Life revolts against
the fundamental law of Nature
for all things to inevitably degrade
to maximum disorder, entropy
with minimum free energy.
Life builds structure and order
against the trend
and needs to capture
and burn energy continually
to maintain its form and existence
against the ravages
of entropy and decay.
To survive living things must
conserve themselves,
transmit their seed
to new generations
and develop more successful
forms in a continuum.
Once the chain of transmission
is broken, the life form
degrades to dust,
and ceases to exist,
a dangling, fleeting species gone forever.
Life is an enigma, a peculiar chemistry,
a rebel against the laws of nature
fighting for the survival of its disparity
to avoid its inevitable degradation,
for now.
-
Author:
John Richard Anderson (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: September 19th, 2021 18:10
- Comment from author about the poem: "Life therefore appears to be a revolt against the rules of Nature. Life is a paradox …. The most basic rule of inanimate nature is that it tends toward equilibrium which is at the maximum of entropy (i.e. disorder) and the minimum of free energy. Life goes against this trend …..the main characteristic of life is that it tends to decrease its entropy. (builds and maintains structure and order). Life also tends to increase its free energy. Maximum entropy means complete randomness, disorder. Life is made possible by order structure, a pattern, which is the opposite of entropy. This pattern is our chief possession, it was developed over billions of years. The main aim of our individual existence is its conservation and transmission.” WHAT IS LIFE? by Erwin Shrödinger First published in 1944.
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 28
- User favorite of this poem: L. B. Mek.
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Comments2
Heavy stuff ... never thought of it quite like that, but - yes.
Life and consciousness - the big enigmas. Contrary to entropy.
Where do you want to go with this.? And why here?
Its a reminder to make the effort and not let the chaff pull you down
'To survive living things must
conserve themselves,
transmit their seed
to new generations
and develop more successful
forms in a continuum.'
with all due respect, what this stanza had done is confuse 'Survival' with 'Evolutionary need'
and that underlines, the main failing points of 'a metaphysics perspective' being applied to anything, realistic
including thermodynamics or anything cyclically positioned as a juxtaposition quality of Nature..
see, Survival is a simple aspect of reality
quantified by very few, but essential principles,
and it cares very little, for where
the cat resides in-between our elitist notion, of threadbare grasped 'Dimensional' reality's..
'to comprehend Survival, ask a starving child's, parents
if - they're are around'..
'to theorise, metaphysics of existence
assume that all your immediate needs have already been fulfilled'..
and if 'We' truly want
to gift humanity, with something philosophical yet applicable to our everyday reality
lets begin, with Bridging these two conflictingly gaps in our common experience of life...
(lol,
wonderfully fun
thanks for the brain teaser, dear poet
a wonderful change of pace
and I really liked your way of writing such complex themes, so accessible)
The perspective is the origin of life on Planet Water and how it has survived. If you look at small pox for example or even COVID, breaking the chain of transmission from one generation to the next and reducing infections to zero leads to extinction, forever. Survival requires a continuum and adaptation. There are many parallels.
yup, I wrote something
a while back about addressing our H2O crisis
and I remember saying/thinking
that when it all boils down
I think, water is the key
to understanding our past, present and future...
(in all its three states, of matter)
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