Energy. What is it? Where does it come from? How do we make use of it? How much is there? Will we run out of it? Will the universe run out of it?

These are questions that are important to all of us. The questions are asked in the long term and the short term perspective. They are asked at different levels. They might be asked at the level of heat and propulsion, or at the level of food and production, in the context of social interactions, or regarding the acquisition of knowledge and information. They can even be asked about inspiration and creation.

What exactly IS energy? Is the energy of the sun related to the energy of a living being? Is the energy that binds a molecule related to the energy that comprehends a novel? How?

People who try to answer these questions seem to eventually come to wrestle with other questions, particularly the concepts of order and disorder, structure and chaos, novelty and stability, the dynamic vs. the static.

The Demon in the title is Maxwell's Demon an imaginary entity that seems to be necessary to make it possible for life and the human world to go counter to the universe's drift toward disorder. This article will be an exploration of the world of energy, with a particular emphasis on taking one step back--looking not only at the interactions described, but also looking at particular supporting and surrounding conditions at each point in the journey.

Energy. What does it mean? Simon and Schusterâs Dictionary lists a number of definitions for the word energy. The word originated from a metaphor of social effectiveness, originally meaning "force of expression or utterance." One current meaning is broad-based: potential forces; "inherent power and the ability to apply such forces or power, esp. in action."

A more common meaning of the word energy is "those resources, such as petroleum, coal, gas, wind, nuclear fuel, and sunlight, from which energy in the form of electricity, heat, etc. can be produced."

In physics, energy is "the ability to do work" within a particular framework: the context of matter. Matter (in this sense) is subsequently defined as "What all (material) things are made of, whatever occupies space and is perceptible to the senses in some way. In modern physics matter and energy are regarded as equivalent, mutually convertible according to Einstein's formula E=mc2 (ie energy = mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light), in dualistic thinking matter is regarded as the opposite of mind, spirit, etc." (Simon and Schuster, 1994).

Many contexts, the same words. An inquiry into the nature of energy is a maze of context--contexts included, contexts excluded. Some of these inclusions are deliberately defined and stated, others are invisible, part of cultural assumptions and cultural blindness.

Letâs choose a starting point within the physics context. Energy is the ability to do work within the context of matter, whatever occupies space and is perceptible to the senses. A background cultural assumption might be that society values energy knowledge that will provide resources that can be converted into those forms of energy that it can then convert into whatever it wants or needs.

According to Isaac Newton's seventeenth-century laws of motion,

F = Ma

where F is the force applied, M is the mass of the object, and a is the acceleration produced.

In referring to an object being moved by something else, the following relationship was developed:

Work = force * distance.

So, in classical physics, "work" means the distance an object is moves when a force if applied on it. The concept has proved very useful. Measurements of this specific form of work have been standardized in terms of joules and newtons.

The name given to the ability to do work is kinetic energy. Kinetic energy can be distinguished from potential energy -- stored energy, which refers to a potential ability to do work IF some additional action is performed. Mechanical energy can be stored in a compressed spring, which is waiting for the chance to release itself to return to its preferred state. Gravitational potential energy can be stored in an object that is transported high above the earth and held there. Chemical bond energy is present in matter and can be released by, can become fire.

Most of the resources listed in the definition of energy above (petroleum, coal, gas, and wind) are examples of stored energy--particularly stored sunlight. Sunlight, a radiant energy, is usually seen as a basic energy that has been stored in Earth's resources, and a distinction is made between stored sunlight and the type of stored energy from which sunlight is generated. From a more cosmic perspective, sunlight is the transference of energy from a supply of energy stored within the material of a star. Until science turned its attention to the workings of the nucleus of the atom, sunlight was the only usable form of transference of the energy stored within the structure of the atom. Understanding of atomic structure has brought about the creation of another local energy resource, nuclear fuel--those elements that can be coerced into releasing their stored sub-molecular energy by the processes of fission or fusion.

