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daviding says: If the foundation of the system is in entropy rather than equilibrium, we'll need to figure out how exchange-based societies work, and the function of money (as information, in a general theory of systems).

The specific purpose of this paper is to trace the development of entropy-related thought from its thermodynamic origins through its organizational and economic applications to its relationship to money information. That trace reveals that existing entropy measures are of states or changes in states that are caused by energy processes. We propose that entropy may as well be conceived as entropic process. The social emergent specific exchange value provides a metric by which entropic process may be quantified. The analysis connects the traditional state-oriented entropy measures to measures of entropic process in social systems. In doing so, the character of exchange-based societies and the function of money information within them are elaborated.

Background Marital dissolution is ubiquitous in western societies. It poses major scientific and sociological problems both in theoretical and therapeutic terms. Scholars and therapists agree on the existence of a sort of second law of thermodynamics for sentimental relationships. Effort is required to sustain them. Love is not enough. Methodology/Principal Findings Building on a simple version of the second law we use optimal control theory as a novel approach to model sentimental dynamics. Our analysis is consistent with sociological data. We show that, when both partners have similar emotional attributes, there is an optimal effort policy yielding a durable happy union. This policy is prey to structural destabilization resulting from a combination of two factors: there is an effort gap because the optimal policy always entails discomfort and there is a tendency to lower effort to non-sustaining levels due to the instability of the dynamics. Conclusions/Significance These mathematical facts implied by the model unveil an underlying mechanism that may explain couple disruption in real scenarios. Within this framework the apparent paradox that a union consistently planned to last forever will probably break up is explained as a mechanistic consequence of the second law.

daviding says: Entropy may play not only in marriages, but also in service relationships.