(This post is taken, in modified form, from Chapter 28 of The Motive Power of Fire.)
The unseen order has its roots in thermodynamics. But in order to explain its progress, we must venture further afield from that subject as normally taught.
The laws given to us by classical thermodynamics, the Zeroth through Third Laws, are limited in their usefulness for the task at hand. They are beautiful and compelling laws in their own right, but they have not yet keyed on motive power. They’re primarily associated with definition of local constraints: temperature equilibrium, energy conservation, irreversibility, and limiting conditions for thermal energy.
The Second Law in particular, concerning irreversibility, is a special case. I’ve called it a local constraint, even though it’s usually thought of as more far-reaching or extensive. I believe this law is strictly useful only for local changes in entropy, which turn out to be insignificant in the view of distant observers, whose concern lies with the overall fate of the universe. Gravity will always preclude irreversibility on that scale, compressing and purifying disordered systems as required, to prevent any overall increase in entropy. And therefore, irreversibility can only be a local and temporary concern.
Someone who really wants to understand the thermodynamics of progress, or the work of the Fire, must therefore look beyond these local definitions and constraints, which really say nothing about where it’s all going. To that end, we must utilize additional laws, those being the six laws of motive power.
Laws of Motive Power
1. Energy Cycling and Motive Power. The energy of the universe locally cycles between distributed and concentrated states, via the ordering principle of gravity and the chaotic principles of radiation and exclusion. The flow created by this continual cycling is the source of the Motive Power of Fire.
2. Volatility and Dissipation. Considering local and temporary forms of energy storage under the Motive Power of Fire, the volatile will dissipate, leaving the stable to concentrate over time.
3. Evolution and Stability. Under the variation and selection of the Fire, forms of energy storage will evolve in such a way as to minimize volatility, or maximize stability, provided they still retain the capability to evolve.
4. Competition and Efficiency. Maximum competitive stability is obtained through the evolution of structures that capture and utilize energy and materials to replicate themselves with the highest efficiency.
5. Specialization and Complexity. Efficiency is maximized through specialization and cooperation among individual storage structures, so that the overall complexity of the storage system will grow as it evolves toward the highest work of the Fire.
6. Stabilization, Respect, and Promotion. The work of the Fire therefore requires morality among forms according to their relative positions on the spectrum of complexity: Moral forms must stabilize those of lower complexity, respect those of equal complexity, and promote those of higher complexity.
These laws, admittedly, will never dictate exactly where anything is going. They do not offer prediction; they suggest only direction. But such direction, considered at length, should be sufficient to point toward some form of immortality, and to provide divine sanction for a way of life.
The Motive Power of Fire 