thomas p <tonyofbexarnospam@yahoo.dk> wrote in
news:m3rli193sk3teo9v2h9n7qe58bmvj4bmsi@4ax.com:

How can a being capable of thinking, of feeling pleasure
or pain be "in steady state"?

Dynamic equilibrium, then.

That's absolutely wrong. The second law states unequivocally that
entropy will always increase.

Even in the original development of thermodynamics as a
theory of heat engines it was recognized that the entropy of an
ideal, reversible Carnot-cycle system doesn't change. (Of course in
practice no such ideal system actually exists.)

Later when the connection was made with atomic theory and
statistical mechanics it became clear that the 2nd law is really
only statistical. As Enkidu said, it's overwhelmingly likely that
entropy will never decrease, but not completely impossible.

in recent years experimenters have managed to manipulate
small, quantum-mechanical systems in such a way that the total
entropy of the Universe *does* decrease, albeit only by a small
amount, and only temporarily. (I'd guess there's a close cousin of
the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work here that limits the
amount of, and duration of, the decrease, but I haven't researched
any detailed analysis.)

Later when the connection was made with atomic theory and
statistical mechanics it became clear that the 2nd law is really
only statistical. As Enkidu said, it's overwhelmingly likely that
entropy will never decrease, but not completely impossible. In
fact, in recent years experimenters have managed to manipulate
small, quantum-mechanical systems in such a way that the total
entropy of the Universe *does* decrease, albeit only by a small
amount, and only temporarily. (I'd guess there's a close cousin of
the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work here that limits the
amount of, and duration of, the decrease, but I haven't researched
any detailed analysis.)

No. Overall, it increases. But locally it can decrease. Otherwise your
refrigerator wouldn't work. Or rechargeable batteries.

Think of it as how energy is used up.

When you recharge a battery its entropy is decreased. Which uses up
energy/entropy elsewhere. Actually increases the total entropy by more
than the battery's is decreased.

An increase in entropy outside the refrigerator causes a local
decrease inside it.

People who use the bogus "argument" from thermodynamics forget that
there is an enormous source of decreasing entropy 93 million miles
away. It's a huge source of energy input.