My understandings of entropy and creativity so far.
Something starts of as ordered, low entropy, meaning that it is a predictable ‘structure’ but very little potential.
As the entropy increases, complexity is able to emerge as structures break down and new ones form.
When entropy is at its highest we are in a completely unpredictable state – we cannot know where anything is. But also all available energy has been used up (heat death) and no new ‘order’ can be created.
This image was based on a visualisation of entropy and complexity originally by Brett Andersen, where he used an image of cappuccino (foam + black coffee) > swirling coffee > milky coffee to demonstrate the three states. I’ve tried to continue this concept because I wanted to also integrate the potentiality of something actually being created out of this increasing entropy (and perhaps also integrating the role of humans in the process).
We start with two ordered states (water and dry sand). The dry sand here is ordered and predictable. As the water comes in, the entropy increases and a new form can emerge, e.g. wavy sand, rivulets etc as the water mixes with the sand. But the potential to create something new has also emerged. Here the children come in and begin to play (the human role). They can create new and higher forms of order and complexity (‘reverse entropy’) by using energy. This is new state is temporary as entropy always increases (here as a metaphor for the tide) and eventually the entropy overtakes everything causing an unpredictable state to be achieved at the end. The complexity that emerged was temporary between states suggesting that entropy is required for a novel creative state to emerge, and that creativity is a sort of reversing the tide of entropy – which explains why beauty is so important to the human psyche because it indicates a transient effort against inevitably of entropy.