File:Order from chaos paul j werbos 0411384.pdf

Order From Chaos: A Reconsideration of Fundamental Principles

Paul J. Werbos¹

Abstract

Every so often, in science, new empirical results compel us to reconsider exactly what we really do know and do not know with mathematical certainty about fundamental principles. Startling but highly credible results from Greffet et al [1,2] and from Popovic’s group [3] raise serious questions about the conventional understanding of the Second Law of thermodynamics. Prigogine, in his last years, argued that the patterns of order and life we see in the universe would have been possible, in equilibrium, in a universe of infinite lifetime, even without a Big Bang, because of field effects [4]. Huw Price [5,6] has provided compelling arguments to prefer the initial formulation of Hawkings’ theory of the Big Bang—the version in which the arrow of time sometimes flows backwards in time, with profound implications for the foundations of quantum measurement. This paper will offer one possible unified view of these issues, and suggest that new technologies may in fact be possible in principle.