Entropy, Openness, and the Art of Staying Alive

 

📷 @boucheron

Of all the theories I’ve ever studied, thermodynamics fascinates me the most.

Because that’s where I found many of my answers, about life itself, strangely enough.

One day, while reading Deep simplicity, I came across the concept of open and closed systems in thermodynamics.

And there was something that struck me as odd.

How could a closed system create more entropy (more disorder) than an open one?

Shouldn’t being closed off mean being safer, since it avoids outside interference?

Apparently not.

In thermodynamics, a closed (or isolated) system cannot exchange energy or matter with its surroundings.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states:

“In any closed system, the total entropy can never decrease over time.”

Entropy (the gradual loss of structure and distinction) always increases within a closed system.

If there is no exchange of energy from outside, the system drifts toward maximum entropy: a state where everything is evenly distributed, no potential difference remains, and everything becomes stagnant.

Scaled up to the context of complexity (or chaos theory), a closed system loses its ability to self-organise.

In human terms, it’s like being emotionally or cognitively closed off. When someone shuts themselves away, refusing energy, information, or connection from the world, their inner entropy (stress, stagnation, confusion) quietly increases.

An open system, on the other hand, can exchange both energy and information with its surroundings.

It welcomes new input (disruptions, insights, fresh air) and uses that very chaos to build new structure.

Earth itself is an open system, sustained by energy from the Sun. That energy keeps the planet in a constant state of disequilibrium, and it is precisely from this imbalance that weather patterns and ecosystems are born.

We humans aren’t so different.

When we open ourselves up, things might feel messy at first, too many interactions, opinions, experiences.

But it’s that very mess that gives our inner system a chance to adapt, reorganise, and grow.

As Ilya Prigogine once said:

“Only systems far from equilibrium can self-organise.”