economized entropy
an event is a change in a property of an entity.
for example, a lawn getting wet by rain is an event, because the entity (lawn) had one of its properties (wetness) changed.
the property of an entity can either be changed by a sartrean subject i.e. being-for-itself, or by a sartrean object i.e. being-in-itself.
probability is the difference between the knowledge of an event and the knowledge of the causality of the event.
randomness is the probability of an event where the change is done by an object.
disorder is the probability of an event where the change is done by a subject.
for example, a person is in their room and placing clothes in it.
if the person is not aware of why or where they are placing their clothes i.e. they are doing it unconsciously,
then the resulting placement of the clothes will look disordered to the person doing the act, and will look random to someone observing the person doing the act e.g. a parent.
however, if the person has a reason for placing the clothes in a certain way, e.g. they want to stack them three clothes high so that it fits in their drawer,
then the resulting placement of the clothes will look ordered to the person doing the act, and will be reasonable i.e. ‘make sense’ to someone observing the person doing the act.
a probability distribution is a function that assigns probabilities to events.
the entropy of a probability distribution quantifies the average level of uncertainty in it.
for example, both an impossible event (probability of 0) and a sure event (probability of 1) have zero entropy.
this is because the outcome of the event is completely known.
on the other hand, the uniform distribution, i.e. a distribution where every event is equally likely, has maximum entropy.
for example, a fair coin has two events, heads and tails, both of which are equally likely.
in physics, entropy is applied to physical events, where an entity’s (called a system) properties are derived from microstates, and changes are done by energy.
the ground causality of any physical event is the second law of thermodynamics.
it states that, given two regions, energy will flow such that the total entropy of both regions increase.
because of this, all physical systems maintain themselves by taking in low-entropy energy and dissipating out high-entropy energy into its environment.
the degree of this maintanence depends on a complementary flow to the flow of energy.
since energy flows such that the total entropy of both regions increase, it follows that if the system moves to regions where this can occur, it can continue acquiring energy to maintain itself.
this mobility of a system is the complementary flow, and it roughly corresponds to subjectivity.
for example, a rock cannot move on its own, and so, it can only sit and degrade over time as the environment around it reaches maximum entropy.
in contrast, a living organism continually moves around to environments that have yet to reach maximum entropy i.e. low entropy regions like good habitats and good food.
this enables it to continually acquire the energy it needs to maintain itself.
at a global level, the reason energy always flows to increase entropy is because maximum entropy corresponds to thermodynamic equilibrium.
hence, another implication of the second law is that the total entropy of the universe always increases i.e. the universe continually gets closer toward thermodynamic equilibrium.
as a result, one can assume that systems that help the universe reach equilibrium faster are favored over those that do not.
this is indeed the case, a good example being jeremy england’s dissipation-driven adaptation.
it states that living organisms that are more efficient at dissipating energy are favored over those that do not, and that this is what makes living organisms adapt.
in other words, living organisms are designed in order to maximize entropy production.
for example, the leap from nonliving entities to living entities was achieved by self-replicating molecules.
replication being a defining property of life, was favored because replication is a very efficient way to dissipate high-entropy energy.
for example, a single molecule can absorb a few photons and dissipates heat i.e. high-entropy energy.
in contrast, if that molecule makes a copy of itself, there are now two molecules absorbing photons, and hence dissipating twice the heat.
as a result, an exponentially growing population of self-replicating molecules dissipates vastly more high-entropy energy than a static blob of molecules.
given all of this, the following holds: life cannot use high-entropy energy.
in the economy, this results in two degrees that goods have.
i
rivalry
the degree by which the consumer of a good reduces the ability of another person to consume it.
a consumer consumes a low-entropy good e.g. an apple or a drink, and converts it into high-entropy waste after consumption.
as a result, another person cannot consume it, and hence, is rival.
however, when a low-entropy information-based good e.g. an article or a video is consumed, entropy mostly does not affect the copies of it (pixel degradation being a counterexample), but does affect the copy of it in the person’s mind.
for example, it can be converted into high-entropy waste e.g. one’s confusion or surface level thoughts about the article.
however, if this waste is not dissipated outside, then the good remains nonrival.
as a result, another person can consume it e.g. by sharing it.