Let's look first at mechanical and chemical energy--the level of heat and propulsion. Heat applied to water within a steam engine causes excitation of the molecules in water, which, if possible, causes expansion of the volume of the water. That expansion acts (pushes out) on some barrier that has been set up to enclose the water. While the barrier inhibits the expansion, the energy produced would be considered potential energy. When part of the barrier is freed in such a way that results in physical movement of the barrier, the energy involved is now referred to as kinetic. The movement can be captured, i.e. the movement of that "engine" can be transferred to some desirable outcome such as the turning of a wheel.

There are a number of recognized types of stored (potential) energy. They include gravitational potential energy, chemical bond energy, nuclear energy, and mass energy. All of these types of energy can be transformed into kinetic energy to do work. In addition to regular kinetic energy, there are also other types of kinetic energy such as heat energy, acoustical energy and electrical current.

It is possible for energy to be transformed from one state to another. This highly useful property is the basis for much study, as it is the transformation process that provides the capability of doing work.

The mathematical statement of this transformation is referred to as the first law of thermodynamics, thermodynamics being the study of conversions between heat and mechanical energy.

A historical step back is provided by Dr. Max Dresden, who reminds us that

• Energy appears in many forms.
• Transformations are possible.
• Regardless of the transformation, the total energy in the universe remains constant.

That brings the discussion to the observation that not all of the energy used in the original transformation is available for reuse.

The second law of thermodynamics states that in any energy transformation, although the amount of energy before the transformation equals the amount of energy after the transformation, a certain amount of that energy is "lost" to the system. The study of this loss has come to be associated with the concept of entropy, first formulated in 1865 by Rudolph-Clausius to explain why heat could not go over from a colder body to a warmer one. (Pekelis, 1974)

In 1865, Clausius wrote,

More recently, the word entropy has come to be associated with the order and disorder of gases.

Picture a chamber filled with gas, a chamber with two parts and a door between the parts. On one side of the chamber the gas is heated, on the other cold. If the door separating the hot and cold gas is opened, the gases will mix. The immediate result will be a rushing of the excited, expanded gas of the high temperature side to the colder chamber. Gradually, though, through Brownian motion, the two mix, and finally settle to a new equilibrium, in which the temperature and pressure of the new, larger chamber is at predictable levels, somewhere between the limits of the original levels. This reaction is highly predictable and consistent. Given equal pressure in the two original chambers, the temperature after joining will settle at midpoint between the two original temperatures. Original differences in pressure affect the results, but in direct proportion to those pressures.

The study of thermodynamics has gone beyond simple mixing of gases and heat energy, involving itself with the exploration of the concepts of order and disorder, and the transformations between the two. It addresses energy loss.

The nineteenth-century awareness of energy and energy transformations came about as the result of the quest to build the perfect engine, in other words, an engine that could do the most work with the least amount of fuel. And any engine that could perform an energy conversion (fuel to work) without any loss whatsoever would be the ultimate goal. Now we meet the Demon. This is an imaginary character dreamed up for a thought experiment. The Demon seems to be invoked to explain a number of different concepts, including perpetual motion. Hereâs one description:

Recent descriptions of this demon seem to imply that Maxwell was making a case for free energy, perpetual motion, or opposition to the second law. It would be interesting to read his original proposition. At the very least, there seem to have been a number of attempts to reproduce the Demon in several kinds of closed physical systems. (They seem not to have been successful.) But if these descriptions treat the experiment as a closed system, it seems that they are missing the point. Including the Demon in any system makes it an open system. The Demon is a placeholder for something outside the system.

In Maxwellâs time, demons werenât as imaginary as they are now. A demon was a very real part of the world-view of the 16^th century. The upstart physical world-explanations that came about as 17^th-century scientific method displaced other beliefs may have displaced demons within educated, formal thought, but they still had their existence in the everyday life. So Maxwell, in his quest to define the perfect engine, the perfect converter of energy for work, brought in something from outside the new physical system, maybe even from further out, from outside rationality.

