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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Against the Grain of Thermodynamics

Wilber's Rejection of Entropy

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Ken Wilber has long maintained that the universe is not "running down" but rather "winding up." He dismisses the second law of thermodynamics—the principle that entropy increases over time—as “ridiculous” when applied to the cosmos as a whole.[1] This is not a minor metaphysical quirk. It is a profound repudiation of modern science's most robust insights into the nature of reality. In doing so, Wilber places his spiritual cosmology not merely outside of mainstream physics, but in active defiance of it.

The Second Law: A Brief Recap

Entropy, in thermodynamic terms, is a measure of disorder or the unavailability of energy to do work. The second law of thermodynamics holds that in any closed system, entropy tends to increase over time. Applied to the universe, it predicts a long-term “heat death”—a state in which all energy differences are evened out, and no more work (or complexity) is possible.

This law is not a speculative guess. It is a foundational principle that governs everything from melting ice cubes to the life cycles of stars. It is backed by immense empirical evidence and undergirds much of modern physics, chemistry, and cosmology.

Wilber's Reversal: From Decline to Ascent

Wilber's metaphysics requires a different narrative: not one of gradual dissipation, but of ever-greater complexity, integration, and self-awareness. In the video "Integral in Action with Ken Wilber" (2015), he states:

“Evolution itself is driven by the creation of increasing, holistic, increasing wholes, increasing unities. And the whole notion of the universe as 'running down' is ridiculous. I mean, it is NOT!”[1]

Here, Wilber is not merely highlighting a countercurrent within entropy (such as local emergent systems), but rejecting the law's universal application. He inverts entropy into its opposite, treating complexity as the true “cosmic law,” and relegating decay to the margins.

But this is a metaphysical inversion, not a scientific one. In reality, local increases in complexity—such as life on Earth—depend on energy gradients created by entropy. The Sun's radiation flows from a high-energy source to a low-energy sink, powering the temporary rise of complex systems. Once the energy gradient collapses, so does the complexity. Life, mind, and culture are thermodynamic epiphenomena, not cosmic inevitabilities.

A Spiritualized Violation

By insisting that complexity is the deeper law, Wilber introduces a spiritual exception to physical regularities. His metaphysics floats free of constraint: evolution becomes not a statistical quirk of thermodynamic flux, but a sign of Spirit's hand. He treats the universe more like a script being enacted than a probabilistic field of matter-energy interactions.

This amounts to a kind of spiritualized creationism—not in the crude Biblical sense, but in a metaphysical sense that denies the role of chance, contingency, and decay. Wilber's Spirit does not merely animate the world—it overrides its laws. The spiritual telos bends the universe toward greater wholeness, whether or not the data support it.

This “violationist” tendency is no small matter. It places Integral Theory closer to mythological worldviews than to scientifically grounded cosmology. The Spirit Wilber invokes is not inferred from empirical observation, but posited despite it.

Entropy as the Deep Background

A more scientifically sober view would place entropy as the deep background of all emergence. Yes, local systems can become more complex—but only by increasing the disorder of the broader environment. Stars form, burn, and die. Civilizations rise and fall. Even our thoughts require the metabolic breakdown of chemical gradients. The universe does not climb upward on a metaphysical ladder—it briefly flares into structured complexity, then returns to equilibrium.

In this view, the cosmos is not "winding up" but undergoing thermodynamic flowering—short-lived bursts of order that express, not contradict, the arrow of entropy. Any metaphysics worthy of the name must take this basic asymmetry seriously.

Wilber's Unfalsifiable Optimism

Wilber's dismissal of entropy is not just scientifically untenable—it renders his system unfalsifiable. Every increase in complexity is proof of Spirit; every collapse is explained away as part of a larger spiritual dialectic. His system is always right, because it reinterprets all data through a predetermined metaphysical lens.

Such a stance is immune to empirical challenge, but that's precisely the problem. If your model of the universe cannot accommodate decay, loss, and failure as primary features—not just spiritual “tests”—then you are not describing the universe, but scripting a metaphysical myth.

Cosmic Expansion and the Fate of Complexity

A common question in cosmology—and a potentially complicating factor for thermodynamic predictions—is whether the ongoing expansion of the universe might somehow prevent or delay the final heat death. Could the accelerating growth of cosmic space preserve energy gradients, prevent full equilibrium, or even offer new room for complexity to arise?

The answer, from current physics, is no. The continuing expansion of the universe—especially under the influence of dark energy—does not counteract entropy. In fact, it accelerates the universe's march toward thermal equilibrium. As galaxies drift further apart and stars burn out, the available energy becomes increasingly diluted and inaccessible. The expansion makes interactions less likely, not more. Eventually, stars die, matter decays, and black holes evaporate via Hawking radiation. What's left is a cold, dark, diffuse universe—a near-perfect expression of maximal entropy.

Wilber's metaphysical optimism has no place for this stark scenario. He assumes that cosmic expansion implies an evolutionary unfolding, a metaphor of continual growth and ascent. But scientifically, expansion doesn't imply development—it implies dissolution. It stretches the cosmos toward isolation, not integration. The directionality of expansion and the directionality of evolution are not the same. Expansion is geometric and entropic; evolution is local, contingent, and energy-dependent.

If anything, cosmic acceleration underscores the eventual futility of complexity. The universe is not coalescing into Spirit—it is dispersing into silence. The room for new emergence does not increase with size; it contracts with energy loss.

Any metaphysics that sees Spirit “in action” must contend with this bleak trajectory. Not by ignoring it, or calling it ridiculous, but by acknowledging that even the most astonishing evolutionary arcs play out within a cosmic thermodynamic frame that is ultimately indifferent—and final.

Conclusion: Thermodynamics as Spiritual Maturity

Rather than denying entropy, a spiritually mature worldview would integrate it. It would recognize that life is precious precisely because it is fleeting. That intelligence is rare not because the cosmos is failing, but because it was never designed with us in mind. That meaning must be created locally, not assumed cosmically.

Wilber's dismissal of entropy reflects an unwillingness to live without metaphysical reassurance. But perhaps the deepest spirituality lies in affirming life within the constraints of a universe that owes us nothing.

NOTE

[1] As quoted in: Frank Visser, "The Paradox of Entropy and Evolution, Ken Wilber's Misinterpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics", www.integralworld.net, May 2023, and "Integral Overstretch Some Reflections on 'Integral in Action with Ken Wilber'", www.integralworld.net, October 2015.