Hegel & thermodynamics

As I wondered what to write about next I was nagged by an idea that wouldn’t go away. I‘ve been reluctant to write about this idea because people think its awkward and untenable. Nevertheless, I think it’s intriguing and should see the light of day. This idea entails the odd coupling of Hegel and thermodynamics.

Before I get to my idea let me tell you what precipitated it. It started by accident. A professor told me he asked his students to write an essay on “The epistemology of Kepler's cosmology”. It sounded like an odd subject to write about because it involved what seemed to me two incompatible ideas. Showing I could be just as odd I linked the first two incompatible ideas that popped into my head, hence H&t.

Shortly after it dawned on me what my friend had done. He linked two different ideas together as a way of mentally stimulating his students to expand their thinking. This technique works because in linking H&t I found myself thinking anew about my own subject; the teleology of human endeavour.

I tell the story above to show how thinking works and how new ideas emerge. In bringing H&t together a new idea emerged. This is something Hegel wanted to show us about the dialectic process, that through the rubbing together of two ideas, as the process does, we gain a new idea, adding to our knowledge. And that’s what happened to me when I rubbed H&t together. I think you will see the result below.

The reason Hegel and thermodynamics came to mind so quickly is because they were already in my head lurking around. Originally they came to me when I began wondering if there was one thing that ultimately determines how we live and organize ourselves? I sensed one. As I thought and thought about it, these two kept popping up in my head saying I know, I know, first Hegel and then thermodynamics. However, I didn’t realize what they knew until I consciously linked them.

Change is the connection I made between H&t, the one constant of the universe, something we can all count on happening. Without question it is a primal. Change is the teleological explanation for human endeavour I was searching for. I can’t tell you what a eureka moment that was for me, discovering what fundamentally determines how we function and organize ourselves. Like all humans I sensed it. But it took H&t to reveal it.

Knowing H&t is a big thing for me. There are basically two disciplines we turn to in order to understand the world, philosophy and science. This is how I’ve contextualized it. Hegel represents philosophy and thermodynamics represents science. I see them each heading their disciplines because you essentially can connect everything else through them. H&t have made us aware of the most fundamental thing, the inevitability of change. Thermodynamics deals with change in the physical sense and Hegel deals with it in the abstract sense. In thermodynamics change occurs in the shifting or the changing of energy. That change applies to everything because everything, science has taught us, is made of energy, including ideas and thinking. In Hegel change occurs in human thought and action. Of the two changes thermodynamics comes first but Hegel produced the mental image of it and teaches us that it is also an essential cerebral process.

Here is one example of how change is a major factor in constructing ideas. During Hegel’s time there were a number of attempts to construct “world-system” theories that would explain the direction history was taking. The idea behind it was to pinpoint the one thing that ultimately determines how humankind organizes and governs itself. Some saw religion or nationalism or labour as the principle motivating factor. Whatever it was, the one thing that was quite common about these grand theories was that they were based on a static, unchanging world, as though humankind had reached a point of completion. Such theories quickly crumbled because as soon as they were introduced, the world changed and became something else. However, Hegel was more astute. Though not aware of thermodynamics but sensing it, like all humans do, “he made change itself the heart of his system.” He also knew that ideas grow stale and need change to rejuvenate them.