entropic memory
2008
axel //
What I am taking to understand as a focal point is the question of What. I am asking What for the purpose of understanding an imbalance which has made itself noticeable through the actions of late. This witnessed imbalance is brought to a state as a result of How. How is what is done; the process of the event. The actions taken which bring the moment to the past, and the future to the present; the regeneration of time. Imbalance. What is this meaning, or more importantly, How can it be observed? What can it do. What is it doing.
Primarily per what has been observed, what this imbalance can lead to is what I would like to call a “lack of success”. This “lack of success” is shown in examples of failure. Events of implosion. These examples, implosions, are displayed by a failure to achieve desire. This failure to achieve, and the desire itself, leads to figurative and potentially literal, death.
As a sentient race, with the ability to retain energy (the most?), we have the ability to look back upon memory of energy; energy that is stored as a product of the process of transformation. This energy is what gives being life; what makes them beings themselves. This process of the gain of internal energy is the concept of Growth. The internalized energy and the ability to use this stored energy is the concept of knowledge and instinct.
Every object has a natural embodied energy, represented as the specific material and their quantities. The quantity of this embodied energy is determined by the moment and process of creation. As the object exists over time, as a result of life, it is in a state of entropy. This state of entropy is caused by the coupling of an object of set embodied energy with an environment with a consistently increasing state of energy. The embodied energy is created as a result of creation. The state of energy is a result of the sun.
This realm, the environment onto which subjects are created, is the environment characterized by the subject as material in an environment of energy (stored energy as material; the sun as a mechanism of energy). In this realm, there is constant interaction between the subject and the environment. This constant interaction exists as the material subject lives; exists in time. The subjective conception of time is from the process of interaction with the sun.
The subjective interaction with time is the method in which the subject receives energy, the essential event of life. This event is necessary due to the concept of entropy, and the fact that material deteriorates (into another form) over time. The Law of Relativity, e=mc2, is an explanation and detailing of the specific event itself. If the second law of thermodynamics holds true, coupled with the presence of the sun and the fact of “relativity”, we can begin to see the fundamental way in which a subject survives. Subjects lose their material over time (according to Galiano’s interpretation of the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics, p90). As this exact time is going on (assuming a life span), it exists within an interactable environment of energy. To offset the material that is now lost, to “regenerate” this material, is consumes energy. The subject consumes energy through an event of consumption, where the subject takes energy and transforms it into material; e -> mc2.
The fact that a subject is constantly losing material while having the ability to transform energy into material leads to the basic notion of desire and success. It is a necessity of life to maintain a certain level of material as its existence is the fundamental definition of life. The elementary principle of desire is the continuation of this existence. Without material, without life, there is no time for desire to exist within, as there is no potential for fulfillment.
What beings therefore must do, to survive, to retain a certain level of material, is create events of consumption. Clearly though, our current state of being as a member of the human specie is clearly more complex as the example stated before; e -> mc2. This complexity is due to the fact that we do not gain our survival [replenish our lost material] simply from the sun. Noticeably, we do not gain much energy from the sun at all (in comparison to other necessary forms of energy).
Emphasis must now be placed on the fact that an event of consumption is created. Because a being continually loses material and must consume energy for survival (that is logically impossible to sustain by consuming it own internal, embodied energy), an event of consumption is necessarily the interaction between two beings of life. These two beings come together under one single notion; that of survival. Primally, this interaction is of two beings (subjects or objects) that both have the necessity to survive.
This necessity of survival is a result of the being losing material. A being exists within these events as a result attempting to survive by consuming, or others trying to survive by consuming it. This event is not simply consume others or others consume it, but serves as a fundamental cause for the instinctual desire of survival.
What is creation? Creation creates a being. That being can be either a subject, or an object. A subject is a being that has the ability to sustain in an environment of entropy, where as an object simply deteriorates; with no internal process of material gain which is intrinsically lost. It is a subject that is the desire of creation, as this subject then has the ability (and necessity) of future and continual creation. Energy is what creates material (e=mc2), and material is life. Material must then continue to obtain energy for its survival. According to the fundamental situation of the Earth and the Sun, energy is consumed and transformed into material. If material is consumed, it will be turned into energy.