however, if the waste is dissipated e.g. on social media, and another person consumes those instead of reading the article, then the good becomes rival.
this is because as the number of people that consume the information-based good increases, the more its visibility reduces as the waste from it increases, e.g. noise from one’s feed.
ii
excludability
the degree by which the producer of a good reduces the ability of another person to consume it.
a producer produces a low-entropy good and maintains its low entropy, i.e. inventory management, until a consumer acquires it and converts it into high-entropy waste after consumption, i.e. turnover, requiring them to buy the good again i.e. repeat sale.
as a result, the producer requires the consumer to quickly convert their goods into high-entropy waste, in order to increase inventory turnover, and hence, profits.
because of this, there are two ways inventory turnover can reduce.
i
the good becomes high entropy during storage.
one way to counter this is to use excludability to attract consumers by lowering the barrier to acquire the good.
for example, giving discounts during clearance sales.
alternatively, excludability can be used to compensate for lack of turnover.
for example, luxury perishables such as white truffles and high-end sushi are partly priced as such due to the difficulty of acquiring and storing them.
ii
the good stays low entropy during consumption.
one way to counter this is to use excludability at the supply level by producing only a limited amount.
for example, luxury watches, leather bags and jewellery.
alternatively, the good can be made such that its consumption will increase its entropy, independent of the consumer’s contribution.
the main method is obsolescence.
for example, style obsolescence states that in high fashion, while the dress itself will not expire, its social value does, due to being tied to micro-seasons.
another example is planned obsolescence, which designs products such it ceases to function after a predetermined period of time.
⠀
overall, a good is excluded when the producer wants consumers to be converting their goods into high-entropy energy, and not nature itself.
because of this, there are many goods that are non-excludable.
for example, air is non-excludable, because it is nature that spreads and stores air, so that humans can convert the oxygen in it into high-entropy energy e.g. body heat and carbon dioxide.
hence, a company cannot sell air because they cannot prevent nature from spreading air to people that do not pay them.
in contrast, a company can sell oxygenated air tanks for scuba diving, because nature cannot bring air into the ocean.
⠀
overall, these two properties result in the fourfold model of goods.
i
private good
rival and excludable.
these become high entropy on consumption, and high entropy on storage.
for example, food, clothes and cars.
ii
club good
non-rival and excludable.
these stay low entropy on consumption, but become high entropy during storage.
for example, toll roads (maintanence) and movie theatres (limited time in box office)
iii
common good
rival and non-excludable.
these become high entropy on consumption, but stay low entropy during storage.
for example, fisheries and fresh water.
iv
public good
non-rival and non-excludable.
these stay low entropy on consumption, and low entropy during storage.
for example, sunlight, language, knowledge, and national security.
⠀
in general, governments provide public goods and businesses provide private goods, with club goods and common goods generally provided by public-private partnerships.
therefore, for businesses, it is desirable to convert public goods into private goods.
excludability and rivalry are dependent upon nature’s ability to provide low-entropy energy.
because of this, a key way being formed to do this conversion is to create an alternate reality.
virtual reality is a canonical example.
for example, imagine there is a streetlight in the road.
in physical reality, if two people are standing under it, the streetlight cannot give light to only person and make it dark for the other.
this is due to nature’s laws regarding the dispersion of light.
however, in virtual reality, this exclusion can be done.
this is because virtual reality renders its nature according to its own laws.
since the code for the reality runs for each person separately, one could simply write:
if (user.hasStreetlightSubscription == true) {
render_light();
}
there are current examples of this way that are of lesser magnitude.
for example, physical public libraries lend out books for free using tax dollars, while private libraries such as kindle, scribd and jstor require monthly subscriptions.
overall, entropy as treated by the economy can be called, economized entropy.
