Entropy isn't what it used to be

[bonanova]

The title of this puzzle was a bumper sticker's humorous way, a while back, of expressing the famous 2nd law of thermodynamics. Entropy is a measure of disorder, and the Law states that it always increases, when properly accounted for. Examples are shuffling a deck of cards, shaking salt and pepper in the same shaker after carefully placing all the salt on top, and the ongoing need to straighten up the house.

Even if I used tweezers to replace each grain of salt, or restored the cards to suit order, or cleaned the house, the Law still holds. The system would then have to include me. And, sad but certain to say, my entropy would have increased more than the decrease in entropy I would have produced in the cards, salt or house. The gloomy fact is that the Universe is running down. In the struggle between order and disorder, disorder wins out.

In my early years that seemed unfair to me. I thought it should at least be a draw. You should only have to clean the house once. Unless there are small children about ... But it's not so.

So here is the puzzle. Does the Second Law give evidence to a universal evil force that wanders about, looking for ordered states to destroy? Or is there a view that permits neutrality in that regard, while still asserting the Second Law? Well of course there must be a view like that, because that's how things actually are.

The puzzle is, how would you simply and intuitively state such a view? How would you explain to my younger self, or to your child or grandchild, that fairness [neutrality] and the Second Law can and do coexist?
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_{Vidi, vici, veni.}

[referee]

Fairness and evil (and good) are in the eye of the beholder. But anyway, it happens because there's only one way for things to be in order, and many many ways to be in disorder, so by pure chance the things are never ordered.
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Jan 21st, 2008: The pillaging continues.
Mar 4th, 2008: Rest in Peace, Gary Gygax. May your dice always roll a natural 20 wherever you are.

Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!

[Suspence]

Don't all parents tell their kids "Life isn't fair"?
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I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[MNOWAX]

[Jack_Ian]

I always figured that while entropy was increasing, complexity was increasing.

Our job is to evolve complex enough so that we can overcome the lack of order, kind of like the sum of the whole being greater that the sum of the parts.

Perhaps entropy is the building block of souls. If you want to become a spiritual being, you nee to build it from lost entropy.

[The Potter]

If I recall correctly, entropy doesn't have to increase. It just won't decrease. Also it matters what you call "useful" work.

A light bulb is my favorite example. If you live in a cold climate and heat your house with electricity, leaving your 100W incandescent bulbs on is just providing 100W of light+heat. All of the energy going to the bulb is "useful". If you aren't heating your house the bulb is now a huge loss--but the Earth still gets hotter!

In the end, the system of the universe stays in balance because all of your pointless actions are "useful" to it. Or it just so massive that our actions are really quite insignificant.