Entropy & the Psyche
In our consensual world-reality, mechanical systems are never designed to be inefficient. From imagined theory to design prototype to productive application all systems are designed with an optimal expectation of operational work and production, peak efficiency. And repetitively, history has shown that human ingenuity through time will, whether due to mechanical necessity, personal desire, or even societal or cultural influences, engage technology to improve upon an existing system design, create the next generation to displace what was, or possibly pioneer previously uncharted realms.
Whether we like it or not, and regardless of how precise the implemented design, the phenomenal universe has demonstrated that all systems waste energy to some degree; it’s unavoidable. As stated, all systems are intended at the outset to maximize available energy toward constructive work for some resultant end product that retains value
Psychologically, the assessment of value is typical of those sticky qualitative research variables that are undeniably subjective. Consider that even quantitative results from quality assurance tests regarding materials’ reliability under various stress trials are further value-assessed within human consciousness before decision leads to action. This goes for everything from a ship’s hull to a skyscraper to a golf ball.
Generally speaking, the evaluative process occurs within the mental domain where cognition and emotional input, along with perhaps intuitive and physical stimuli, provides a rationale of evaluation/assessment to the self. Notice how a rationale immediately dons a composite sort of tangible (quantitative) character that is acquired and idiosyncratically integrated from the input data.
Instantaneously, a rationale becomes an entity, a real thing of personal utility; and like a crypto coin, remains intangible. Yet, within human consciousness, a rationale is thermally active being composed of stored energy that is released when decisions are decided. Some folks in cognitive science regard this process of ideational creation as memory engram formation, the details of which are still unknown and in active research. Actually, the process is not so much a formation of something rather it is a connecting to something.
Here, a rationale is viewed as a composite construct of personalized, sort of quasi mental, self-permissiveness that is influenced by energy activity from within the psyche. The psyche’s inescapable thermal activity reacts to the input from the mental domain and inherently plugs into the life process either positively or negatively. The result is a miraculous thermal feedback event and accounts for why we like some things and dislike others, and to what degree.
A mechanical overlay onto personality development serves to neutralize the disparate attributes of input variables. Doing so provides the foundational schemata of and for the continuous thermal activity within the psyche.
Most assuredly, both quantitative and qualitative assessment mechanisms are not exclusively, or universally, in opposition to one another. They also characterize as complementary dynamic thermal systems and are bonded together in human consciousness as mirror images.
One system is infinitely operative within the universe of space and time and a world-reality replete with distinctive sensations and perceptions of both tangible and ethereal things, while the other is psychologically ubiquitous, autonomic and always functions to benefit personal well-being, prosperity and behavioral propriety. Together they provide symmetry for finding order, meaning and purpose throughout the life process.
Qualitative & quantitative, objective & subjective, yin & yang are among the multitude of binary pairs forming the bedrock of all psychological phenomena. Unabashedly, dharma joins the pack and arrives with its thermal partner, entropy. Ostensibly, whether mechanical or psychological, any discussion of energy activity in a system would be incomplete without some respectful and diligent commentary regarding this 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Consider first that entropy is deemed a law of the universe. It is not a theory, a hypothesis, or some conceptualized mathematical abstraction. Everything in the universe trends toward entropy which is why some quaintly refer to it as time’s arrow. This is why it is so very important to have some rudimentary understanding of entropy as it applies to human consciousness and personality development since everything throughout the life process undeniably proceeds through time.
A simple Google query provides that entropy is “the measure of a system's thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work. Because work is obtained from ordered molecular motion, the amount of entropy is also a measure of the molecular disorder, or randomness of a system.” (Google’s italics and boldface)
There are some who choose to substitute the term chaos for “molecular disorder, or randomness”, while still others refer to entropy as a principle of uncertainty. For good or ill, selective descriptions of entropy remain varied and subjective when applied across the transdisciplinary environment of cognitive science.
The psychological dynamics of human creativity remain beyond any direct technical monitoring and observation. Nonetheless, there are certain esoteric meditative techniques that emphasize the act of focused cognition. These intentional altered states of consciousness have been recorded and measured with EEG printouts for decades.
The mental discipline is intended to stimulate a very particular thermal dynamic within the self. Ultimately, the technique opens the self to directly engage with the interplay of dharma and entropy within the psyche. The dynamic is representative of Otto’s mysterium tremendum and described by some as a relinquishment of the self, a state of egolessness that is fully experiential within waking-state awareness.
Dharma Dynamics recognizes the universal tendencies of entropy and dharma to be eternally yoked together throughout an individual’s life process. Within the psyche, the inescapable thermal tendency toward disorder (entropy) is perennially confronted by a thermal principle of order (dharma) that innately functions to serve an individual as an enhanced common sense that becomes bound to ideas of personal value.
Spiritual or mystical unity in consciousness, although a fascinating, never-ending topic of discussion, is not the objective here. For most folks, seeking some hermetical, transcendent experience is not part of a daily routine.
However, the initial psychic dynamic remains the same and within reach for everyone even in the absence of a rigorous meditative regimen. Accounts of spontaneous supernal events across cultures and throughout history are not at all uncommon. Yet, for most of us, the dynamic simply goes unnoticed. Its impact is immediately countermanded instead by stimuli interfacing with thought and/or emotional intent by ego intervention that administers personalized motivation to behavioral action.
This is not to imply that for most everyone behavioral consequences manifest only within the world-reality. For each of us our thoughts are unique, idiosyncratic. They are the intangible, mental storage bins of psychic energy and ego attachments. In this capacity, thoughts become personal variables which may produce individual behavioral outcomes realized only by and for the self, and therefore remain antecedent to any potential observable behavior. The results, and we’ve all experienced them, are that some thoughts are deemed personally beneficial while others are facilely discarded before any motivation or intent toward manifest action is awarded them.
Those thoughts we retain are regarded to be of personal value; they make the most sense because they find practical benefit in one’s evolving life process. Of course, we can always choose to disregard our better judgment. People do it all of the time; and by so doing intentionally inhibit (waste) dharma’s effectual intensity as thermally delivered from the psyche. This will increase the degree of psychic entropy.
It should therefore be obvious that egoistic attachment to thoughts that don’t make sense, that do not align with our individual prosperity, retain little or no personal value. Persistent attachment to such counterproductive thoughts can be perceived benignly as not normal, or more alarmingly as irrational and may presage dysfunctional and/or possible chaotic behavioral consequences.
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