‘Panopoly’ is a collage poem that expresses the physical, cultural, political, and psychological entropy of modern Britain.
i
Panopoly
the word ‘panopoly’ contains three concepts.
i
panoply, from the greek ‘panoplia’, meaning ‘all armor’, i.e. a grand and complete collection of things.
the poem is a panoply, because it is a grand collection of poetic forms e.g. sestina, villanelle, and pantoum.
it might also refer to the vast, historical richness of the british culture, history, and landscape that once protected and defined it, i.e. its armor.
ii
monopoly, from the greek ‘monopolion’, meaning ‘single seller’.
the main political critique of the poem is that public life in the uk has been privatized, e.g. “This land is purchased by a corporate whore”.
iii
panopticon, a concept from foucault and a device from bentham.
it is a circular prison design where all inmates can be observed by a single watchman without knowing if they are being watched.
in the poem, it is a metaphor for the modern digital surveillance state, e.g. in section ii, where citizens are trapped in digital surveillance loops, body-cam AI, and social media algorithms.
overall, panopoly states that the world is converting the entire panoply of human life, e.g. art, healthcare, nature, knowledge etc., which are all public goods, into private goods i.e. being reduced to a game of monopoly.
ii
Epigraph
a stanza by the Russian poet anna akhmatova.
anna lived through the rise of stalinism, and her work was condemned and censored by the regime, but notably, she chose not to emigrate, and remained in russia instead, to be a witness to the events around her.
so by opening panopoly with her words, it creates a historical parallel, that of britain, like historical empires before it, is undergoing a collapse, as well the speaker acting as a witness to the events around them (but in contrast to anna, at the end of the poem, they choose to leave).
“Beloved by me since childhood” establishes that the poem’s critique does not come from hatred, but from disappointed love.
this is because the nostalgia for a childhood world, i.e. a safe stable britain, makes the present state of the nation far more painful.
“December” symbolizes the winter of a civilization, i.e. the coldness, emotional numbness, and the death of public life.
And “Silence” refers to a population that has been subdued and rendered indifferent.
“My squandered inheritance is the main metaphor of this poem.
in russian, promotannym carries the connotation of an inheritance that has been recklessly spent or gambled away.
this frames the later parts which describe britain’s institutions being a historically inherited fortune that has been recklessly wasted by selling them off.
iii
A Cold Start
BOOM. CRACK. Sending the rats scurrying
Into banks lining the river’s edge:
Northwich, Cheshire and the like.
Fat beasts, laden with packs of earth, bringing the
Gates of sleep unto the masses.
Great Houses upturned and left
Asunder for no one to champion.
Merely rapacity.
Accidents waiting to happen.
Hate beguiling man’s
Quintessence.
Toiling reserved for no-one and nothing:
…
When I was a child, I went to hospital to get a
Stitch in my finger. Naughty boy!
Not paying attention.
Well, who is?
If you’re not there to look after me,
What am I to do?
“Nothing comes from nothing” is an allusion to shakespeare’s king lear (”Nothing will come of nothing”), which is a play about a kingdom tearing itself apart due to the foolishness of a monarch.
the poem also subverts traditional english nature poetry, because while the “undulating hills” and “garden’s breast” sound like blake or wordsworth, it is ruined by “decaying spires” (decline of the church) and “maggoty venires” (decline of legal institutions; venire is a legal term for a panel of prospective jurors).
the assignment of tarot cards to social classes and natural goods both expresses that britain is trapped in a chaotic fatalistic game, and also sets up the use of alchemy in section iii’s quiddity poem.
the final movement makes an important point: in a decaying society, life (eros) and death (thanatos) look identical.
the reason is that when society is in decline, self-destructive behavior e.g. drinking/numbing the pain, is mistaken for living, and hence, the nation can no longer tell whether it is trying to save itself or surrender to its own death.
iv
DOOMScrolling 💀💀💀
The index finger moves at the joint :
Up, down. Up, down.
…
Sex news.Social media, false information, news, conspiracy,and
…
Politics.Politics.Politics.olitics.
a shift from the physical landscape of the uk to its mental landscape.
the point of the final movement of ‘A Cold Start’ is given an example in the “Sex news.Social media” block of text, as one’s mind loses its ability to feel outrage or empathy due to both the low murdochian duration of social media, and also because of its random juxtaposition of content.
v
Cuckoo For Caca
it expresses that traditional artistic inspiration (”the muse”) cannot survive in a culture dominated by screens.
this is because one’s mind, overstimulated by media, turns into a passive, unthinking “blob”.
moreover, it also expresses aesthetics being used to cover up high-entropy content i.e. waste or shit.
finally, it expresses that an individual, who is usually a mix between a public good and a private good, has now purely become a private good e.g. “narcissistic insta-****”, “(It’s all about me)”.
