PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #2: Thermodynamics and Complexity. Presiding: T. Allen.
Monday, August 6, 2001. 8:00 AM to 11:45 AM. Madison Ballroom D.
Dissipation versus degradation: a helpful distinction in understanding human historical and non-human ecology of resource use.
Allen, Timothy1, Tainter, Joseph2, Hoekstra, Thomas3, 1 2 3
ABSTRACT- Dissipation is quantity of resource x degree of degradation. Degradation is the degree to which the quality of the resource is lowered as work is extracted, independent of input. When resources are concentrated, high quality or abundant, input increases to meet needs; inefficient total dissipation characterizes energetics. When resources are diffuse, scarce, or low quality, capacity for efficient degradation of whatever is available characterizes the system. Dissipative systems run out of resources; degradative systems come to burden the supply. Both suffer diminishing returns on resource capture. Increases in either dissipation or degradation often accompany emergence of increased organization through complexification. Dissipative systems are self-organized; degradative systems are organized by an outside design element (previous dissipative phase). Dissipative emergence puts new levels at the top of the organizational hierarchy; degradative systems emerge by packing constraining elements into the middle of the organizational hierarchy. Dissipative systems are ephemeral and local; degradative systems are long term and move upscale. Dissipative systems emerge more probably, and will self-repair to resist management. These patterns are clear in ant evolution, beaver occupancy of sites, and comparisons of the Western Roman Empire and Byzantium. We presently face a forced move from a dissipative phase, based on concentrated fossil fuels, to a degradative, hydrogen-based energy system that is dependent on renewable resources. Renewable energy, being diffuse, will be far more ecologically destructive than the present carbon-based energy system.
KEY WORDS: thermodynamics, resources, hierarchy, observer