Difference Creates Potential

by Gayle Towell

Imagine holding a stone above the ground. Per physics, it possesses a certain amount of potential energy. The simple act of lifting it higher increases that potential energy, a property an object possesses simply by being somewhere high, somewhere different from the ground. If you drop it, that stored energy wakes up, turning into kinetic energy, movement. 

Of course, for this to happen, an external force field such as gravity is necessary. Without gravity, displacing an object doesn’t create the same dynamic. In environments where gravity or similar forces (like electromagnetism, etc) are absent, you only need to apply an initial force to set an object in motion, and it will continue moving indefinitely. Conversely, when you lift an object against gravity, you must consistently apply a force that matches and opposes the pull of gravity to elevate it, which is essentially where the potential energy comes from. The fundamental notion is the same, however, creating a difference – via displacement within a force field or applying an unbalanced external force – changes things.

Looking at this notion from a slightly different angle, it can be said that, when things are different, then you know they will change as they evolve. If I have a bottle full of beads, the bottom half of the bottle filled with black beads and the top half with white, then this difference will result in a change as the bottle undergoes random applied forces (ie, you shake the bottle). The beads mix, but they do not unmix. This is the second law of thermodynamics – entropy (a measure of “disorder” or uniformity) increases. In essence, the natural evolution of matter and energy is toward more “disordered” states due to how much more probable these states are compared to ordered ones. There are billions of arrangements of the beads that make them appear mixed, and only a few that leave them separated. This is why the difference between the beads at the bottom of the bottle and the beads at the top will go away in time.

This tendency toward uniformity, disappearance of difference, or increasing disorder – increasing entropy – is fundamental in the universe. It also describes how energy moves through the earth as a system. Energy comes from the sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation that is of a wavelength/type that is readily absorbed by plants, then stored in sugars, eaten by animals/humans, and released back out in a more “mixed” state (meaning a greater number of lower energy radiation goes back out into space in the end). It’s like this beautiful, useful energy with great potential arrives on the planet, passes through a complex system which mixes it all up and spits it back out as a uniform looking mess that is now more difficult to use for work (work in the physics definition in this case – essentially it has a reduced ability to effect change). 

Life is a strange anomaly in this system. A living organism is ordered and low in intrinsic entropy. Its difference from the rest of the stuff in the universe makes it unique. Like a stable eddy in flowing water. But the whole time it exists, it maintains this localized order by significantly increasing the rate at which all surrounding stuff – matter/energy – increases in entropy. We are essentially entropy accelerating machines. All life is. We pay for our localized order by creating greater disorder overall – taking in fuel and creating waste from which usable energy is more difficult to extract. 

And yet – life, living organisms, are somehow stable in this large system of increasing entropy. Living organisms remain localized low-entropy kernels. Perhaps we’re made stable by the trade off – because of the ability to accelerate disorder/entropy in our surroundings. This leaves us fundamentally different from our surroundings. This difference leaves us with a great potential – to move, to act, to create, to evolve, to maintain a stable system of organization in a larger universe of increasing disorder. We, and all living creatures, are essentially creating chaos around us to keep our internal world ordered and alive. 

Order and difference require constant intervention to maintain. 

Consider the state of your house. If you don’t give much thought to how you move objects around, the house becomes messy. Dust collects on surfaces, garbage piles up. Dishes sit dirty in the sink, clothes lay strewn about the floor. With no deliberate intervention, the disorder only grows. We only fix it by cleaning. 

But in cleaning, we collect all the debris, discard it into a more disordered pile elsewhere (the landfill, etc.). And while performing these acts, we are converting energy from foods we’ve consumed into waste as well. We are, yet again, accelerating the growth of disorder/entropy elsewhere to maintain our localized decrease, to maintain differences inherent within ordered systems, which leave us with the potential to do more – move more freely about our house, bake cookies in a clean kitchen, and so on. 

Difference creates potential.