Several elements are missing from descriptions of Maxwellâs Demon and his work:

• the energy needed to create the Demonâs setting
• the energy needed to create the Demonâs information algorithm, and
• value of the Demon and his work, which precedes the first two elements.

Doesnât the 2^nd law apply to everything? If it does, then why does it take effort to create an environment in which it can be applied? Whatâs going on here? Letâs look at descriptions of the way the second law functions. Here is an example by Bruce Lindsay, a "simple" one, as he says.

OK. The hermetically-sealed room is extreme. Separating gases is a little extreme, too. Liquids, however, are separated and allowed to mix all the time. The second law is supposed to apply there, too, so letâs look at them.

• Two streams join. It happens everywhere in the world, naturally. Now, step back. Although common, this is not a simple proposition. The water was separated in the first place by the action of evaporation and condensation, part of the highly biologically-mediated weather system of this planet. There is an extremely complex, world-wide system in place whose purpose is to do just that, separate water so it can be redistributed. For any particular instance of that water mixing, the setup is enormous.
• In rural areas, where well water may contain sulfur, it is mixed with liquid chlorine to make it drinkable. In urban areas, a sulfur solution is added to treated water to remove chlorine and make IT drinkable. Both interactions are part of systems that have been set up to do exactly this, but the mixing is not in the service of the two liquids or their inherent properties. The original liquids exist only because they are being used by a higher system, and itâs a pretty complicated process that allows this to happen, both the separateness and the mixing.
• There is an earthquake, a building collapses, allowing blood and rainwater, formerly separate, to mix. This particular mixing is not a highly probable event, but highly improbable. If it were probable, there would be no skyscrapers in the world.
• A three-year-old child mixes colored paints together. Again, the paints are only available in their separated state because the creative value of a person being able to re-mix them is worth the effort of society to separate them out in the first place.

GIVEN that the weather system has evolved on earth, the probability of streams joining is high. GIVEN that human society values not only teaching a child to think, but to play with thoughts and learn to create new concepts, beautiful colors of paint are made available, along with such energy conduits as money, holidays and gift-giving, to further even greater distribution.

From a fundamental physical viewpoint, it is most probable that the liquids would not be available to be mixed. From this standpoint, therefore, analysis should be limited to the observation that it is NOT probable that liquids and gases mix. The mixing is a special case, and is actually the state with the most evolutionary potential÷the potential for revolutionary evolution. IF the study of behavior of mixing elements is important, then it is just as important that the enormous energy and structure required to facilitate that mixing be identified and quantified.

Consider the importance of the researcherâs attitudes and preconceptions. The original definition of any aggregate that is studied (the creation of the envelope) is an intellectual construct. As such, it is made up of the only building blocks that are available to intellect to use÷social patterns of value. The separateness of the liquids is part of a mediated inorganic system, made possible by the intellectual concept of separateness. Mixing is a protected, mediated, pocket of dynamic randomness. From an inorganic, physical point of view, itâs not "natural" or probable at all.

This valuable process, this capturable energy-producing difference, this order that can be expected to tend toward randomness is more than just some kind of degenerative process. This capability of escaping the constraints of enclosing forms of order AFTER the order has been produced is highly valuable and highly expensive in terms of energy. And that is the essential ingredient for any Demon÷value that creates systems that give the Demon his structure and energy and information. In order to go opposite to the flow of entropy, value must be present.

People separate gases and other substances because they have created powerful processes that depend on the subsequent action of those substances. Biological systems separate many elements, including liquids and gases, so that they may be recombined in particular ways to support life.

The value of this exquisite mixing exists only here, only locally, only on human earth. It means little to a star or nebula.

