to

In 1824, French physicist-engineer Sadi Carnot initiated the general subject of the phenomena of the production of motion by heat, from the sufficiently universal point of view, as follows: “[Thermodynamics] is the study of the principles and laws behind the phenomenon of the production of motion by heat, considered from a sufficiently general point of view, applicable to not only steam engines, but to all imaginable heat engines, whatever the working substance and whatever the method by which it is operated.” The key word here is "whatever" and as long as the working substance (system or body) in question, whatever it may be, is not a human or a system of humans (social system), people generally do not object to the view that the laws of thermodynamics govern the universe, but when applied to humans (human thermodynamics) personal bias comes immediately to the fore, and many will argue, adamantly and fervently, for all sorts of difficult to discern reasons (e.g. religious, philosophical, conflicting belief systems, etc.), that thermodynamics does not apply to the governance, regulation, evolution, and or behavior humans.

“Gentle mathematicians and physicists still cling to their laws of thermodynamics, and are almost epileptic in their convulsive assurances that they have reached a generalization which will hold good. Perhaps it will. Who cares?”

— Henry Adams, June letter, 1903 [20]

“The ‘second law’ is wholly irrelevant to ‘history’—save that it sets a terminus—for history is the course of things before the terminus.”

“The second law of thermodynamics, the law of dissipation of free energy, indispensable at the molecular level, is useless at the psychological level. As much importance should be given to feelings as to thermodynamics.”

“Obviously, Carnot-Clausius law, sometimes called the second law of thermodynamics, does not apply to living organisms.”

“Nor is it to be supposed that the principle of entropy apples to living as it does to non-living systems.”

“Thermodynamic equilibrium may be characterized by the minimum of the Helmholtz free energy defined usually by: F = E – TS. Are most types of ‘organisations’ around us of this nature? It is enough to ask such a question to see that the answer is negative. Obviously in a town, in a living system, we have a quite different type of functional order.”

“The notion of entropy, in the large, is entirely irrelevant to us.”

“If it were eventually possible for man to put to use other forms of energy (solar, Aeolian, etc.), which by their nature are virtually unlimited, the entropy law would be practically irrelevant, since the economic process would occur as part of an open system.”

“Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by natural resources being turned into entropy and waste by human extraction and use … the key fact of knowledge is that it is anti-entropic: it accumulates and compounds as it is used … Concerning the microcosm, the mind transcends every entropic trap and overthrows matter itself. Through learning, civilization defies the thermodynamic laws of decline and fall.”

“Real financial markets cannot behave thermodynamically.”

“Thermodynamics is impossible in economics.”

“Of course, human beings obey the laws of thermodynamics like everything else in the universe, but the Gibbs free energy equation [ΔG = ΔH – TΔ] only [can be used] to describe large systems of microscopic particles; [and cannot be applied] to analogous situations between human beings, just because the everyday and scientific words involved happen to correspond (in English).”

“I admit, open systems do exist and can be described with thermodynamics; nonetheless, their application to group dynamics is a major stretch, and modeling human relationships on them involves all sorts of unstated assumptions, for instance that a state function (like Gibbs free energy) even applies. Or that they're spontaneous.”

“Thermodynamics isn't meant to describe human relationships.”

“Worst of all, there is some danger that chemical thermodynamics will have ascribed to it a power that it simply does not have, namely, the power to explain the human condition.”

“Your thesis is that the laws of thermodynamics ‘govern human existence’ is a grossly misleading understatement. Your thesis (such as it is) is that there are quantum mechanical, chemical bonds between humans which can give rise to ‘human reactions’ and that there are enthalpic/entropic contributions to a human’ free energy function (see: human free energy). This is delusional and based on fundamentally nonsensical premises.”

— Philip Moriarty (2009), Moriarty-Thims debate (post #61), Sep 8

“Where did Gibbs say that ‘a society is one such material system’? He didn’t –that is your particular (incorrect) reading of the application of thermodynamics.”

“So, why are we exempt from this application of thermodynamics? Why would energy alter its behavior in a fundamental way when it began manifesting as the patterns of human behavior? Recursion is everywhere.”

“The main points are:

(i) An arrangement of students (or socks, or objects in a room) will not *spontaneously* rearrange themselves (unlike the milk molecules mentioned in the video).
(ii) There is no change in the thermodynamic free energy of, e.g., socks [or students], if we rearrange them.”

“Concepts of entropy [only] apply to gas molecules; you cannot say that a particular arrangement of students has a thermodynamic entropy.”

“I believe thermodynamics can only function in man-made things: mechanical devices (such as vehicles), combustion, politics, and stuff. However, things like morals and love go far beyond thermodynamics. It can perhaps be argued to a certain point that thermodynamics can explain these phenomena. But if thermodynamics can’t even be fully explained in the physical body, how can it explain the mind and the soul.”

“You've got to realize the blatant absurdity of trying to model the laws governing human relationships using the rules of thermodynamics, a set of rules that only apply at a molecular level. Human beings are not molecules, they are composed of molecules, but we aren't giant molecules. Human relationships are governed mostly by human psychology. I can only assume you're senile or crazy to believe this nonsense.”

“This is all just a horrendous analogy. Chemical laws apply to humans, but our behavior is more complex than something that can be modeled with a couple of thermodynamic equations. A + B → AB is just a pretentious way of stating something we already know; it tells us absolutely nothing new.”

“Entropy or entropy-related measures (such as free energy) should *not* be invoked for living systems!”

“I don't know what the Rossini debate is but I hope to find out. [The] idea for a department for teaching two cultures would not be appreciated at Berkeley. In the social sciences and in some humanities, thermodynamics may be useful as an analogy, as a suggestion for looking at a problem (e.g., information theory) but beyond that, I see little use of thermodynamics outside [physical] science.”

See also: Unbridgeable gap