This situation then creates a dynamic of choice and possibility, where either energy or material can be consumed; both producing different end products. What this manifests as is a dynamic subjectivity, where both energy and material are consumed and stored at unequal rates. Originally, there was only the consumption of energy. Now there is the consumption of material, and is usually noticeable or signified by action, where energy was at least traditionally consumed simply by existing in a certain environment.
The type of internal situation that this causes is one of entropy. Energy is necessarily continually consumed, creating a constant gain of material. Material is also constantly lost, releasing energy into the environment. Both of these examples are operating on the real plane, where the growths and decays of a being can be observed, witnessed, measured, quantified. What is not seen in this lens is the transference of scales within the being of this material or energy. When energy is consumed, it is transformed into material. This specific material has an embodied energy consisting of the energy that went into the creation of it.
This material of embodied energy is further stored and used as a means towards consuming more energy, creating more material and continuing the intrinsic necessity of survival. What is unique to a being is that it is material itself, and therefore must consume for itself to survive. As all material consists of embodied energy, it may use that energy to consume in the ways possible to its action. A typical steam engine for example is an object as the only material or energy it consumes is either the heat that is given to it, or its material itself. If a subject exists, it is able to consume more than simply what is objectively provided for it and it itself. This ability defines an individual; that which has the potential for self-sustainment, the ability to create events of consumption for itself.
How these events of consumption are created is not the pertinent question here, but more importantly, why? As the subject consumes more energy and more material (at varying rates), there will be a quantitative difference between levels of energy and material within the being. If the rates of one are higher than the other, a manifestation is intrinsically created. This momentary equilibrium is inherently found in all beings as a process towards balance.
It is the transformation from energy to material (or vise versa) that is the signifier and definition of a negentropic event. Not all events are successful negentropic events, though they are events of consumption. In a failed event of consumption, energy may be consumed for the purpose, intent, and desire to transform into material. As this energy is consumed though, it is possible for it to not be transformed, or entirely transformed into material. What this results in is a state of partially stored material (from the successful transformation of energy to material) but also a state of partially free energy, remaining internal to the individual as it has been consumed.
This phenomena of non-idealism, the truth that e = mc2 sometimes has a remainder, creates internal entropy of implosion. This internal entropy is the buildup of untransformed, free, “chaotic” quantities of material or energy. It is this material|energy that is subject to the second law of thermodynamics (as is the environment receiving the sun, as is the subject losing material). To quote Luis Fernandez-Galiano:
“There is, in time, and always will be, a dimension of degradation and dispersion… It is in the context… the irreversible decoposition of the organized.” (Fernandez-Galiano, 92)
This quote supports the fact that all matter tends to degrade over time. What this quote points out is the fact that it is this material that is organized, degrading into a state of disorganization. If organization has a natural tendency (due to the Entropy Law) to become unorganized, what then happens to this unorganized material|energy? What happens within our environment when our material breaks down into more unorganized forms, it is organized to a certain level where other beings can consume it (just not to where we can). This unorganized material|energy decomposes into an open system of the environment, where others may consume it. If this disorganization is not consumed, it will continue to grow with other unconsumed, unorganized material. It will continue to grow until either it is consumed (transformed into its alternate form of material|energy) or until it consumes others; furthering its own life cycle while being subjected to the same conditions as our entropic being.
The condition of concern at this point in time is not the degredation of material|energy in the open environment, but the resultant situation in the closed environment; the relative environment of the subject. The relative environment of each being created begins in a state of balance. It is through the process of growth where an internal imbalance is possible and is created. When energy|material is consumed successfully, it is transformed into physical material or energy (respectively); that which exists within the open system of the environment. It is in the examples as noted before of failed attempts of consumption that an internal remainder of material (or energy) exists.
The result of a failed event of transformation is either internally organized energy or internally unorganized material. Because this energy|material is stored internally, relative to the subject, it does not exist in the objective environment. The environment, seen from a relative point of view as objective, abides by the law of conservation of energy as it is in a mechanistic system (of the sun) coupled with the dynamic system of other beings attempts of survival (the consumption of the abstracted mechanistic energy). The internal, relative system of the subject must follow the law of conservation of energy as well, but handles it in a different way because of the existence of relative desire, choice, and consciousness.
