There is a thought-provoking idea that lingers in the mind: “Societies go from high morale and strong consensus to pessimism and division.” This process has been termed “moral entropy.” The term invites speculation—could the principles of thermodynamics, typically applied to physical systems, also offer insights into moral and societal dynamics?
In Immoderate Greatness, Ophuls refers to the concept of increasing entropy to describe the fragmentation of social cohesion over time. As societies become more complex and populous, their unity tends to erode. Diverse opinions, information overload, misinformation, and an abundance of platforms for expression often culminate in cacophony and division. The result: political polarization, unfounded narratives, and a collective distraction from essential, existential issues. In other words, chaos—high entropy.
This observation leads to deeper questions: Where did the initial state of low entropy—marked by high organization and strong moral consensus—originate? Such a state does not arise spontaneously. Historically, periods of high cohesion and morale often followed moments of collapse. After World War II, for example, people collectively reorganized and rebuilt. Morale, solidarity, and a sense of shared purpose emerged from the ashes of destruction.
Yet even this post-war unity was not without contradiction. While social cohesion may have been high, it coincided with unprecedented environmental exploitation and industrial expansion. This raises the question: can low moral entropy and low physical entropy coexist? Or are they fundamentally inversely related? Perhaps what we perceive as moral order is often accompanied by an increase in physical entropy—resource depletion, pollution, and environmental chaos.
From an evolutionary perspective, human behavior appears consistently aligned with increasing physical entropy. Across history, the drive for possession and expansion has led to environmental degradation and social inequality. Someone once remarked that extraterrestrial observers might conclude our species exists merely to generate waste. Indeed, morality might simply be another physical principle—an emergent behavior rooted in survival.
Lotka’s principle of “Max Power,” later expanded by Odum and Pinkerton, suggests that evolutionary systems aim to maximize mass, energy flow, and biomass throughput, so long as resources remain available. This idea might form the foundation of a potential fourth law of thermodynamics. Before the fossil fuel era, humanity was constrained by its limited energy access and reach. Those limitations have since disappeared, accelerating our consumption and material expansion. again
Perhaps morality, as we define it, does not truly exist in nature. It may be a human invention, born from language and self-awareness, yet still subordinate to the physical laws that govern all systems. As Hoffman suggests, our perception of reality is filtered through a lens designed not for truth, but for survival. We see signs and signals that help us stay alive, not necessarily understand the world as it is. Anders als in NL?
Now, as civilization approaches what might be its final phase, individual survival instincts increasingly override collective interests. Social structures fracture, trust erodes, and personal gain often trumps communal wellbeing. This too can be framed as moral entropy—the disintegration of shared moral frameworks. But viewed through the lens of physics and evolution, it is merely the natural cycle of rise and decline—a process not unique to humans.
Thus, the concept of moral entropy may be a poetic misnomer. Morality may exist only in the human imagination. In nature, there is only growth, organization, and decay—patterns echoed in everything from the life cycle of trees to the fate of civilizations. What we call morality could simply be the narrative we tell ourselves while the forces of entropy continue their impartial work.
In the end, perhaps we are not moral beings striving toward a higher purpose, but rather complex organisms shaped by the same physical laws that govern stars and soil. Morality is not a law of nature—it is a human story. And as with all stories, it may ultimately be told only to ourselves.
Part II: Entropy and Evolution
Nature and evolution offer an even broader lens. Species evolve through cycles of emergence and extinction, a dynamic seemingly essential for further development. Might the same apply not only to species but to entire systems—societies, ecosystems, even planetary conditions? Could Earth, too, require a form of systemic reset in order to continue evolving? Without disruption, it might otherwise remain locked in an unchanging state.
Consider a speculative scenario: what if humans ceased to die, while also ceasing to reproduce? The result would be a stable population with unchanging minds. Our brains, shaped during earlier stages of development, would no longer advance. Innovation would stagnate. Einstein, who struggled to unify relativity and quantum theory, would have no successor. Scientific paradigms would freeze in place, awaiting the next evolutionary leap.
