A Philosophical Investigation of Entropy

            What about entropy makes it such a difficult concept to understand? One way to look at this problem is to ask what about a giraffe makes it such an easy concept to understand. The simple answer is that we can point to a giraffe, but we cannot point to entropy. But we have to be careful in this assessment because though we can point to a giraffe, it does not mean that the concept of a giraffe is something that exists necessarily. Giraffe is actually a poor example to be using because it has such a distinct appearance. Let us take for example, a desk and a table. We have two separate words describing objects that we use. Aliens from another planet might have trouble distinguishing the difference between the two. They might first assume desks must be smaller than tables until they see an end table. Then they might think that a desk can only be used by one person until they see two people using an office desk. In fact, an alien would probably refer to a desk and a table with a single word. It is not until it becomes convenient for them will they use two separate words describing these objects.

            My point is that concepts and the words that denote them are formed out of convenience, there is no Universe of Forms such as Plato describes in the Allegory of the Caves. You could understand why he would believe this because no matter what universe you are in, a triangle is a triangle by definition. But let us imagine that there is an infinite museum filled with every object imaginable, and that under each object there is a word which denotes that object. This is a very common sense approach to how language works, that there is an object and the word points to that object. But let us now imagine that under each object is a word that describes the object in every language. Then we can see that there are some problems with this representation of language because one language might have seven different words describing variations in snow that do not exist in the English language. Do these various forms of snow simply not exist for Americans? But why stop at 7? Why not make 100 words describing various possible forms of snow? It is because these concepts arise out of convenience and not from some eternal databank of concepts.

            So when I say that we cannot point to entropy, I am not stating that entropy has some eternal form that is unknowable but simply that there is no physical form of entropy. I am not saying that entropy was not real and did not exist before the term “entropy” was created, but that it can be useful to think of why the term “entropy” was created in terms of convenience.