

Education and instruction are not synonymous, far from it. Education is the business of the extra-curricular environment, not of the schools.

[sen-no-sen]

The time of Hinduism is cyclical (as illustrated by your graph), contrary to modern Western perception for which time presents itself as an augmentative or positive continuity; these differences in assessment induce significant reasoning biases,

What we call time is actually the measure of transformation in the Universe.
For a long time it was considered that the Universe was static because there was no major evolution, the age of the first civilizations was very long (550 years for the Egyptian empire, 450 years for the Roman empire ).
The modern period then postmodern it is characterized by the beginnings then the advent of technology, generating an exponential curve of innovation inducing ever faster transformations.
It was forgotten that Evolution is sinusoidal in nature, and that it is established by more or less great variations around a point of equilibrium.



Typical example of a secular cycle of 300 years, as I noted the contemporary period is characterized by an acceleration of time, which means that the average duration of a phase now oscillates around 20/30 years.

[Ahmed]

If we are talking about the transformation of the world by "civilizations", we must bring into play the two parameters of time and space. By definition, a "civilization" is an unstable form and to last it must overcome its contradictions (its inability to function durably while maintaining stable external conditions), which it does by deploying itself in space.
If we consider in summary the Roman Empire, it was forced to always seek new resources in a wider geographical area and when the energy required for this exceeded the transported value (due to the increasing distance and technological limits of the time), the system imploded: it was anyway condemned from the start by thermodynamics.
A comparison of this empire and the STM * (albeit based on very different bases) shows that technology has allowed us to push the limits to colonize all of Earth's space ** and most free resources ( = requiring little harvesting energy) become depleted. This means that the apparent "profitability" of the system is collapsing at great speed. Those who, on the contrary, see in the dissemination to less "developed" countries of the Western model a proof of its robustness make a serious error of analysis: this apparent success only accelerates the process of general decline.

* Totalitarian Merchant System.
** Reason which pushes for the conquest of space, but which faces the same constraint as the Roman Empire: currently, it would be necessary to spend more energy than it would be possible to hope for it.

[sen-no-sen]

A comparison of this empire and the STM * (albeit based on very different bases) shows that technology has allowed us to push the limits to colonize all of Earth's space ** and most free resources ( = requiring little harvesting energy) become depleted. This means that the apparent "profitability" of the system is collapsing at great speed.

Yes, this is the principle of Ponzi Pyramid.
There is no shortage of examples in this area, particularly in the context of the exploitation of shale gas and oil, or even money debts.
The promise of profitability leads to an explosion of investments, these very quickly reach a ceiling and then it is the realization that the whole no longer manages to fulfill its profitability objectives, then comes the collapse. more or less long new technologies are emerging and allow in turn a new phase of expansion and the myth of sisyphus keep on going...
We always find our four times, depression, expansion, stagnation, crisis, and this has been going on since the beginnings of civilization, so we have to develop a system that fluctuates very little around the point of equilibrium ... in metaphysics!

[Ahmed]

It therefore remains to develop a system that fluctuates very little around the point of equilibrium ... but we are entering metaphysics!

Why metaphysics? All the "civilizations" which have qualified as such are based on this falsifying principle, but other societies, despised and often exterminated by them, have been able to achieve a similar balance, a balance they could have maintained for the most part. without competition from more dissipative and violent models.
The challenge for us is this: how to achieve this result in our society with such highly developed techniques? It goes without saying that such a hypothesis supposes a totally different orientation and intensity of the said techniques ...

[Bardal]

Ah, Ahmed; a glimmer of hope finally in your speech ... I thought it was impossible ...

Well ... well we have a working base ...

[Ahmed]

Hope is demobilizing and impossibility a stimulant!

[sen-no-sen]

Why metaphysics? All the "civilizations" which have qualified as such are based on this falsifying principle, but other societies, despised and often exterminated by them, have been able to achieve a similar balance, a balance they could have maintained for the most part. without competition from more dissipative and violent models.
The challenge for us is this: how to achieve this result in our society with such highly developed techniques? It goes without saying that such a hypothesis supposes a totally different orientation and intensity of the said techniques ...

Why metaphysics? Well, because the process of fluctuations is the engine of our Universe ...
In the context of contemporary cosmology, we now speak of "pre-Big Bang" models, that is to say of Ekpyrotic Universe.
In reality all the theories proposed are more or less abstract forms of the sinusoidal (1) or sigmoid (2) model and all of Nature obeys them in one way or another.

In human societies have found that the one that fluctuates the least around the point of equilibrium lasts the longest (3), this is the case of the Indians Kogi whose culture dates back almost 5000 years.
However, it is necessary to differentiate a group of human beings from all of humanity. Number of communities if they have managed to survive nonetheless remains subject to change, it is all a matter of time.
As for certain animal species (such as coelacanth) it is above all the stability of local ecosystems and their isolation that guaranteed their great longevity.
The question is :How to guarantee such a state of affairs for humanity?
Howard Bloom rightly considers humanity to be a global brain, maybe it is time to teach this brain to meditate. Meditation aims to "smooth" the mental fluctuations induced by the endless stream of memes that monopolize our cognitive system (4).



(1)Big Bang Big crunch Big Bounce


(2)Big Bang Big Freeze Big Bang


(3) It is the same case for stars, the smallest have a much longer period of existence than supermassive stars due to their lower energy consumption.
(4) Pranayama-Yoga or Breath Yoga is also based on a 4-step cycle: inspire, retention, expire, retention ...

[Ahmed]

Yes, the chosen time scale makes it possible or not to perceive the evolution, so we can say that a tree grows "quickly", but it is impossible to observe it on the present time scale, only one "time lapse"could make it visible to us. Likewise, on a much slower scale, mountains change over time ...
The term "metaphysics" applied here to physics, even a little speculative, surprises me.

You write:

Howard Bloom considers humanity to be a global brain, rightly so, perhaps it is time to teach this brain to meditate. The goal of meditation is to "smooth" the mental fluctuations induced by the endless flow of memes that monopolize our cognitive system.

The action is obviously the first thing to do! Pragmatism is only the face of this addiction to memes and only leads to actions that reinforce what they wish to fight.

[sen-no-sen]

The term "metaphysics" applied here to physics, even a little speculative, surprises me.

When François Roddier tells us that humanity must evacuate entropy in order to free itself, it only reformulates in naturalistic terms the conception resulting from Dharma.
Human societies if they want to survive must follow a path which keeps them away from suffering, and it is there that through the knowledge of Nature we can perceive a certain metaphysics.

The action is obviously the first thing to do!

In the context of the development of our civilizations, the first thing to do is indeed to limit this mad rush forward, but obviously such an act would be possible only collectively ... the problem is that the power of determinisms is so strong that only a cataclysmic event could bring us to such a change.