Value first, then energy for the setting and the information algorithm--this is what it takes to go counter to a drift toward entropy. These must be supplied from somewhere or nothing exists. Perhaps, like a Demon, they cannot be part of scientific thinking. But perhaps they can. Certainly they should. This is why the Demonâs envelope is so important. In any isolated system, organization and structure tend to disappear, to be replaced by uniformity and randomness. Part of the basic assumption in such scientifically-valuable information is the necessity of assuming an isolated system. An "isolated" system can be tested, replicated, and thus the concepts engendered by studying it are harnessed for use. But it seems that no one really disagrees with the observation that in the long run, there are no isolated systems. There are no true closed systems. It seems it would be important to be aware of the problems of extrapolating inappropriately. Observations of any closed system generate a limited type of information, with limited applicability. The interesting thing is that, in this case, in a kind of reverse discrimination, it is not that local results are being extrapolated further than they should, but quite the opposite. Local experience shows that life, society and the power of thought create the envelope needed to put the demon to work. Rationality seems to want to ignore the fundamental input of social and intellectual energy in every. A bias against local observation is as limiting as any other bias.

"Value-free science" was a goal in the recent past, and there are historical reasons why this separation from older religious and other social beliefs was necessary, but it has, itself come to be questioned as a belief. In fact, the universe, including its basic inorganic processes and materials, can be conceived as a value-centered system.

Bruce Lindsay made a daring foray into the taboo topic of value and science back in 1959, in an American Science article, Entropy Consumption and Values in Physical Science. In it, he points out the role of personal value and preference in determining what a scientist will study, how he will evaluate his results. He even gives a glimpse of how the seemingly-human concept of value seems to have an analogue in the material world when he speaks about those air molecules that had been locked in a bottle (remember the hermetically-sealed room?)

Robert Pirsig also believes that the promotion of order is important. He thinks, "The most moral thing is to make it possible for the business of life to go on." He has a different spin than Lindsay, though. Pirsig takes on the question of entropy, and comes up with a perspective in which not only people, but everything is engaged in a purposeful direction. Everything is moving toward something. He asks,

Ludwig Boltzmann, a contemporary of Maxwell and Clausius, took up the study of entropy, and reformulated it in terms of probability. In other words, he shifted the focus from the unit of each volume of gas, the macrostate, and focused on microstates--individual entities (particles and their positions) and processes (velocities of the particles) that were involved. From that standpoint, Boltzmann discovered, although the actual action of any individual particle could not be predicted, the probability of the distribution of an aggregate of particles could be. He considered entropy to be the measure of the probability of a set of microstates. In a situation in which the macrostate is equilibrium, the microstates will, themselves, fluctuate somewhat from this point, oscillating back and forth somewhat. (Pekelis, 1974)

This system described above, if it is closed (that is, no new energy comes in), tends to become disorganized, tends to increase its entropy. In other words, the original order--certain molecules hot, others cool--becomes neutralized (all approximately equal), and the predictable order of the flow of matter when that door is first opened (rushing from hot to cool) is also nullified, as individual particles meander according to a different set of patterns.

This new balanced state is considered one of high entropy, high disorder. If you can see that it was the difference in temperature that caused motion (ie work that can be harnessed) you can see that this equilibrium is no longer useful in the sense that no heat exchange or other predictable activity is occurring. This relates back to the physical definition of entropy, in which entropy is a measure of the decrease of transformable energy.

Of course, if we take that promised "step back" it is easy to see that this particular equilibrium is still somehow protected from outside influence, just as the original divided chamber, which were necessary to produce the order, was a protected state. The energy that sets up and maintains the barriers doesn't seem to be part of the consideration. Perhaps this is understandable, because, whatever effort has produced the Demonâs envelope has occurred over time, and both the system and the observer have their own envelope, time.

The Second law of thermodynamics states that, not only does entropy exist, but, as physical reactions have been studied and counted and sorted, it has become accepted that, even when local processes, such as life, appear to move toward order and consume entropy, in the long view, they vastly increase entropy somewhere else. It has become accepted that only those processes are possible in which the entropy of the universe increases. Along with this, it has been found to be far easier to convert energy in a direction that moves TOWARD entropy than to move AWAY from entropy. As an example, itâs easier to convert coal (stored sunlight) to heat than to convert sunlight to electric current.)