As a subjective being, it is through these created events of attempted negentropy that we survive. When these events of transformation are not successful, or partially successful (based upon the relativistic desires and actions within the event), the consumed substance’s state is internalized (where energy is consumed into energy). When this situation occurs, it manifests and is observed as a failure to transform between substances. In a failed event of consumption when for example energy is consumed, say it is consumed as unorganized energy (heat). In this instance, this unorganized energy is internalized as organized energy, instead of being transformed into organized material (e=mc2). As this energy is internally present in an organized form, the means to achieve balance again will be an event of transformation where this internal organized energy is transformed into external, unorganized material.
An event of transformation is a transformation between states of organization. A failed event is what creates an imbalance within the being. Imbalance, by this deduction, is a result of failed transformation that makes “false” types of substance present within the relative situation of the being. The ability to label one form of substance “false” as opposed to “true” is reached by analysis of origin. The sun emits energy in an organized form of energy, light. The energy of light is then transformed into unorganized energy, heat, as light hits a surface and is stopped along its path. (Light is the primary form of false substance, that which is not directly consumable). Heat, the consumable form of energy, is therefore the (relatively) “true” form of energy. This true form of energy (unorganized) is what led to the formation of (organized) material (retaining the validity). This organized material is then either consumed by other beings to be transformed into unorganized energy, or decomposed into unorganized material. Unorganized material, and possibly the relative definition of organized and unorganized, is not objectively inconsumable, just desirably consumable to “lower” forms of life (higher/lower based upon the state of organized/unorganized consumed/decomposed material|energy). Based upon this now relative definition of organized/unorganized, it would make sense that light is unorganized to us, but is considered organized to a plant, who consumes that as a primary source of growth.
Plants are objectual beings, as they do not have a choice for how they consume. If they consume organized energy or unorganized material (such as excessive heat or contamination of material nutrients) the plant will mutate; it will change its either physical material or the growth process itself as a result of these false substances consumed. This change that occurs is an uncontrollable, “sub-conscious” change that is not chosen, but is a result of the combination of factors over time as a continual pattern of regeneration and growth; a manifestation. In humans, the only difference we have in this sense of subconscious manifestations is that we have the ability to choose what we consume. If we are subjected to and consume light a mutation of the skin happens, darkening it. This mutation is not necessarily “good” or “bad” (as that in the end is a subjective question of aesthetical desire), but in a quantitative excess, the mutation can lead to death of either the cells or the being itself (as a result of too much entropic energy). The subject can also, much like a plant, consume “contaminated” material, which is a result of material grown upon “false” substances. When a “false” material is consumed, it is digested (our transformative process) to its extent. If the false elements are unable to be digested into energy, they are either ridded of in the few ways possible, or stored in and on the body in their now organized, mutated form. If false substance is consumed (or created as a result of a failed event of transformation), it will naturally materialize itself to the being in a way in which the body is able to reduce those levels of false substance.
A unique difference between the defining nature of material and energy is its consumption. Light, when consumed, is transmitted through a relatively objective condition. When Heat is consumed (or material consumed, as they work the same in this instance) it is in a dynamic condition / setting for consumption. Heat varies less than material, though both still vary as the heat condition can vary from one side of a hill to another, where as a material varies subjectively to the material being consumed. Light, Heat and Material are all substance experienced dynamically and subjectively; the defining factor between them is how it is consumed, what it is consumed for, and what the variance of relative consumption is. Its scale and complexity.
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Material is in a constant interaction with other beings as it exists within an open environment subjected to the fourth law of thermodynamics. Energy is subject to the second law of thermodynamics due to the sun. These laws constitute the conditions of the environment which we as beings call open; the settings in which we interact towards an individually shared survival. It is within this setting where the first law of thermodynamics and the Law of Conservation of Energy must be brought into discourse. These laws state nothing about an open or closed system (as we normally think of things), but simply an isolated system. What is the significance of the defining word “isolated”?
