[Fis] Second Law: The Unending Debate

Sun Mar 2 12:59:32 CET 2025

Dear FIS Colleagues,

Some days ago there was a thought-provoking exchange between two FISers 
which I was incidentally following-- Howard Bloom and Andrei 
Igamberdiev. The argument was about an essay --with a critical stance on 
the vulgar use of the second law-- that Howard had written to be 
published in the Journal BioSystems, the chief editor of which is 
Andrei. They have allowed me to compile the whole exchange (the initial 
essay is not included). Here it is:

/*--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

/*Andrei's comments on Howard's manuscript:*/

Dear Howard,
I have read your manuscript with great interest. I like many ideas and 
challenging points expressed in it. Your criticism of the Second Law is 
based on important arguments that should be analyzed in detail and 
evaluated by the scientific community.
However, as I mentioned in my previous letter, this style and 
arrangement of the paper is not suitable for a journal specializing in 
natural science such as BioSystems, and probably for any other similar 
journal.  It is more suitable for a journal specializing in philosophy 
or a popular scientific magazine discussing hot topics in modern science.
You are suggesting that the concept of entropy and the Second Law are 
wrong completely. However, they work for ergodic systems, i.e. the 
systems having the property that, given sufficient time, they include or 
impinge on all points in a given space and can be represented 
statistically by a reasonably large selection of points. Definitely, the 
Universe as a whole is not ergodic, and it may be possible to prove that 
living systems are also not ergodic. Thus, the Second Law and the 
concept of entropy have severe limitations that are often not considered 
by scientists.
Robert Rosen discussed this idea but very briefly. In particular, he 
mentioned that complexity is not the objective property of the system 
but it is the characteristics arising from its description (including 
the internal description by the system itself). He criticized the 
concept of entropy from this point.  Recently, Stuart Kauffman attempted 
to limit the Second Law and to formulate the Fourth Law that he is 
considering as more general. You can check his papers (see, e.g., 
Kauffman, S., 2022. Is There a Fourth Law for Non-Ergodic Systems That 
Do Work to Construct Their Expanding Phase Space? Entropy (Basel) 
24(10), 1383. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.3390/e24101383__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!X_TnWreE2VnrNpXNmanG239L-iTIsfU9RUiO1BL80Mit-J9e3SqGppF5gLgMr140kwtoJ_KWPm2jrHSEhJJ7pfoUjIQr$ 
Thus, in my opinion, it is really important to analyze the assumptions 
taken for the formulation of the Second Law and the possible limitations 
connected to it. It is more productive to concentrate on possible 
limitations of the Second Law Instead of claiming that it is wrong. I 
don’t see this development in your paper. The Law of Flamboyance is 
suggested vaguely without any definite physical formulation. This 
presentation may be useful for general philosophical discussion but not 
as an introduction it as a new physical law.  The paper contains many 
interesting references to the debates of famous scientists, which would 
be useful for a popular scientific publication, however, in its current 
form it is not suitable for BioSystems or another journal with a similar 
scope.
I am sorry for not being supportive at this time, but your interesting 
essay does not fit the scope of BioSystems.
With best regards,
Andrei
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
/*Howard's response: */
andrei, hi,

thanks for an extremely thought provoking, generous, and engaging turndown.

i look forward to the next time we have an opportunity to communicate.

with warmth and oomph--howard

ps.  here's what your extraordinarily knowledgeable thoughts have 
prodded me to:

    MIT physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark says that math is the
    universe.  and many believe that ideas without a mathematical
    foundation are not science.

    Jesus had an opinion on this sort of thing.  he said about the
    strictness of the high priests of his day, the sabbath was made for
    man, not man for the sabbath.  the same is true of mathematics in
    science.  math is a tool of science.  science is not a tool of
    mathematics.

    in other words, often math helps us understand the cosmos.  but the
    living things in the cosmos vastly outstrip our math.  Newton was
    able to reduce the solar system to math.  but if darwn had been
    forced to mathematize his origin of species, there would have been
    no evolution.  no darwinism.  no origin of species.

    which explains more, newton's principia or darwin's origin?  in
    reality, they are both potent tools of understanding.  but the
    number of puzzles that neither of them can solve is vast.

    each of them--Darwin's approach and Newton's-- is far more limited
    than it imagines.  and math is far more limited in its powers than
    today's scientific community thinks.

    it's important to keep this in mind: newton's principia has almost
    no equal signs. in other words, newton did not have modern algebraic
    equations.  he expressed his laws with the math of his day:
    geometry, ratios,diagrams, and verbal reasoning.  today it would be
    said that newton's principia is not sufficiently mathematical to be
    taken as serious science.

    we forget that the equation was only invented in 1557 and only put
    to common use 80 years later.  in other words, our math is
    primitive.  it's the equivalent of the first collection of stone
    tools 3.2 million years ago, the oldowan stone toolkit.

    the new developments in math 300 years from now will startle us. 
    but science will still be mistaken if it imagines that all that we
    see and know can be expressed in equations.

    tegmark is wrong.  the cosmos is not a product of math.  math is a
    product of the cosmos. and the most startling thing in this
    universe, life, is ahead of the meager grasp of equations by
    light-years.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    /*Andrei's response:*/
    Hi Howard,
    thank you for your engaging response. I completely agree with you
    regarding Max Tegmark. Together with Joseph Brenner, I tried to
    express the views on mathematics that are completely opposite to
    Tegmark's, in our book "Philosophy in Reality" (Springer, 2021).
    However, in the scientific discourse, it is difficult to develop the
    framework to describe the origin of mathematics as we use the
    reasoning that assumes the existence of some formal structures
    before they develop in reality. We can further discuss possible
    solutions of this paradox.
    I will look forward to our future communication.
    With warmest regards,
    Andrei
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
    *
    */Final Note:
    / *
    What Howard wrote to Andrei was turned into an article and posted it
    on substack.  The announcement of that article on X got a quarter
    million views.

    see
    https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://howardxbloom.substack.com/p/why-math-must-not-godzilla-science__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!X_TnWreE2VnrNpXNmanG239L-iTIsfU9RUiO1BL80Mit-J9e3SqGppF5gLgMr140kwtoJ_KWPm2jrHSEhJJ7pccCyLRx$ 
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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