The same principle applies to societies, ecosystems, and civilizations. Without change—especially the disruptive kind—there can be no true progress. What we perceive as moral entropy—the blurring of norms, disorientation about what is good or acceptable—may in fact be a necessary mechanism. Confusion, ethical instability, and breakdowns in established interests create space for new freedoms and possibilities. Though this brings suffering and the loss of the familiar, it also enables renewal. On a human timescale, such change is visible in generational cycles—parents passing away, grandchildren being born. On a systemic level, however, transformation may span countless generations.
Perhaps evolution is not confined to biology but encompasses itself—evolution evolving, driven by data flows that increasingly shape outcomes. As Hawking and Hertog speculate, even the Big Bang could represent one variant among many, each with distinct physical laws. In this light, data may form the substrate of reality. From data emerges information, from information comes knowledge.
Thinkers like Van Campen have proposed frameworks to quantify this phenomenon. He argues that the more confusion, disinformation, and data manipulation pervade a society, the more energy is required to restore clarity. This represents a drain on collective resources—a form of moral entropy that saps the energy needed for meaningful progress. Based on analysis of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, he estimates that 82% of global problems are anthropogenic, stemming from either ignorance or willful deception. When lies are maintained to obstruct a goal, the energy required to enforce the deception equals or exceeds that needed to achieve the goal itself.
In this context, “moral entropy” sounds almost too benign. “Moral subversion” may be more appropriate—a condition in which ever-increasing energy is misallocated to unproductive or destructive ends.
Ultimately, this feedback loop may only end when fossil fuels are exhausted. By then, Earth may be uninhabitable. Life could resume only after atmospheric CO₂ levels decline and solar energy is reabsorbed into biomass—a process requiring tens of millions of years. Only then might biological evolution resume its upward trajectory, absent of humans. Of course, this need not be the case. Humanity could participate in a low-entropy future, one based on self-restraint and biobased resources limited to their annual renewability. This, however, demands moral adaptability—something our current systems seem ill-equipped to achieve.
A sustainable future would require an egalitarian society with equitable distribution of resources. Instead, we observe increasing both moral and physical entropy. As power consolidates, ethical principles deteriorate, and societal cohesion weakens. The erosion of moral clarity is not the cause , but mirrors the concentration of wealth and influence. Which has been modelled for ages to work like that. As fewer individuals control more, public ethics dissolve, institutions fragment, and chaos ensues.
In ecosystems, species strive for dominance, often eliminating competitors. Similarly, in human societies, power is often preserved through narrative manipulation and institutional capture. As Ophuls observed, unchecked power without moral constraint invites disorder—a condition akin to moral entropy.
What, then, is the lesson? Perhaps moral and physical entropy are inseparable. Physics recognizes no moral boundaries. If evolution is fundamentally governed by physical laws, then both moral and material systems evolve toward over-organization and eventual collapse, only to begin anew at a higher level—perhaps with a more refined sense of morality, even if illusory and distorted by perception.
In the end, both types of entropy may be two sides of the same coin—symptoms of a broader evolutionary pattern, driven by the same thermodynamic principles that shape stars, species, and civilizations alike.
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PS : Sometimes, I permit myself to some free thinking, on slippery ice. And maybe increase entropy myself. If so, I am glad to hear from the reader…
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1 Ophuls, in ‘ Immoderate greatness “
1 dreamworld: https://www.ronaldrovers.com/living-in-dreamland/
2 Ugo Bardi, ‘Before the Collapse ‘
4 Lotka: https://archive.org/details/elementsofphysic017171mbp/page/n11/mode/2up
5 Odum: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0304380083900327 and Hall: https://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Power-Ideas-Applications-H-T/dp/0870813625
[6] Hoffman, in ‘The case against reality , how evolution hid the truth ‘
[7] Hertog, ‘the origin of time ’
[8] van Campen: https://arendvancampen.blogspot.com/ en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peMb0ss3SM4