An isolated system, taking our ecosystem as an example, is a system where energy is conserved within it through the interactions of material in the system, but is also consistently exposed to a source of energy, therefore increasing the base amount of energy in which the system has to conserve. The continual increase of energy within the ecosystem is entering as a unorganized form of energy. It is considered unorganized only for the reason that it can be organized more, into other forms and affects. Even though this form of energy is unorganized, it is consumed (as it is the basic source of energy). This energy is consumed in a various amounts of ways; meaning, the process in which beings transform energy into material is unique to the being (plants turn sunlight into nutrients for growth, humans turn light and heat into vision, vitamins, chemicals, and to extremes bodily mutations).
In each of these examples, a being takes the energy (in this case from the sun) and transforms it into a more personally usable form, it reorganizes it. This reorganization is the process of successful consumption. Reorganizing in this instance is taking the energy that is unorganized and intrinsically being consumed (by proximity and nature of the element, energy) and through a relative process, reducing the amount of internally consumed unorganized energy by turning it into physical material. The process of consumption is organization. The process of transformation is e -> mc2 or m -> e/c2 (the transformation of substance states). Until the event of transformation occurs, the levels of relative entropy are consistently increasing, due to the fact that organized material is consistently being lost (naturally deteriorating into unorganized material) and unorganized energy is consistently being gained. The consistent gain of unorganized energy can be assumed to act in a similar fashion to the deterioration of organized material. This can be assumed due to the fact that material is intrinsically created from energy (containing “embodied energy”) as well as the comparison and relationship between the Second and Fourth law of Thermodynamics (as detailed by Galiano). The nature of relative material is observed to become unorganized, to deteriorate. If this similar relationship between the entropic patterns of material and energy are applied to the condition of relative energy, it becomes organized, it grows.
If the second law states that entropic levels increase towards the “maximum value of equilibrium”, and this definition of entropy is inversely applied to material (i.e. the fourth law), it can be see that this “maximum value of equilibrium” is in fact the end of equilibrium in totality; death. It can then be therefore assumed that the maximum value of equilibrium in the second law, treating energy in a forever increasing state, leads to death as well (as displayed by conditions such as skin cancer and ultraviolet light).
We must now switch the isolated system of discussion from the ecosystem to the being itself. Both of these systems are subjected to the same relative conditions; they are both made of material, they both have a natural tendency to deteriorate over time, they each have a fragmentary consumption of energy to replenish the material lost. It is going to be assumed that the intrinsic purpose of all life is to continue by regenerating and growing. If it was not, then there would be no consumption (as that is the required process of sustainability) and all beings would perish due to the natural degradation of material.
The primary difference between the system of the ecosystem and the system of the being is the concept of failure of transformation. The ecosystem is in a mechanistic situation of consumption; the sun rises and sets at specific times each day which can be precisely calculated, and the amount of energy consumed during those times is relatively consistent to the location. The subject on the other hand has the element of chance, and even further the ability of choice; abstractly where one event could, or could not happen. This element of chance introduces the potentiality of failure; where for example one subject could attempt to consume another being, but due to the physical properties of both, the subject could end up not consuming, and could even end up being consumed itself.
If the intrinsic necessity/purpose of each being is to survive but is constantly in a condition towards its own death, then the primal root of desire is created. If there is a lack of organized energy or a surplus of unorganized material (the two conditions leading towards death), a path will be needed towards a negentropic event. This path is an internal conception in which the actions of the subject may lead itself towards successful events of transformation; thus lowering the entropic levels intrinsically growing towards their “maximum value”. This necessary path gives birth to the means in which the necessary end of consumption and transformation will be reached. These means are a path upon which desire exists; negentropic events (as a necessity). This desire will be continually present as the dynamism of time continues; even if a being attains balance through events of transformation, the natural tendency of increasing entropy will almost instantaneously throw the being back into a state of imbalance. It is this presence of a continual and intrinsic imbalance that is the source for our relative, continual, dynamic desires.