the privatisation happens by convincing every individual that they are at the center of their action, when in reality, it is a mix between them and the actions of others.
hence, it prevents the collective action required to fight the decay around them because they cannot organize themselves.
vi
A Confluence of Mazes
“A labyrinth of Labyrinths” is a reference to jorge luis borges, who used mazes as metaphors for the mind, time, and the universe.
a zoetrope was a nineteenth century optical toy, a spinning cylinder with pictures inside that created the illusion of motion.
and dwam is a scottish word meaning a daze, trance, or daydream.
so a “zoetropic dwam” means a spinning, dizzying trance where one thinks they are moving forward, but they are just running in circles on a carousel.
the classical greek aphorism “Know thyself” is cut off mid-sentence And know ye”, implying that self-knowledge and ancient wisdom are impossible to finish in this spinning maze.
complementing “Cuckoo For Caca” is the exchange between a hopeful creator and a mocking voice that can be taken to either be theirs or not.
cuckoo expressed that the mind cannot ask serious existential or artistic questions because it is an “unthinking blob”.
but even when it does ask, it is dismissed with childish british insults i.e. “prat” and rhymes i.e. “perch”.
moreover, complementing the point about fighting decay by collective action, is the fungicide portion.
a fungicide is a chemical that completely kills fungus, while a fungistat slows down the growth of fungus without destroying it.
hence, the voice is telling that they aren’t curing the decay of society, but just briefly slowing it down, i.e. the decay is inevitable.
the middle section highlights both the ignorance of other cultures and the impossibility of true connection.
an example of the former is that a “Bangladeshi” is a citizen of bangladesh, while its official language is bengali.
an example of the latter is the follow up japanese sentence translating to “How do you say ‘I don’t love you’ in Santhali?”, santhali being a regional language spoken in parts of bangladesh.
so the speaker originally wanted to know how to say “I love you” in japanese.
but the japanese text itself turns out to be a question asking how to say “I don’t love you” in a completely different language.
vii
The Attrition of Quiddity
attrition is the gradual destruction of something through pressure.
quiddity refers to the essence of a thing, i.e. the reality of what (quid) makes something what (quid) it is.
hence the title expresses that the poem deals with the gradual destruction of essence of the britain.
there are three formal systems used in this poem: mathematical physics, alchemy (historically used for discovering essences) and set theory.
i
the formula for the schwarzschild radius, which is the radius of a sphere in flat space that has the same surface area as that of the event horizon of a schwarzschild black hole of a given mass.
the event horizon of a black hole is the point beyond which light, the fastest entity in the universe, cannot escape.
its link to entropy is in the mapping of a radius (one dimensional) to a surface area (two dimensional), an example of the bekenstein bound.
given a finite region of space having a finite amount of energy, the bound provides the maximum amount of entropy that the region can contain.
in other words, it describes the maximum amount of information required to describe a quantum system.
and in terms of the radius of the region, the bound states that the maximum entropy in any region scales with the radius squared i.e. its surface area.
trivially states that the empty set is a subset of infinity; side note, infinity is a number, and hence it cannot be a superset, but one can easily replace it with the actual set ℵα, e.g. when α is zero and one, it corrsponds to the size of the natural numbers and real numbers respectively.
“Circumlocution in the theatre of Zero” describes language collapsing due to the prevalence of roundabout or indirect ways of speaking about nothing (zero, which is also related to the empty set by the von neumann representation), but also the prevalence of circumlocution offices, which are organizations that waste time on bureaucracy to the detriment of its actual business.
memory is wiped i.e. “Anamnesis voided” and light glimmers like iron (♂) before being swallowed into the void of the black hole.
ii
is the basel problem, and it was solved by euler.
the problem can also be viewed as the total apparent brightness of infinite identical point light sources on the number line viewed from the origin.
apparent brightness ties to the previous poem’s use of astronomy because it is a measure of the brightness of an astronomical object.
the light references ties to the ascii art representing what looks like rays going through a convex lens.
an epicedium is a greek funeral ode, making this movement a funeral song for the element of air (🜁), the medium of breath and speech.
iii
means that sets A and B have no intersection, because it equals the empty set.
