The notion of Entropy

The term “Entropy” comes out from the Greek words “εν & τροπή” (in & conversion). The term was at first used from the German Physicist Clausious to express the difficulty of heat conversion into mechanical work. In a broader sense the term entropy expresses the measure of internal difficulty to transform one physical entity to another.

From another approach, the term expresses the degree of difficulty of a system to implement its task. High entropy means great reduction of the system’s ability to implement its task.

In thermodynamics when entropy obtains its maximum value then the production ability nullifies and then the thermodynamic death occurs. Similar results happen to all other systems, e.g. social, political, those of informatics.

The Law of Entropy

According to this law “all spontaneous changes in nature result to entropy increase”. This evidently means that the reduction of the ability of the systems (entropy increase) is deterministically certain.

People do not need to toil for the deconstruction of the systems, as it is no needed to toil for the water running to the sea from the top of a mountain. The best they have to do is not to impede nature’s effort to reduce the rate of increase of entropy. This rate reduction, known and as negative entropy, can not overturn its law, but only to delay the entropy increase.

Negative entropy is created either from nature, when she is not raped by people, or from people’s efforts to reduce the entropy of the human systems.

But sometimes people ignore the law of entropy. Many times people proceed to nature raping and actions that increase the entropy.

The Entropy definitions

In the various branches of Physics the previously-mentioned general definition is specialized both qualitatively and in quantity by using higher mathematics. However such a mathematical formulation is understandable only by those who know the mathematical language. To avoid this difficulty, the entropy notion is expressed below qualitatively only. Mathematical definitions of entropy are briefly stated in footnotes.

The Entropy in Thermodynamics [1]

In thermodynamics entropy is defined as “the measure of transformation difficulty of thermal energy to mechanical energy”. Big entropy means a big difficulty in transformation and vice-versa. When entropy reaches its possible maximum, then thermodynamic systems can’t produce any mechanical work.

The Entropy in Statistics and in Quantum Mechanics [2]

In modern Physics entropy is defined as “the measure of disorder (ataxia) of matter elements”.  A high ataxia means high entropy that is reduced ability of the system in producing useful work. It is important to clarify that the term ataxia here refers to the energy disorder of matter elements.

The Entropy in Informatics [3]

In informatics, “entropy is defined the reverse of the measure of information”. Reliable information is achieved when the entropy is low and consequently the system has increased ability.

The term “transparency” used from politicians and socialists means in reality existence of low entropy in the political and social systems respectively.

It might be interesting to remind that disorder and information have a contrary relation. Great disorder means little information and vice-versa. We do know this relation from our experience when arranging a disorderly and an orderly storehouse.

The entropy in Sociology and Politics

We do not know whether there exist a mathematical nor a generally accepted logical entropy definition for the social and the political systems. This happens either because our knowledge on the subject is small, or because a mathematical definition of entropy in this case does not exist.

From sources found in the Internet, we drew the conclusion that “entropy in social and political systems is the measure of their degradation”. Big entropy means great decay of the respective system. And when entropy reaches its maximum value then the social and/or the political death takes place.

From the aforementioned and from other data is can be concluded that the notion of entropy in various branches, modern physics, informatics, sociology, politics, is actually the same

The entropy of Political Systems

In order to understand the notion of entropy of the political systems it is necessary to clarify the notion of ataxia in those systems.

What is the ataxia which constitutes the entropy of the political systems?

Starting from the physical/moral postulate that pepole have out of nature power (freedom, force, energy), which means that they have the possibility to take and to execute decisions, we conclude that order exist when all men (in a political system) have this possibility, that nature has gifted them. Consequently disorder (ataxia) is the opposite. In ataxia the power is not controlled by the people/owners of power, but is concentrated to a few men who control it. [4]. The higher the power concentration is, the bigger the entropy becomes.

In the Ancient Greek form of government, that of Direct Democracy, the entropy was minimum. This happened because:

(1). All the citizens have the status of ruler and being ruled so the concentration of power was the least possible.