If the relative state of entropy remains increasingly unbalanced as a result of failed events of transformation, the subject will manifest this imbalance as foreseen paths towards the fulfillment of desire – negentropy. It is these paths, and the events that occur as a result of the choices and actions done to initiate them, that are termed Events of Implosion. An event of implosion is an event caused by the state of imbalance attempting to achieve balance once again. It may seem at this point that all events of attempted consumption and transformation are thus events of implosion, but this is not true. An event of implosion occurs when a path of fulfillment has been specifically foreseen and then initiated (as opposed to dynamic choice within an ongoing event of interaction; one that would have never materialized itself as a potential if the event of interaction was not at the point where it was).
This specific type of event is called that of Implosion as there is a conflict between the subject and the reality of the situation. The subject enters the event of interaction with a foreseen path of desire, a preconceived notion of fulfillment and the means upon which it is achieved. A desire in its essence is the event itself of substance transformation, where fulfillment is the placement of a subject within that event of desire being attained. When a desire is created, the end result is the thing that is desired. The subject can then enter events and in the inherent dynamism of time and interaction, act towards those ends. A conflict arises quite dramatically when a desire created is in fact an imploded desire.
An imploded desire is when more than the ends are desired. In an imploded desire, what is foreseen, what is constructed within the potential of the mind is not only the end of the desire, but the means in which that desire is reached. Fulfillment is not possible without consumption. Without consumption, there is not potential for transformation. Therefore desire, fueled by the need for fulfillment, must be of consumption. Imploded desire is a desire of the transformation of substance, not of the attainment and consumption of substance. The desire of transformation is a qualitative desire, which assumes and is predicated by the existence of quantity; the consumption of substance. Without the existence of substance it cannot be transformed into the desired form and organizational state. The desire of a transformative event as opposed to a consumptive event is a conflicted, static desire. It is considered a static desire because it assumes a static nature of the other which is being consumed. If the consumed other is dynamic, it has the ability, chance, choice and option to not be consumed in the way being desired. If the other is static (an object) the chance of non-consumption does not exist to the consumed object; only the choice of the subject consuming it exists - whether to consume it or not.
A sustainable existence is that where each consumptive effort is of a subject; where each desire is dynamic. This situation would allow for a condition of equality, where each act of consumption is done of a subject, by a subject. This is necessary for a situation of equality because in our being’s state of continual existence, we can not survive on the consumption of only objects. We can momentarily survive by regenerating our lost material and lowering our entropic energy on the consumption of objects alone, but all subjects as a composition of organized material, over an extended period of time will be lost, the inevitability of death. Therefore, for the necessity of continual life, though is impossible of the subject itself, reproduction is necessary; the regeneration of the subject. For a sustainable being to be, it must be a subject (as only a subject has the ability to regenerate itself). A subject is the “true” being.
If false substance is consumed, false substance will be produced; If true substance is consumed, true substance will be produced (unorganized material -> organized energy [FALSE]. organized material -> unorganized energy [TRUE]. The equation e = mc2 states the conversion principle from energy to mass, and mass to energy. The transformation between mass to energy is equally as potential of a transformation between energy to mass). The consumption and therefore production of objects creates a populous of objects – those that are unable to sustain themselves. The sustainment of a being is essential for the continuation of time (as is relatively conceived) not for the solitary fact of that specific beings survival, but for the fact that the being sustaining has the ability to create as a product of growth. This potential growth is the reorganization of material.
Through the consumption and transformation of true material into energy, that potential energy may be used in a multitude of ways. In any means of production, the transformation of internalized energy (or material) is the transformation into externalized, physical material (or energy). This newly produced material|energy has gone through a process of disorganization and organization, from its original state of substance consumed, to its stored state and into its produced form. In the production of this new form, the either re-organization of matter or the re-disorganization of energy, the subject has the ability to organize or disorganize in a different way; potentially more or less than the original form consumed. A more organized form of material allows for a more of a quantitative consumption of energy for the same amount of less organized material (through embodied energy), resulting in the necessity for less material consumption for an equal amount of energy attainment. A less organized form of energy allows for a less quantitative consumption of material for the same amount of more organized energy (through embodied material), resulting in the necessity for more energy consumption for an equal amount of material attainment.