In other words, if this is taken in a time-sensitive context, it seems easier to take some order that nature has produced and break it, thus releasing energy for use, than it is to transform energy into a new type of order. In order to create NEW order, new energy must be brought in from outside the system. This leads to a mathematics of the long-term future of the universe that predicts that eventually, all energy will have been converted and is therefore unusable. This is referred to as the heat-death of the universe.

Sometimes this concept has been referred to as "timeâs arrow." The clock that ticks for the universe, and everything in it, seems to be the clock of decay. Cells decay, power sources decay, creatures die, stars run out of fuel, even ideas lose their power over time.

But there is a conflict.

When Albert Einstein brought his Theories of General and Special Relativity to the world, he turned common sense on its ear. These theories, and subsequent verification by the scientific community, show that time is an illusion. A very compelling one, but still, illusion. Within this sphere of thought, time is not only different according to the speed of travel of the observer, but it is reversible, as well. The theory of relativity greatly disturbed scientists when it was first proposed. Still, the theory of relativity confirmed the deterministic aspect of the behavior of the physical elements. Everything should be predictable, if we had only enough information. Not only is it predictable, it is reversible. Scientists (though not much of the rest of the world) had come to believe in this so strongly that proposing otherwise was considered an affront. At any rate, it is a contradiction in observation that needed to be settled.

Ilya Prigogine has proposed a different model in his books, Order out of Chaos, and The End of Uncertainty, proposing that the theories of Relativity may indeed be true, but reversibility and determinism apply only to limiting, simple cases. According to Prigogine, irreversibility and randomness are the rule. And it is randomness (entropy) introduced into a system that makes it irreversible. Once a random element has happened, some part of the system will NOT go back to its old form. And, according to Pirsig, this new evolutionary event will be evaluated. If it is not repeated, it (the change) doesnât really exist. If it results in something valuable, it will be repeated. If it is not valued, it is not repeated, and something dies At any rate, as Prigogine said, .

Prigogine followed the work of Boltzmann, noticing that science had placed much attention on verifiable conditions that would hold still to be studied. (Does it seem out of place to note that the studying process may have actually defined the results?) Remember our friend, the Demon. He did his work from within a system that was structured in such a way that it would be expected to move toward equilibrium (called disorder) and stay there. The original state of order (separate hot and cold) was seen as one chamber containing a gate which separated two parts of the chamber, but it could also be considered not two separate but different chambers in equilibrium (disorder). The contextual thought that affects science should be evident here. Where classical thermodynamics presented an ordered system moving toward eventual total disorder, when the Demonâs chamber is described in Prigogineâs Chaos Theory, two separate systems IN equilibrium are connected. When the connection is made, and the door is opened, they are no longer IN equilibrium, but are NEAR-equilibrium, and they progress to a new equilibrium. It is the context that matters. The small difference of temperature of gas is slight in comparison to the similarity of the envelope of the two systems that allows them to interact at all.

Take another look at the contextual similarity that is necessary to support maximum randomness (disorder). Consider a shuffled deck of playing cards. This is used as an example of entropy almost as much as the gas chambers. As Linday says, "with well-shuffled cards the result is, in general, a random distribution with small chance of finding the cards in a given suit arranged in regular order. The latter, more orderly arrangement is simply statistically less probable." (Lindsay, 1959) A deck of cards is valued for its ability to produce randomness.

Take a step back and look at the envelope. A high degree of uniformity supports the randomness of the cards. They are exactly the same size, color and shape. The surface of the card is smooth enough to shuffle well, but not too smooth to be too slippery to hold comfortably. Their existence depends on the existence of millions of similar decks of cards and the body of shared knowledge and procedures that maintain the existence of the games. If the uniformity of the deck is degraded, such as even one card being bent, the pack is instantly much less valuable. The probability of a truly random shuffle is also lost. So, while a card deck may symbolize a system in high entropy (IN equilibrium), once a step back is taken, the card deck is actually a system in a NEAR-equilibrium state.

