The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases with time or in simpler terms as it applies to our universe, our attempts to impose order are under constant threat of dissolution, and subject to random actions and events. We can observe this in daily life. Despite our feverish construction of structures, systems, and organizations, disorder creeps into any untended human endeavor. The vacant lot left on its own is soon overgrown with vegetation. Bridges and roadways begin to crumble and rust soon after they are built, worn down by use and the elements. Complex systems are undone by one in a billion unforeseen circumstances.
In the sonnet, Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley captured the impermanence that rules all life.
“I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: `My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Given this undeniable truth why do we humans persist in what we know to be a seemingly futile effort? Have we resigned ourselves to impermanence or accepted nature’s terms as challenge rather than foregone conclusion? I think neither—though I believe it is not denial which fuels our belief in lasting works. We accept that even within the span of our lifetimes change will be constant. People we love will be born and will die. Places known to us will be altered by natural or man-made forces. Permanence is measured in decades and betrayed over centuries. Ideas alone persist.
Perhaps it is for this reason we cling, sometimes desperately, to traditions, beliefs and symbols of our past; to those ideas and faiths that suggest continuity and connection. In our search for immutable meaning, for signs that our lives are neither arbitrary nor irrelevant we are conflicted. While we look to the past for wisdom and guidance, we are confronted by dissonance. The lesson of our histories is plain, the way forward must embrace our past even as it accommodates our present. Therein is the tension between the young and the old, the new and the established, the unyielding idolator and the searching mind.
We see and feel this tension in our world today between those who hold fast to the hollowed mores of a distant past that never was and those that seek to reinvent without attending to essential truths. While these forces contend entropy reigns.
A study conducted by MIT in 1972 based on empirical data, and more recently updated by researchers at KPMG concludes that human society is in danger of a global collapse by 2040, and that if anything, the rate of decline is proving faster than originally predicted. Dire warnings about the future are nothing new but the warning signs are worth examining. Foremost are the limits to growth, those factors that signal entropy. Economic growth, population, non-renewable resources, ecological welfare, food production and industrial output among other key indicators appear to hit a limit around the middle of this century with several possible outcomes.
In the worst case, economic torpor within a decade triggers successive waves of decline in output and few if any resources with which to address a rapid collapse even in the face of extraordinary technological advancement. A contrasting view, albeit the least likely, suggests there is a way forward in which stability can be achieved through technological innovation, and widespread investment in health, education and human welfare.
What does that mean for us; what actions must we take today to avoid collapse? While neither study provides explicit answers they point to the need for a global shift from our present focus to a new goal centered on priorities for sustainable and regenerative growth. Only a rapid shift to an environmental, social and political governance placing human welfare above all other considerations offers the prospect of softening the impact of inevitable decline. If we fail to heed the warning signs the studies conclude, the laws of the universe will prevail, entropy will triumph, and the stark prophecy of Shelley’s words will be our epitaph:
"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away"
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