(2). When all citizens rule, the limitation of information is neither possible, nor has any meaning. So the amount of information is the maximum, compared to what happens in other forms of government. In the absolute monarchies happens just the opposite. Entropy obtains a maximum value, because the people power is concentrated in one man’s hands only. The information has a minimum value, because only those who handle the power have access to it and they do not want to disseminate it. Simple citizens have not such a possibility.

The entropy in all other forms of government depends upon the number of people exercising the power and is reduced when the number of those persons increases.

The entropy in the representative democracies has values between this in monarchies and that in the Direct Democracy, because, at least in theory, the power is concentrated to the representatives, (and not to all citizens). But even this does not happen. What happens, everybody knows. In practice, the power is concentrated in one man’s hands. For instance in Greece, according to its institutions, the power is concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister. For this reason the power concentration is actually many times greater from what the Constitution prescribes. The great concentration of power is the reason for the entropy increase and for the crisis of today representative democracies.

Today the entropy of the representative democracies is closer to that of monarchies than to that of authentic (the direct) democracies. This fact constitutes a logical contradiction, a hypocrisy and selfishness of our representatives if it is taken under consideration that the representative democracies are those which have overthrown monarchies to install democracies.

The law of entropy in the Political Systems

The law of entropy has a high value in all systems and consequently to political ones. Knowing the present entropy and estimating the future one, we can draw certain conclusions for the systems ability and their fall.

In the frames of logic that the ataxia of the political/social systems is proportional to the concentration of power, the before-mentioned law of entropy may be rephrased as follows:

“In the political systems, all spontaneous transactions tend towards the increase of power concentration “[5]

This means that the increase of the power concentration is developing with deterministic certainty. It does not need any institutional assistance. On the contrary, institutional assistance is needed for the retardation of the power concentration increasing; institutional assistance is needed for the development negative entropy.

Institutions for the development of negative entropy are: the full independence of the legislative, of the executive and the juridical power, the limited duration on exerting the power ruling, the use of raffling instead of election whenever there are the appropriate presuppositions

In Ancient Athens, though the law of entropy was unknown, the duration of being in power was one year and the nomination of rulers took place by raffling or by election the best citizens for the execution of certain power and raffling among them for the final choose.

From the previously mentioned thoughts we conclude that many of nowadays institutions contribute not to the reduction of entropy but to its increase. Some of those institutions are: the competence diminution of the President of Democracy, the substantial degradation of the Parliament’s role, the election (in reality nomination) of the members of parliament from a list, the full abrogation of raffling, and others.

Conclusions

Since the crisis of the political systems is owed to the increase of entropy, its surpassing can be achieved through one way: By broadening nowadays democracies with the spirit and the principles of the Ancient Greek Direct Democracy, adapted to the 21^st century data.

Such a surpassing is today, functionally and economically, feasible by means of the digital technology.

Δημοσιεύθηκε στο dd-democracy.gr

NOTES

[1] It is the first definition of entropy as stated from the German Physicist Rudolf Clausious(1822-1888). The entropy is defined from the relation ds=dQ/T where ds=to entropy change, dQ=heat’s change in an irreversible change and T=the absolute temperature.

[2] The definition of entropy in Statistical Mechanics was given from the Austrian Physicist Ludwich Boltzmann (1844-1906). According to him the entropy is defined from the relation S=klnW, where S the entropy, k=the Boltzmann’s constant, ln=the natural logarithm and W=the parameter of ataxia (disorder).

[3] The definition of entropy in Informatics was given from the American Mathematician and Electrical Engineer Claude Shannon (1916-2001). This definition is similar to that of Boltzmann’s. Then, Shannon proves that the sum of entropy S and of the information I in a physical system is constant. That is  S+I=C or S=C-I. From this relation comes out the before-mentioned physical notion of entropy. Furthermore when the information becomes zero (I=0) the entropy becomes maximum (S=C) and vice-versa.

[4] Owing to the fact that the transference of power is determinately impossible, the concentration of power is realized by voluntary or involuntary concession of the right that somebody else controls the  power of the people, e.g. the king, the leader or the representative.

[5] The Direct Democracy in Telearea, by Demosthenes Kyriazis, Patakis’ Publications 2005. English version:  http://issuu.com/georgepapagiannis/docs/telearea