[OSList] Self Organizing vs. Physics & Entropy... Who wins?

[Lucas Cioffi]

Hi All,

I read that "Open Space works because self-organization works."  But I
remember from physics class that disorder (entropy) in the Universe is
always increasing, so when the order of something increases (such as during
OS), the order of something else must decrease.

Paraphrased from Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy>:
"The second law of thermodynamics states that in general the total entropy
of any system (the disorder, randomness, or our lack of information about
it) will not decrease other than by increasing the entropy of some other
system."

*So when participants organize themselves during Open Space does something
else become disorganized?*  Or is it that all the disorder created (by
consuming the muffins, coffee, fuel, paper, electricity, etc) always
outweighed by the order created by the self-organization?

For what it's worth, below is an interesting thread I found from the list
archives from a few years ago that mentions entropy...

Lucas Cioffi
Charlottesville, VA



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Watkins <johnw536 at mac.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 12:25 AM
Subject: Re: [OSList] Designing an OS way
To: Artur Silva <arturfsilva at yahoo.com>, World wide Open Space Technology
email list <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
Cc: "76066.515 at compuserve.com" <76066.515 at compuserve.com>


Artur,

The term "open systems" comes from thermodynamics, especially from
Prigogine and Stengers, who also refer to them as "dissipative" systems.
 It does not mean open to change; it means open in the sense of importing
"energy" from outside itself and excreting "energy" back into the
surrounding system.  Such systems are most often self-organizing and
self-recreating (autopoiesis).  They "sort" energy into that which will
help them recreate themselves and that which will not, and they dissipate
the rest, creating, paradoxically, internally order and externally more
entropy.  Bureaucracies are actually great examples of open systems in this
regard.

John
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