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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).

Order, Disorder, and the Fate of the Universe

Bloom, Wilber, and Science on the Second Law

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

1. Introduction

The Second Law of Thermodynamics—stating that in a closed system, entropy (disorder) tends to increase—is one of the most robust principles in physics. Yet, it has inspired philosophical, metaphysical, and even mystical interpretations. Howard Bloom, Ken Wilber, and mainstream science all address the Second Law, but they do so with sharply different aims. Bloom challenges it as a cosmic principle, Wilber reframes it in a spiritual teleology, and science grounds it in statistical mechanics and cosmology. The tension between these views reveals a deeper question: is the universe inevitably running down, or is it building up?

2. Howard Bloom: Rebellion Against Entropy

Howard Bloom treats the Second Law less as an immutable truth and more as an industrial-age metaphor. He notes its historical origin in the study of steam engines and questions its cosmic applicability. In works like The Case of the Sexual Cosmos, Bloom describes life as a “flamboyant defiance” of entropy. He sees biological evolution, sexual reproduction, and cultural creativity as processes that generate ever-greater complexity—forces that “climb the stairs” rather than slide into disorder.

Bloom's position is partly poetic, partly polemical. He rejects what he views as the pessimistic “heat death” narrative and emphasizes the universe's tendency toward complexity and diversity. This stance, however, sidesteps the fact that local decreases in entropy (e.g., life, order) are entirely compatible with the Second Law—because they occur in open systems exchanging energy with their surroundings.

3. Ken Wilber: Spirit Transcending Entropy

Ken Wilber accepts the Second Law as it applies to the material world but reframes it within his evolutionary mysticism. In A Brief History of Everything and Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Wilber argues that alongside the tendency toward disorder, there is an equally real “Eros”—a cosmic drive toward higher complexity, consciousness, and integration. For Wilber, evolution is not merely random mutation shaped by natural selection; it is Spirit-in-action, a self-organizing ascent toward ever-higher forms.

In this framework, entropy is a partial truth, one half of a dialectic between breakdown and breakthrough. Like Bloom, Wilber sees life and consciousness as evidence of an ordering principle—but Wilber goes further, positing a metaphysical source for this principle. His teleological “Eros” is explicitly non-material, putting his view outside the scope of mainstream physics.

4. Mainstream Science: Entropy and Local Order

Science's position on the Second Law is firmly empirical and mathematically defined. Entropy measures the number of microstates corresponding to a macrostate; higher entropy means more possible configurations, and thus higher disorder. In a closed system, entropy never decreases, but local decreases are common in open systems, provided the total entropy (system + surroundings) still increases.

This means life, evolution, and cosmic structure formation are not violations of thermodynamics. Stars, galaxies, and organisms can form and persist because energy flows—from gravitational collapse, nuclear fusion, and ultimately the Big Bang's low-entropy initial state—drive the emergence of complexity. However, over cosmological timescales, the overall trend still points toward equilibrium: the so-called “heat death” scenario.

5. Points of Agreement and Disagreement

6. The Philosophical Divide

At the heart of this debate lies the interpretation of order itself. For science, order is a transient, local phenomenon made possible by energy gradients. For Bloom, order is the dominant, ongoing trend—a cultural and biological imperative. For Wilber, order is not just a physical arrangement but a spiritual unfolding toward higher states of being. Bloom and Wilber both resist the narrative of decay, but Wilber embeds that resistance in a spiritual framework, while Bloom prefers a secular celebration of complexity.

Are there scientists who question the Second Law itself? Within mainstream physics, the law's statistical and empirical basis is considered extremely secure, with no reproducible counterexamples in closed systems. However, there are occasional “maverick” figures—often outside the thermodynamics mainstream—who propose reinterpretations or hypothetical exceptions. These range from speculative cosmological models that avoid heat death to controversial claims about local entropy decreases being misunderstood. Such challenges are rare, and while they can inspire thought experiments, they have yet to gain acceptance in the peer-reviewed scientific consensus.

Historical and modern examples include:

James Clerk Maxwell's “Maxwell's Demon” (1867) – A thought experiment that seemed to allow entropy decrease via intelligent sorting of molecules, later resolved by incorporating information theory into thermodynamics.

Ilya Prigogine (1970s–1990s) – Nobel laureate who emphasized “dissipative structures” and self-organization far from equilibrium; he didn't reject the Second Law but reframed it to highlight how order can arise in open systems.

Harold Morowitz (1970s) – Proposed that the origin of life is an inevitable outcome of thermodynamics, stressing entropy export rather than violation.

Eric Chaisson (2000s) – Suggested that complexity growth in the universe can be described in energy-rate-density terms, complementing rather than overturning the Second Law.

Perpetual motion advocates (19th century–present) – Inventors claiming to have built machines that bypass the Second Law; none have been validated under scientific scrutiny.

Speculative cosmologists – A few modern cosmology models attempt to avoid universal heat death via cyclic universes or quantum effects, but these remain unproven.

In short, while the Second Law has attracted both philosophical resistance and scientific reinterpretation, outright rejection tends to come from mavericks or fringe inventors, not from the physics mainstream.

7. Conclusion

The Second Law remains one of the most successful laws in physics, untouched by philosophical or poetic dissatisfaction. Yet, thinkers like Bloom and Wilber remind us that human meaning-making cannot be fully contained by equations. Bloom reimagines the universe as an exuberant creator of complexity; Wilber casts it as Spirit's journey toward self-realization; science keeps both feet on the ground, insisting that any such narratives must align with the evidence that entropy, while locally defiable, ultimately rules the cosmic game. The enduring challenge is reconciling our lived experience of growth and order with the universe's long-term statistical fate.