it translated to there being no bridge between the past (”Was”) and the present (”Is”).
the empyrean is the highest heaven of pure light in ancient cosmology, and is collapsing in place i.e. in situ.
and human conquest and victory are redefined as tabes, which is a medical term for the wasting away and atrophy of the brain.
iv
is heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
it states that the product of the standard deviation of the position and momentum of a particle is always nonzero, meaning total certainty is physically impossible.
in terms of entropy, it becomes the białynicki-birula–mycielski (BBM) inequality,
this is a complement to the bekenstein bound, because it gives the minimum area a quantum particle can occupy in space.
as a result, it also gives the minimum amount of information required to describe a particle, which is roughly -76 nats i.e. -110 bits.
in alchemy, the ultimate goal i.e. magnum opus, begins with a stage called nigredo, which is a period of putrefaction, blackness, and decomposition necessary before the material can be purified into gold.
but here, there is no purification into gold at the end, meaning britain is stuck permanently in the stage of decomposition i.e. rot.
v
is another formula by euler, called euler’s identity.
it is considered the most beautiful equation in mathematics because it elegantly connects the five most fundamental constants, e, i, π, 1 and 0.
but it is also used to express euler’s identity being used as the ultimate cosmic eraser, i.e. everything balances out to zero.
the prize for all existence is earth/dust (🜃), and the exit door leads directly into zero, meaning entropy consumes everything, and the universe resets to total silence.
viii
The Bow’s Lament
a shift away from abstract mathematics into personal heartbreak.
it uses geology and scottish coastline geography as metaphor for the way time, pressure, and distance erode human relationships.
“The Bow” refers to bow fiddle rock, a famous natural sea arch carved out of quartzite off the shore of portknockie.
“Laurentia and Avalonia” are ancient tectonic continents that collided over 400 million years ago, joining together to form the bedrock of britain.
the stanza compares the immense geological forces that created scotland to the emotional forces that drew two lovers together.
but while the rock remains standing as an arch, the relationship has collapsed, e.g. “nothing but a rock” and “now only silence.”
quartzite is a metamorphic rock formed when sandstone is subjected to extreme heat and tectonic pressure.
quartzite is one of the hardest rocks on earth, while sandstone is one of the softest.
similarly, the immense emotional pressure of losing their love has frozen the speaker’s passion (sandstone) into a hard, silent ache (quartzite).
the poem also follows the pantoum form, which was a malaysian poetic form adopted by western poets.
in a pantoum, the second and fourth lines of each stanza become the first and third lines of the following stanza.
and the final stanza circles back to use lines from the very first stanza.
it is apt because,
the interlocked nature of the lines mimic ocean waves i.e. those that crash continuously against the scottish sea arch.
and because it mirrors how a heartbroken mind replays a memory over and over, e.g. the fish and chips, the wind-ridden scarf.
ix
Anagnorisis Fati
Across briny time, he cast his gaze
In order to renew his spirit;
And began to consult his books.
anagnorisis is a term from aristotle’s theory of tragedy, referring to the exact moment when a character makes a critical discovery or realizes the shocking truth of their identity/destiny.
and fati is latin for fate or destiny.
the poem is a homage to the short story “The Circular Ruins” by jorge luis borges, in which a wizard tries to dream a man into existence to be his “son,” only to discover at the end that he himself is merely a phantom being dreamed by someone else.
the poem follows the sestina form, which consists of six 6-line stanzas followed by a 3-line envoy.
it does not rhyme, but instead relies on six specific end-words that must rotate across every stanza.
here, those words are: dying, ritual, son, gaze, spirit, books.
this rotation parallels the “Circular” portion of the title.
the twist in the poem is that while the scholar thought he was the master creator conjuring a helpless son, in reality,
the scholar himself is the created son, trapped inside the dream/ritual of an older creator, who is likely trapped in the dream of someone else before him.
it can be taken to be a generalisation of lovecraft’s azathoth, because while azathoth sits at the center of infinity, it could be ℵ0, and for each α, there is an azathoth.
it relates to the epigraph by serving as a metaphor for generational traps and artificial hubris.
one repeat the failed rituals of the generations before us, mistaking themselves for independent creators when they are merely repeating a pre-written script.
x
An Artist/A Fool
Because I could not stop for Dave –
He stopped at the crossroads, for me –
The car was filled, with awful smells –
Unfortunately.
