EVOLUTION AND HUMAN DESTINY 



Thermodynamics to apply to physical processes in gen- 

 eral. This does not imply that any of the physical or 

 chemical processes that go on inside of living organ- 

 isms fail to follow the Second Law. What it does indi- 

 cate is that under certain conditions significant portions 

 of matter will progressively increase their extropy level 

 and succeed in doing so over vast stretches of time. 

 This behavior of matter may be an occurrence expli- 

 cable on the basis of probability considerations govern- 

 ing very large quantities of matter and taking place 

 provided enough time is allowed for random changes 

 to produce an extremely large number of possible com- 

 binations. It appears probable that very special en- 

 vironmental conditions regarding temperatures and 

 the types of materials available, are necessary for this 

 phenomenon to proceed to the extent it has on the 

 earth. It may well be that local complexification of 

 matter (at the expense of entropy increases elsewhere) 

 is subject to a law just as fundamental as the "Second." 

 If such is the case, development of life can be expected, 

 wherever environmental conditions were at all similar 

 to those at one time prevailing on the earth. Under 

 certain other environmental conditions local decreases 

 of entropy level may lead to forms of "life" quite dif- 

 ferent from the kind we are familiar with. While the 

 trend towards a local increase in extropy is probably 

 a universal tendency (perhaps a basic law of nature) 

 it is unlikely that this increase of organization proceeds 



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