Name: Into the cool
ISBN: 9780226739373

Into the cool

Scientists, theologians, and philosophers have all sought to answer the questions of why we are here and where we are going. Finding this natural basis of life has proved elusive, but in the eloquent and creative Into the Cool, Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan look for answers in a surprising place: the second law of thermodynamics. This second law refers to energy's inevitable tendency to change from being concentrated in one place to becoming spread out over time. In this scientific tour de force, Schneider and Sagan show how the second law is behind evolution, ecology,economics, and even life's origin. Working from the precept that "nature abhors a gradient," Into the Cool details how complex systems emerge, enlarge, and reproduce in a world tending toward disorder. From hurricanes here to life on other worlds, from human evolution to the systems humans have created, this pervasive pull toward equilibrium governs life at its molecular base and at its peak in the elaborate structures of living complex systems. Schneider and Sagan organize their argument in a highly accessible manner, moving from descriptions of the basic physics behind energy flow to the organization of complex systems to the role of energy in life to the final section, which applies their concept of energy flow to politics, economics, and even human health.

What Hacker News says

jackofspadesFeb 2025

Haven't read the book in question (which looks like a sci-fi novel), but saw that "Into the Cool"[0] was referenced in the link. In my opinion, a really under-rated book... should be up there with Godel Escher Bach etc.

If anyone is interested in studying the Second Law... this is a much better read than say Jeremy England's "Every Life is on Fire" (which I think disappoints a bit in coming to the punchline.

The essence from "Into the Cool" from the amazon summary: "This second law refers to energy's inevitable tendency to change from being concentrated in one place to becoming spread out over time. In this scientific tour de force, Schneider and Sagan show how the second law is behind evolution, ecology,economics, and even life's origin. "

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Into-Cool-Energy-Flow-Thermodynamics/...

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zukzukJan 2024

I'd add "Into the Cool" by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan to that reading list.

I'm pretty sure that one was originally recommended here on HN, so I guess I'm feeding it back into the echo chamber. But well worth a read!

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r4umJul 2023

Another great read on the subject "Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life - Eric D. Schneider, Dorion Sagan" https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52737

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supazekJul 2023

>living things take this weird detour into lower entropy

Take a look at “Into the Cool” by Eric Schneider and Dorian Sagan. It’s about as academic as it can be while remaining accessible. It’s basic premise builds off of the truism that “nature abhors a gradient” and attempts to lay out a theory that the gradient of solar energy falling on the planet (along with a plethora of other rarer factors) generated higher-complexity constructs as a way to absorb and reduce that gradient. There are plenty of non-living phenomena in nature which are subtly very organized but which result in net increases in entropy in the longer term. One of the examples described in the book are a kind of voronoi cell pattern that emerges when heating a thin layer of oil which succeeds in reducing the temperature gradient very effectively. Even if it isn’t a hard hitting proof of the abiogenetic mechanism it is still a very interesting read.

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PheonixPhartsJul 2023

You can take it further and even argue that complex life is ultimately just a tool for increasing entropy (which the universe seems to enjoy doing).

Digging that oil up from the ground and the burning it does a tremendous amount to free up all that energy stored in a low-entropy system.

The book Into the Cool makes an interesting case regarding this overall concept.

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not_jd_salingerMay 2021

Entropy is tricky when it comes to life and other forms of complexity.

The book "Into the Cool" explores this is away you might find very interesting. It spends a lot of time exploring the question of how the complexity of life emerges given the second law of thermodynamics. It argues pretty strongly that the second law still rules everything but we have to look at larger non-equilibrium energy flows to really understand it.

Energy fuels the complexity of our society, species and world. That wood you see burning is a solar battery in which complex life converted energy into hyrdocarbons over the period of many years.

Energy shapes everything about our society and will determine everything about our future. We life in a technical wonderland as a direct consequence of our species discovering extremely high energy density fossil fuels not all that long ago.

But in the end all of this complexity serves the second law in helping reduce energy gradients. All of that stored up potential energy in fossil fuels is being released into the environment, and we are the tools of nature to help. Thing of all of the energy we have spend freeing resources and energy from the grown. When we grow beyond the means of the energy supporting that system, all of it will break down.

We're starting to see this now not just in climate but the ecosystem, our economy etc etc.

The greatest illusion we've had as a species is that we are anything other than an expression of the second law in action.

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