He coyly drank – He waved a book
And I had to put my phone in my pocket,
As he was a bit naggy,
And I had to keep him sweet –
We passed a pub, and Dave did rove
And shout to his mates – vaping outside –
We passed a Wetherspoons –
We passed two police cars –
Or rather – They passed Us –
And we got pulled over because Dave –
Had no insurance, and a bag of weed –
He threw in a bush – Only a quarter –
Dave got arrested and we ordered a taxi
Even though we were on the M4 –
The wait was scarcely acknowledged –
The police – bidding us adieu –
Seems ages since that happened –
But it was only Tuesday
Dave got points on his license
And disqualified for three months –
a parody of emily dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death”.
it creates bathos i.e. a sudden drop from the high and lofty to the absurd and low, by contrasting dickinson’s sublime vision of mortality with the mundane squalor of modern britain.
in the original, death is personified as a polite gentleman and picks her up in a horse-drawn carriage to take her on a quiet journey into eternity.
this poem replaces her (the artist) transcendent ride with a chaotic road trip with a mate named “Dave” (the fool).
xi
Extract from Hyperiana
The streets, once filled with life,
Now crumble, lost:
Still we tried, ignoring the cost,
Reduced to a nation’s cry:
...
My throat is raw from ancient songs,
That turn to bitter weeping
I’ll trade my breath for what belongs,
To ghosts who are not sleeping
The mirror cracks, the image fades,
I’ll walk among the restless shades,
Until I find new glory.
“Hyperiana” is a reference to john keats’ epic poems “Hyperion” and “The Fall of Hyperion”.
keats wrote about the titanomachy, a war in greek mythology where the ancient, noble titans, led by saturn and hyperion, were overthrown and replaced by the younger, more ruthless olympian gods.
here, the people and history of britain are the “fallen Titans”.
overall, gives the nation a noble, tragic send-off, by mourning the loss of “great dreams,” “glory,” and “tradition”.
xii
This Cunt
This land is purchased by a corporate whore,
It used to be a country of the free;
This country is a faded memory.
The ancient ways and customs live no more,
As ruins crumble down into the sea;
...
Our heroes sleep upon a marble floor,
While ghosts demand the rights that used to be;
...
Great dreams are locked behind a heavy door,
A hollowed vessel of deep misery;
...
The winter skies above us bitterly pour,
On tattered flags and shattered stones we see;
We fought for dawn but ended up in war,
A broken nation lost in apathy;
a profanity-laced indictment of modern britain, and a complement to the language of “Hyperiana”, as well to the section i poem “This Country”.
the poem ironically follows the villanelle form, one of the most elegant forms in western literature.
a villanelle consists of 19 lines, made up of five 3-line stanzas and one final 4-line stanza, and two repeating refrains that alternate at the end of each stanza and join together in the final two lines.
the two refrains here are “This land is purchased by a corporate whore,” and “This country is a faded memory”.
xiii
Epilogue
dropping all the aggression, realizing there is nothing left to save, and choosing to walk away.
it begins by altering the epigraph.
first, from winter to summer i.e. “July”, but the change in season changes nothing, because abundance (munificence) cannot heal a broken system.
second, from inheritance to physical injury, because while the former is an external loss of money or culture, the latter is an internal loss e.g. “my brittle ribs”, meaning the decay is now inside them.
next, section i expressed that “Hate beguiles man’s quintessence”, meaning hate is a distraction to one’s inherent nature.
however, now it has become the inherent nature of the people of britain.
“sit ‘pon the shore” is a reference to eliot’s “The Waste Land”, and paints a picture of a helpless, pacified public sitting on the edge of an island, passively listening to the national anthem (”God Save the King”) while their country crumbles into the ocean behind them.
“The rest is silence” are the final words of prince hamlet, and expresses that art and politics have run out, entropy has won, and death has arrived.
it closes with a bluesy stanza, and it has the effect of bringing oneself down from the universal/abstract to the particular/concrete.
here, the speaker ends up treating their relationship with britain like a failed, toxic romance.
after trying to fix it, mourning it, and screaming at it, they simply break up with it.