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THE COSMIC BREATH: REFLECTIONS ON THE THERMODYNAMICS OF CREATION
Author(s) -
Wicken Jeffrey S.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
zygon®
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-9744
pISSN - 0591-2385
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9744.1984.tb00943.x
Subject(s) - teleology , epistemology , second law of thermodynamics , entropy (arrow of time) , sense (electronics) , cosmic cancer database , theoretical physics , philosophy , sociology , physics , thermodynamics , chemistry , astrophysics
. This paper views such distinctions as creation and degeneration or good and evil in the Eastern sense of unity in polarity rather than in the Western sense of dual, antagonistic principles. Hence it considers the thermodynamic forces of evolution as processes of creation driven by entropy dissipation and explores the analogies this conception bears to the Hindu image of nature as the changing mist of a universal breath. Using this image, the paper examines the sense in which the second law of thermodynamics connects chance and teleology in the operations of nature and provides for a causal hierarchy in which decision and volitional behavior co‐participate with the laws of nature to determine the course of evolution.