The universe
tends to wind down.
As they
taught us in high school science class, everything slowly – or sometimes quickly
– deteriorates. Energy is lost, either suddenly or gradually. Heat seeps away. Stars burn out. Complex systems
collapse. This is the physical process we call entropy. Thermal equilibrium is the goal of the universe.
There seem
to be only two things that work against entropy. One is the Big Bang, which
happened almost 14 billion years ago. Whatever caused the start of our
universe, it created processes that led to complexity and molecules and galactic
systems and everything else that makes up the universe. The Big Bang,
mysterious as it was, challenged thermal equilibrium.
The second
opponent of entropy is life – just as mysterious as the Big Bang – which began
some four billion years ago and which is ongoing. Living organisms store energy
and fight the tendency toward collapse, breakdown, rot, disorder. These
organisms do die, but they create successors, offspring, which carry on the
struggle against entropy. Life creates systems that challenge the tendency of
the universe.
What does
all this mean? Simply, that we human beings, as living organisms, are
engineered, designed, created, to fight entropy. There may be other reasons why
we exist, but fighting entropy is self-evident and clearly our most important
priority – for if we fail to stave off heat death (the end of thermodynamic free energy) we are finished.
It is not
certain that humans or any other living species can win the battle against
entropy. In fact, it is very likely that the struggle is unwinnable in the long
run. But it is in our nature as a species to fight against our own deaths and against
the heat death of the universe.
It may be
that in time – perhaps billions of years from now – we will figure out a way to
outwit the laws of thermodynamics, keep energy pulsing, and become literal
masters of the universe. We’re a long way from that outcome, but we will doubtless
continue to pursue it.