The final statement in the last paragraph, of the necessity of more energy consumption, is a troubling statement. It is a troubling statement due to our preconceived, static notions of what energy is and how it exists in today’s method of survival. Currently, we have thought of energy as being petroleum, coal, wood, or other natural material. This process of attaining energy is in fact not a pure, true form of fulfillment. Energy from the sun has been reaching this planet for the past multiple billion years. As a result of this growth of the planet, it has come to embody these materials, that through technology we as a specie have been able to extract. Once this material is extracted though, it is simply material (with of course an embodied energy, as all material does). It is only once this material, extracted as an object, is transformed that the energy is available for use.
This material, when extracted from the earth, is of an undetermined state of organization at this point in time. Wood, we can say for certain, is a form of organized material. It is organized as it is the product of a being; that which grows. The growth of material is of organization. In an architectural example of the necessity of material organization, if the material structuring of loads on OMA’s CCTV building were not organized specifically to the degree and complexity that they are, the building would not stand and would therefore be the death (non-existence) of the being that is the structure. This example is simply an extreme example that demonstrates the necessity of complex organization, but one can see how every building, if it did not have the structural organization that it does (down to the organization of the specific material itself, resulting in material properties), it would not stand.
Coal is slightly more difficult material to analyze for its organizational state, but by looking at how both coal and wood can be used as forms of creating energy, it can be determined that coal is an organized material. These forms of material are traditionally used to create unorganized energy (heat), and therefore must come from organized material. The transformative process of turning organized material into unorganized energy is fire.
Petroleum is a material that is extracted from the earth as an unorganized material. It is unorganized as it is not able to be used in its direct form (due to contamination). It must first, after extraction, go through a process which transforms an unorganized material into an organized material. This is a false transformative process. It is false because it is in essence the product of a failed transformation, where the failure of this transformation (successful being e -> mc2) is actually desired. The extraction of petroleum, as an unorganized material is false because of the fact that unorganized material is false in itself, inconsumable. The creation, production and desire of a false material requires a false form of energy to continue the life of this being, that based upon the notion of petroleum.
So in truth, the major notions that we as a population have of energy and how it is attained is actually not the attainment of energy at all, but is the attainment of a transformative process.
The end desire is energy. What is required for a continued survival is the increase in consumption of energy. In the current state of our specie this creates a conflict that will end in implosion and death. The necessity is of more energy. The means in which we attain that energy is through the attainment of material. This creates an increased amount of material consumed, when it is the path of evolutionary growth to actually reduce the amount of consumed material. Energy from the sun is the cyclic, mechanistic, continual primary source of energy that through mutations and transformations has given rise to what exists on this planet today. It is only once the basic fallacy of substance attainment, consumption and transformation occurred that the decay of the planet as a being itself began, as it turned from a subject that can regenerate itself to an object that is being depleted. To sustain, to survive, to live, we must utilize a consumptive process as an ends and as a desire, as the transformative goal has put this objective subject of ours on a path to self destruction. It must be a question of quantity, not quality. Quality is not a factor unless quantity exists. Quality only matters when the quantity is contaminated. Quality requires quantity, and therefore quality is of that quantity. Our path towards a higher quality product is not false, but the product which we are making a higher quality is. The sun is a pure, true, uncontaminated source of energy which previously in mankind’s existence has been strictly unorganized. Due to technological advances, we have developed ways to organize that unorganized energy, directly into a usable, consumable resource.
Each being cannot survive by consuming its embodied resources alone, as that will simply speed the process of deterioration. Fortunately, by existing in this environment, there are external sources of resource. The pillaging of our earth is equivalent to eating our own body when one is hungry. This example of a self-cannibal could have only gotten to this state of observation by growing and surviving off of external resources. A choice created the shift from external, sustainable consumption to internal, self-destructive consumption. A choice is what has the power to shift the desire of consumption to a sustainable, external source. Relative to the population of specieal life on this planet, there is one resource that remains external to all; one source that gives the direct resource that is needed for the continual growth of life on this planet. That resource, the resource which originated all life and will be the continual origination for all life to come, is the Sun.
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Bibliography:
1. Fernandez-Galiano, Luis. Fire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy. Trans. Gina Carino. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.
2. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: University of Minnesota Press, 1983.
3. Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1982. 3-35.