sawyl | Thermodynamics and the philosopher (Reply)

Never send a philosopher to do a physicist's job. Here's John Gray in Saturday's Guardian discussing Jeremy Rifkin's The Empathic Civilization:

The essence of any catch-22 is that there is no way out, but Rifkin shrinks from this cruel logic, with the result that his argument verges on incoherence. How could human empathy possibly defeat the force of entropy, an irreversible physical process? Does Rifkin believe an increase in altruism can lead to the repeal of the second law of thermodynamics?

Yes, the second law of thermodynamics — coincidentally, C.P. Snow's scientific shibboleth — states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases. Yet it is still possible for the entropy of part of a system to decrease, provided this is offset by an increase in the overall entropy of the system. Thus it is perfectly practical to decrease the local entropy on, say, Earth, by exploiting an increase in entropy elsewhere in the universe, say, I don't know, the Sun.

Perhaps I do Professor Gray a disservice, but I don't really feel that he really understands the concept of entropy. Which makes the claim that Rifkin's argument is incoherent, or nearly so, impossible to assess and rather calls into question the point of the review...