Perhaps Prigogineâs biggest contribution to modern thought is the awareness of a third type of systems, FAR-FROM-equilibrium systems, which do NOT tend toward equilibrium, but often go off in undeterminable directions of their own, running counter to entropy. (Is this the deck of cards, moving toward various new orders, such as 3 kings or a small straight?)

In equilibrium, matter is "blind", but in far-from-equilibrium conditions it begins to be able to perceive, to "take into account" in its way of functioning, differences in the external world (such as weak gravitation or electrical fields". "Bifurcations are the manifestation of an intrinsic differentiation between parts of the system itself and the system and its environment." (Prigogine,1997)

Prigogine, however, still has only part of the picture. What his scenario lacks is the reality of other levels of value in addition to the intrinsic value that shapes matter. social value and intellectual value, two distinct and superior mega-systems that reshape lower biological and inorganic levels of matter to their own needs. (And for this, the reader must go to Pirsig.) The social and intellectual components of the Demonâs envelope are not some imaginary happenstance. They are substance as real as biology. And that particular substance creates the shape of the far-from-equilibrium system, provides the value necessary to fuel the Demon and give him information to do his work.

Pirsig describes the world as evolving toward something, something he terms Dynamic Quality, the "cutting edge of reality, the source of all things, completely simple and always new" As evolution has developed patterned responses to this dynamic event, it has left behind static patterns of value, systems of order that make up all reality.

Chaos theory shows that, long-range ordering effects can sometimes occur so that islands of order can arise in a sea of increasing disorder. With high inputs of energy, especially recurrent, dependable energy flows, systems move to a far-from-equilibrium state, and at that point, often self-organize themselves into new systems. Sometimes those systems reorganize at a higher plane entirely, the reality and function of the old system subsumed to some higher process. Again, it is the appearance of some valued novelty that latches the system to its new configuration and lets it evolve. "Only when a system behaves in a sufficiently random way may the difference between past and future, and therefore irreversibility enter into its description." (Prigogine, 1984)

This reorganization process REQUIRES entropy. It REQUIRES randomness/balance. It REQUIRES the ability to experience novelty and evaluate it. And it takes only a small, protected instance of this entropy within itself to latch itself as a high-level pattern that can then mediate and re-form all the lower-level structures involved.

Now, the questions is, does randomness really equal entropy? If it does, then how can entropy be, at the same time, the final death of an energyless universe and the vital spark that feeds and drives all evolution? Seeing that disorder, chaos, randomness are the essential spark that allows evolution to occur allows one to consider that entropy, far from being the feared end of the universe ("not with a bang but a whimper") might actually be an inexhaustible meta-energy pool that can feed creation and growth.

As a final note, it seems fitting to take one more look at the Demonâs Envelope. The Demon was a thought experiment first conceived by a scientist. Itâs possible, of course, to take a step back to look at the envelope that surrounds scientific thought. In this exploration, we have uncovered a thought structure biased toward believing that the motion of the stars and the innermost processes of the atom (those processes that require 2-mile particle generators to investigate) are somehow more valid than the common processes that occur in our local universe. The universe has worked for billions of years to produce intellectual awareness and ability that, as far as has been observed, exist only here and now.

Perhaps this bias stems from the human social need for the unchanging. People who invented scientific method lived in a culture in which God was seen as the unchanging, the eternal. In the newfound abilities of reason and observation, they were no longer attuned to a personal metaphor of God, yet that background shows up in the fact that they equated "fundamental" properties of the world with the unchanging, the stable. It was not the local world that showed them unchanging properties, but the heavens, the stars, those observable entities that were, not by coincidence, unaffected by life or by mankind. In many cases, the search of science has been to document the unchangeable, the stable, and to find its existence within the sphere of life, the human world. So scientific method, which is usually considered a quest for the "true nature of the universe", in its zeal to be objective, puts a high value for those processes that are most opposite to human value, i.e. life.

But it should be observed that this is, itself, a social value. It is NOT necessarily an underlying law of the universe.

And with that, the Demon should be allowed to get back to work

References