Sublime

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of closed physical systems always tends to increase, meaning that systems march from order to disorder. Think of dropping a dash of ink into a glass of clear water. The initial state, the one in which the drop of ink is localized in a gorgeous swirl, is information-rich. There are few ways

Thus in refuting the determinist philosophy behind the mathematics of Newton and the imperial logic of Hilbert, he opened the way to a new mathematics, the mathematics of information.8 From this demarche emerged a new industry of computers and communications currently led by Google and informed by a new mathematics of creativity and surprise.

The laws of thermodynamics seem to dictate the opposite, that nature should inexorably degenerate toward a state of greater disorder, greater entropy. Yet all around us we see magnificent structures—galaxies, cells, ecosystems, human beings—that have somehow managed to assemble themselves.

here: these very actions of agents’ exploring, changing, adapting, and experimenting further change the outcome, and they’d have to then re-adapt and re-adjust.

“The productivity equation is a nonlinear one,” fiction writer Neal Stephenson explains. “If I organize my life in such a way that I get lots of long, consecutive, uninterrupted time-chunks, I can write novels. But as those chunks get separated and fragmented, my productivity as a novelist drops spectacularly.”

First law: The energy of the universe is constant. Second law: The entropy of the universe always increases.

In daily life, the Lorenzian quality of sensitive dependence on initial conditions lurks everywhere.