Life – A Kickoff Post

“Personally. My best shot at defining life goes like this. Somehow, matter found a way to locally and temporarily defeat the second law of thermodynamics. In other words, life can reverse the cosmic entropy gradient which says that the universe inexorably trends toward disorganization and heat death (heat death in that all potential energy is ultimately lost as all heat has flowed from cold to hot and consequently any hope to generate kinetic energy is screwed).

So…life may be a zillion pockets of entropy-reversing organization spread across the cosmos that feeds on the overall energy that is released by entropy in general. The punch line is that life figured out a way to keep the ball in the air by reproducing itself. 

The hamburger I ate will ingeniously generate ATP which is the energy currency of life…but it does this at the expense of accelerating the journey of some poor cow across the cosmic entropy gradient.

Perhaps we should start thinking in cosmic terms and jump out of our restricted parochial view of life.

Hey -maybe God is the collected agency and energy of all universal life.”