a founder of the codex

Entropy

Aequalis dissolvens·the Evening Rot

From Latin aequalis, made even, and dissolvere, to loosen apart; it evens out every difference it touches by loosening it.

Level: Conceptorganism
Book: Meteorathe meteorological atlas
Phylum: Scaleimage schema
Class: Decayits dissipation
Niche: Decomposerwhat is dead
Mode: Reproductionhow it keeps existing
Stage: Matureindividuated
Status: Living
Habitat: Ruin

Its kinds · Roget, 1852: Change · Wilkins, 1668: Transcendental Mixed · WordNet, 1990: Process · Llull, 1308: I · Elementative

Evening Rot, the whole specimen — Plate XI. Aequalis dissolvens, the whole specimen.

Left to itself every difference evens out, and that evening out is what gives time its direction.

Order is borrowed, and every loan is repaid.

behavior Spreads slowly through whatever it touches, softening edges, and leaves a fine even dust where there were patterns.

provocation

What would it mean to make something meant to be used up, whose value lies in how it disperses?

Each draw is the being derived afresh by the current laws at another seed (laws §11); the chosen one leads (where they sit in the morphospace).

I Dissection

Each organ answers one question about the idea. The framed one, its decay, is the dominant organ: the being's class, the one the idea could not lose and stay itself.

Kernel of Entropy — Fig. 1. Kernel
Coarse grain
Which premise, if it were false, would kill this idea?
In an isolated system the number of microscopic arrangements compatible with its overall state tends to grow, so order gives way to disorder of its own accord.^{2, 1}
drawn as: condensation nucleus · view: series

Boundary of Entropy — Fig. 2. Boundary
Adiabatic wall
What sets it apart from what it is not, and how does it keep that distinction?
It holds only in a closed system; open the system to a flow of energy and local order can grow against it.⁵
drawn as: front · view: pressed

Intake of Entropy — Fig. 3. Intake
Thermal gradient
What must it feed on to work? What has to be present, noticed or supplied?
It feeds on any gradient, a difference of temperature, pressure, concentration or information, and on the passing of time.¹
drawn as: inflow · view: detached

Mechanism of Entropy — Fig. 4. Mechanism
Molecular chaos
How does it turn what it takes in into what it gives out?
Random exchanges among many parts explore arrangements blindly, and since disordered arrangements vastly outnumber ordered ones, the system drifts toward them.²
drawn as: convection cell · view: at work

Output of Entropy — Fig. 5. Output
Time's arrow
What does it make possible, visible or knowable?
It gives time a direction, sets the limit on how much work any engine can extract, and measures the surprise carried by a message.^{4, 3}
drawn as: precipitation · view: cross section

Dispersal of Entropy — Fig. 6. Dispersal
Melting ice
What part of it travels into other minds, ideas and fields, and by what vector?
It travels as the image of the melting ice and the shuffled deck, and as the metaphor of decline, from heat death to the decay of societies.⁴
drawn as: plume · view: in situ

Decay of Entropy — Fig. 7. Decay
Heat death
❦ dominant organ
What can it not digest, where does it fail, and what does it leave behind for others?
It cannot say why order arises locally, in life, crystals and storms, except as a debt paid elsewhere, and as a metaphor it is stretched to mean any decline at all.⁵
drawn as: dissipation · view: cross section

II Meaning associations

descent membership food web resemblance or friction

Lineage

A founder, dissected by hand.

Offspring

BabelhumMurmur Swarm, Murmurus babelicusby parasitism

Self-Ending OrderSlope Eater, Clinophagus evanescensby grafting

Tongue HorizonParting Tongue, Glossorizon divergensby parasitism

Food web

succeeds its decay → the intake of Emergence
Entropy cannot say why order arises locally, in life, crystals and storms. Emergence feeds on exactly that, many parts kept from settling by a flow of energy. Emergence lives on Entropy's failure, as both founders' notes predicted.
homology its boundary resembles the intake of Emergence
Entropy holds only in a closed system; open it to a flow of energy and local order can grow. Emergence needs that flow.
homology its mechanism resembles the mechanism of Emergence
Both are many parts exchanging, at random or by local rules. One drifts toward the probable, the other bends into a current.
friction its dispersal rubs against the dispersal of Emergence
Their images are opposites; the melting ice and the shuffled deck against the starling murmuration. Their kernels point the same way, order falling against order rising.
succeeds the decay of Syllable → its intake
Fast speech wears syllables down and merges them; Entropy feeds on every difference that can even out.
friction its mechanism rubs against the mechanism of Syllable
Entropy's exchanges are blind and random; Syllable's beats follow each language's rules.

Kin

same kind in Roget Metamorphosis, Tongue Horizon

same kind in Wilkins Emergence, Entanglement, Symmetry, Self-Ending Order

same kind in WordNet Breath, Entelechy, Erosion, Fire, Metamorphosis, The Common Lung, Self-Fulfilling Alarm, Shared Breath, Self-Ending Order, Tongue Horizon, Witnessed Relief, Witnessed Relief (Mycelia), Commemorative Revision, Fear's Breath

same kind in Llull Amber, Emergence, Entanglement, Erosion, Fire, Rain, Resonance, Resonance (Automata), Salt, Storm, Wind, Self-Ending Order

same phylum Patience, Silence, Hesychology

same dominant organ Innocence, Memory

Genome

disorder also in Babelhum
irreversibility
probability
gradient also in Self-Ending Order, Wind
information

III In the world

Echoes

ice melting in a drink
a deck of cards after shuffling
rust spreading on iron
Shannon's measure of information

IV Record

How it was drawn

its draw 1, a point in the morphospace (laws §8), drawn by flux-2-klein-4b.safetensors.

axis	value
book	meteora
symmetry	concentric
organization	chained
silhouette	knot
scale	microscopic
proportion	swollen
growth	intercalary
articulation	tethered latent
openness	lattice latent
skeleton	test latent
locomotion	drifting latent
pattern	speckled latent
coloration	nuptial latent
substance	smoke
surface	beaded
palette	bismuth
luminosity	sheen
transparency	translucent latent
gesture	coils
unity	aggregate
modality	contingent
causation	efficient latent
determinacy	fraying latent
fusion	built of
anomaly	scale clash
graft	pipes
technique	gouache
viewpoint	motion
value	flat latent
balance	cantilevered latent
density	intricate latent
rhythm	unmarked latent
saturation	muted latent
appendages	beaded filaments
anchor (body)	a cuttlefish, a fringed body whose skin ripples with moving bands of colour
anchor (detail)	a cave swiftlet's nest, a cup of hardened saliva fixed to rock

Sources

Rudolf Clausius, on the mechanical theory of heat (1865), where the word entropy is coined
Ludwig Boltzmann, the statistical definition S = k log W (1877)
Claude Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication (1948)
Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1928), the arrow of time
Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos (1984)

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