國立彰化師範大學物理系, 彰化, 台灣＝Department of Physics, National Changhua University of Education, Changhua, Taiwan
關鍵詞
The second law of thermodynamics; entropy; information; dissipative structure; cognition
摘要
熱力學第二定律所描述的熵的增加代表信息的喪失. 作者認為信息須經由心靈的認知才能存在，因此在一個系統中，如果包含了信息，代表在這系統中必定包含心靈的認知. 此外，為什麼所有的生物體似乎都屬於耗散結構? 作者認為其原因是當一個生物體在表現種種生命現象的過程中須作出一些智慧的選擇，而為什麼它會作出這些智慧的選擇，其先決條件在它具心靈，可以從周圍的環境中選擇一些有用的信息來加以利用，然後它就須將自身的熵排放到周圍環境中，使自己的熵低於外界環境的熵，以維持生命. The principle of the second law of thermodynamics tells us that an increase in entropy implies a loss of information. The author adopts this opinion and infers that any information is meaningless unless it is recognized by the mind. If there is information in a system，it means that the system must incorporate the cognitive ability of the mind. There is a very important question why all living organisms seem to have dissipative structures. The author speculates that the organisms have the minds to make choices when they perform many activities in the their lives. In this way，the organisms can export entropy from inside of their bodies to the external environment by using their minds to choose and utilize the information wisely from the external environment. By making the entropy of their bodies lower than that of the external environment，the organisms can sustain their lives.
