The Entropy Method - The Secret Life of Chaos: How Entropy Makes Life Interesting
The Entropy Method - Part 1 - Everything you’ve been told about ‘order vs. chaos’ is backwards—and that confusion is costing you
Order feeds Chaos. Chaos returns to Order.
There’s more to the Entropy Method than just fighting entropy. It’s a way to look at reality more accurately.
Entropy isn’t chaos. It's the dissipation of energy. It’s all a matter of time frame. Eventually all energy will be equally distributed throughout the universe and nothing “interesting” will happen ever again. That’s the ultimate high-entropy state: a featureless, bland equilibrium.
Entropy is the unstoppable drift that pulls every unlikely spike of energy back toward a far more likley bland, uniform average.
Throw every book into the air—what are the odds they land perfectly sorted in Dewey Decimal order? Incomprehensibly small. There’s one configuration that is “correct” and infinity –1 that aren’t. It requires energy (effort) to maintain low-entropy order.
On cosmic timescales, life itself (conscious observers like us) might actually be accelerating entropy! by using energy faster. Yet for now, this is the era when “interesting” things happen—where improbable configurations (stars, life, societies) form and dissipate energy in ways the universe otherwise wouldn’t.
We’re not fighting entropy? We’re helping it!
That may be a disturbing thought. But really it just is. Nothing is good or bad it is in thinking that makes it so. We’re just happen to be here to make these observations.
The universe doesn’t assign moral value to entropy. It just is. The key is to notice we’re alive in the most interesting window—where these dynamic structures and systems emerge.
Thinking back to our “good” cup. Picture it with tea in it. The tea is reasonably low entropy evenly distributed throughout the cup, a very likely scenario. A liquid won’t all clump to the left side of the cup, totally possible for all the atoms in the tea to do that, highly unlikely.
Now pour in the milk. Watch it plunge down into the tea and swirl and cloud and make uniquie, novel shapes and formations. Low entropy. Lot’s of energy dissipating. Unlikely configuration. Then quite quickly uniformity. Tea and Milk equally distributed.
Now for a more tragic example in 2003, NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart upon re-entry, killing all seven astronauts on board. The culprit? A piece of foam debris that tore a hole in the orbiter’s left wing during launch, compromising the heat shielding. It wasn’t the first time foam had broken away—but the program had come to accept it as “normal.” Then reality proved otherwise.
They mistook repeated survival for safety—a deadly misread of entropy. Order isn't eternal; it's borrowed time bought with vigilance.
High entropy things can’t happen - Order
Low entropy things are happening all the time – Disorder
So how are fighting entropy? Didn’t we say preciously that increasing entropy, dissipating energy was disorder?
And here when we really think it through. On a long enough timescale, it’s the opposite.
Understanding this duality is the core of the Entropy method.
We do want stability in our teams, codebases, or organizations, but not the kind that calcifies and becomes immovable. We need enough structure so that we can build effectively, yet enough flexibility to adapt as reality shifts.
Beware Over-Solidification - High Entropy
Pouring metaphorical “concrete” around every process kills agility.
If we never change, we’ll miss emerging opportunities and fail to keep up with the new realities our users or markets demand.
Beware Over-Change - Low Entropy
If we constantly rearrange our architecture, staff, or processes, there’s no core foundation on which to build.
Too much turbulence leads to confusion, lack of accountability, and chaos.
The Solution: A Stable Core + Flexible Fringe
Stable, predictable foundation – This is the “likely,” high-entropy (well-understood) core of your system. It’s robust and tested.
Channels for adaptation – At the fringes, you allow experimental ideas and improbable scenarios to be tried. If they prove valuable, incorporate them into the core.
Acknowledge the - High Entropy of systems
They must maintain order long enough to produce results or innovate meaningfully.
They must allow new “swirls” of lower-entropy experiments to form, test, and either fade away or become part of the foundation.
Understanding entropy at a deeper level reshapes how we view stability vs. change. It’s not a matter of “good order” vs. “bad chaos”; it’s about how and when to allow low-entropy “swirls” of novelty to form—and how to integrate or let them dissolve without undermining the stable “core.”
This is The Entropy Method in action:
With that perspective, you can design teams, processes, and codebases that persist through time—yet remain agile enough to capitalize on the incredible energy of a universe still in the “interesting” phase.
We’re alive during the universe’s most improbable moment—when the swirl still dances. Your job isn’t to fight entropy; it’s to collaborate with it, wisely.