When a system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence have the capacity to shift the entire system.
This quotation, attributed to the Belgian physical chemist Ilya Prigogine, gives me hope that small groups of people working together may be able to shift our chaotic politics into something better.
But is it realistic, or useful, to apply the principles of thermodynamics to the much more macro world of human societies?
Prigogine, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility, began his career because he was interested in the way chemical processes in the brain affected our thoughts and behaviors. He saw a relationship between physics and psychology.
What he discovered in his studies was that while chemical solutions can be heated and cooled without altering their fundamental properties, under certain conditions the properties could not be reversed. For example, heating a fluid from the bottom can create cellular patterns that are unpredictable and cannot be reproduced identically upon cooling and reheating.
This phenomenon is known as Rayleigh–Bénard convection. Similar patterns that result from various chemical processes were also noted by Allan Turing, and have been called Turing patterns. Both examples demonstrate the presence of emergent properties within inorganic structures. These properties follow the same patterns of emergence that are seen in living systems.
This idea of emergent properties and self-organization are what make Prigogine’s observations relevant to the human circus we all live in.
These “small islands of coherence”, by which Prigogine meant small crystalline structures around which larger cellular patterns form, have a lot in common with Christopher Alexander’s concept of “living centers” in architecture that follow definite morphogenetic patterns. Prigogine’s work supports Alexander’s premise that properties of life can be seen non-living things ranging from gothic cathedrals to crystalline structures in minerals.
Zooming out to the macro world of human behavior, we see that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi used thermodynamics to describe that natural state of the human mind, a disordered state of consciousness that he called “psychic entropy.” Here again, small islands such as goals, rules, and challenges can bring a disordered system into equilibrium.
Widening the lens further, we can see small islands of coherence in the clubs, associations, churches, and synagogues that people belong to. Sociologist Robert Putnam made the argument in his book Bowling Alone that participation in small groups helps strengthen social bonds and improves civic life. These ideas are well-presented in the documentary Join or Die, which shows how group activities can bring the society as a whole to a higher degree of order and equilibrium.
So maybe, as we watch our society edging towards chaos, the answer is to seek out a small island that we can strengthen. Or to put it another way, Think Gobally, Act Locally
