Cosmic Origins of Extropy
Technology is the visible extension of an archaic force which runs up in time while the universe runs down.
Technology is the latest chapter in a continuous story that builds up order, structure, freedom, possibilities and good against the inescapable black drain of entropy. While the universe cools and dies, the spreading differential of life (and technology) warms up a greater portion of cosmic coldness.
This rising flow, called extropy, enlivens our current technology on earth but was first birthed in the unlikely genesis of the universe 12 billion years ago. In that way all machines trace their origins to the big bang; Technology is a cosmic force.
As primeval matter swirled into galaxies, extropy rose as stuff gathered into life and finally unleashed its full power as self-consciousness mindfulness. Extropy is now unfolding the technium - the autonomous planetary technological system created by our minds. It is this awakening sphere of technology which is so altering our planet, shaping our history, and disturbing the universe.
Everything we find interesting and good in the cosmos - living organisms, civilization, communities, intelligence, evolution itself - has the strong hand of entropy running through it. While the cosmic background slips away to its eternal rest, the energy coursing through these systems flings forward an unbroken sequence of ever unlikely existences. By the normal calculus of entropy, the appearance of both kangaroos and 747s should be impossible. And yet their unlikely existences, and the surprising appearance of any extropic organization that stands upright in the stream of heat death, serves as a platform for yet newer ways to continue the story of unlikely possibilities.
Our global technium is the current stage of this story. It is the mythic midpoint between a cascade of extropic organization reaching back to the genesis of the universe, and forward to an unseen "next'.
If we follow the trajectory of this very long continuum, it suggests not only a future, but a destiny as well. It is a course in which we humans will play a role but we are still determining our exact role. At every stage in this long continuum, choices are expanded and freedom to be is enlarged.
Kangaroos and 747s are not at all surprising when you consider the unimaginably large increase of entropy radiating from the sun that’s been necessary for them to come about.
Posted by LeegleechN on June 9, 2005 at 7:49 AMI’ve only just begun reading over your essays, very interesting. I was pointed here by Bob Lefsetz.
I highly recommend the book “Lila” by Pirsig (yes the same one who wrote “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”). This is the only serious book I’ve read that constructively arrives at a conclusion which I seem to be seeing throughout your essays so far - that is how evolution works in a universe governed by the laws of thermodynamics (where entropy should prevail?)
david
Posted by david kuller on February 5, 2008 at 8:28 AM
Long before I ever heard of funky terms like ‘extropy’ or ‘entropy gradient reversal’ I was fascinated by an obscure mathematical concept known as Fixed Point Theory.
A lot of computer algorithms are designed to compute fixed points by some kind of iterative calculation. Indeed, Newton himself gave such an iterative algorithm for finding the roots of differentiable functions.
Some years ago, I wrote an essay connecting Fixed Point Theory to the phenomenon which Kevin calls Extropy.
The essay is named after an important mathematical theorem about Fixed Points, but addresses the roles it plays in the emergence of complex systems (notably including life itself).
“The Brouwer-Kakutani Fixed Point Theorem”
http://underground.musenet.org:8080/utnebury/fixed.point.html
Posted by Barry Kort on December 12, 2004 at 1:04 AM