The Entropy of Things: Why Everything Gets Messy¶
Or: Why Your Desk Always Looks Like a Tornado Hit It
Have you ever wondered why keeping things organized feels like fighting an uphill battle? Why your perfectly sorted drawer inevitably descends into chaos? Welcome to the world of "thing entropy" – where we explore how our physical stuff naturally gravitates toward disorder, and why maintaining order requires constant effort.
The Messiness of Things¶
Lets start with something you're probably familiar with. An empty desk.
Imagine you place a single book on it. Finding that book is pretty easy, right? There's only one way for it to be "organized" – it's either on the desk somewhere, or off it. If you add another book, say a copy of the same book, and it finding 'that book' is still pretty simple -- even if you stack the books on each other. You can still find that book you're looking for, there's still pretty much only one arrangement.
But add a different book, then it can easily get harder to find the book you're looking for. Say you stack books, and the one you're looking for is on bottom of the stack. It is now harder to find, because you have to remember where the book is, or look undrneath the book. There's now more than one arrangement of books. Sure, you could have been tidy when first stacking the books -- requiring a bit more thought and effort to not stack the books.But now you have to remember where the book is, or look around.
Now, Add a phone, some papers, and a coffee mug, a computer, and the number of possible arrangements explodes! And the chance for disorder increases. Imagine you set a coffee mug on the desk, and then you set the phone on top of the coffee mug. Now there's a new way for the coffee mug to be knocked over, spilling coffee onto papers or, or like maybe the more common of us, the computer. It messy! The addition of new items, increase the chance of a random change, and the chance of messyness - or disorder -- increased.
This isn't just perception – it's mathematics. The more different items you have, and the more ways they can be arranged the more likely a random change will result in what we perceive as disorder.
The Utility of Things¶
We have things for a reason. We use them to help us for some purpose. They can help for a variety of purposes, from the most basic, like physiological needs, to the more complex, like helping us achieve our goals, as you'd see in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:
- 🥪 Physiological needs: Food, water, shelter, sleep, wifi, etc...
- 🏠 Safety needs: Safety, security, stability, etc...
- ❤️ Love and Belonging needs: Social interaction, relationships, etc...
- 🌟 Esteem needs: Recognition, respect, etc...
- 🎯 Self-actualization needs: Personal growth, creativity, etc...
Different things are useful for different purposes. Sometimes the things are useful for multiple purposes. Sometimes, the things are useful for purpose that limited to being almost nothing at all. Something like a bobble head plastic elvis in a car dashboard, may only provid a bit of happiness for those who see it. It might signal interests and personality to others, but its total value may be primarily derived from the owner's experience of buying it in Hawaii.
In general, though, the more complex something is, the more diverse value it can provide. Take your computer. It can be used for a variety of purposes. You can use it to browse the web, write documents, make art, edit videos, play games, and more. The more complex something is, the more diverse value it can provide. A spoon? Well that's good for stirring soup or maybe playfully patting your loved one on the arm with it. It certainly won't be doing your taxes!
The Sock Story: A Tale of Disorder¶
We can look at utility and disorder together by looking socks.
- One sock: Simple, but not that useful.
- A matching pair: Quite useful, but you need to always wash it them, and hope you don't lose one sock!
- A mismatching pair: Still useful, but not always prefered Aesthetically.
- Twenty pairs of the same sock: You won't run out of socks, but chances are you'll lose one or two to the sock gnomes until they decide to return them. But if you lose one, at least matching socks are still available!
So not too much sock-disorder. Say instead, you had ten different pairs of socks?
Well now, this is a potential mess. You lose one sock, then it is no longer Aesthetically useful, and you have to search for it.
- Twenty different pairs of socks? Chaos embodied. Unless you spend the time to match and wash them together, the chances of losing one, increases. It takes increased time to search for the matching socks, etc... If you're in this situation, you might just declare sock-bankrupcy like us and go back to buying all the same socks again.
You can see sock-disorder in action. Each sock added to your drawer multiplies the possible combinations. With identical socks, life is easier – any two make a pair. But with different patterns, colors, and sizes, the number of possible mismatches far exceeds the number of correct matches. This is why finding matching socks becomes increasingly difficult as your collection grows.
To decrease sock-disorder, or entropy-disorder more generally, we can create order / structures / principles. Easy sounding, but as many know, creating and using these takes time and energy and sometimes doesn't always work out.
Entropy and the Breaking Point:¶
When Things Fall Apart¶
Everything has a natural tendency to break down over time. This breakdown happens at levels we can observe. From stars that died or demolished, creating the elements that make everything, to the cells in all life forms. It is the law of physics that entropy always increases unless energy is added to the system. But when do things fall apart, and under what conditions? The answer of course, depends on what system and its environment.
Here are some examples:
- A simple metal spoon might last decades, submerging in hot soup all the time
- A kitchen gadget like a blender, probably should not be submerged in water, but might work if you accidentally washed it. even if it is, it can break more easily, there are a lot more ways for it to break: can burn out, have plastic-parts snap, or have the blades bent etc. Depending on how often it is used, a well built blender won't last as long as the spoon.
- A computer, with billions of transistors and millions of conections, should certainly not be submerged in water (or coffee). That could easily destroy it. Even if we only broke one thing, like the power supply, the computer would still be useless until we fixed it.
In general we can see a pattern though:
- The more parts something has, the more likely one will break
- The more complex something is, the more likely it is to break
- The more dependencies something has, the more likely it is to break
Minimizing Entropy-Disorder¶
Why don't we prevent Entropy-Disorder? Energy, and time.
Maintaining order and preventing entropy-disorder requires energy and time. Spending a few extra minutes to put things away right? That isn't free.
- Physical effort to sort and organize
- Mental energy to remember where things belong
- Time spent working with the system
- Resources used in replacing broken items
So, how do we minimize entropy-disorder?
- Minimize the number of things in general. Simple-sounding, but not always easy given the needs and desires of our lives.
- Minimize the number of different types of things, like buying all the same socks, or the same brand of pens.
- Minimize the ways things can be arranged by using organizing systems.
- Minimize the complexity of the system by reducing dependencies.
🌐 The Global Dilemma: Replace or Repair?
In today's world, we often face a choice: invest energy in maintaining and repairing what we have, or replace it entirely, or just never replace it. Consider a torn shirt: 1. Repairing requires: - Finding the right thread and needle - Having (or learning) the skills to sew - Taking the time to make the repair
- Replacing requires:
- Money (which represents energy spent earning it)
- Shopping time
-
Environmental cost of production and disposal
-
Never replacing it requires:
- Wearing the shirt anyway
- Get another shirt
- Go shirtless.
Often, we choose replacement because it requires less immediate personal energy, even though it may consume more total energy globally. This might not always be the best choice globally, but for us, if our resources of time or energy are saved by replacing it, then it might be the best choice for us locally.
Strategies¶
Understanding how disorder naturally increases can help us make better choices:
- The Simplicity Rule
- Fewer things = fewer possible arrangements = easier maintenance
- Similar things are easier to manage than different things
-
Every new item adds complexity exponentially
-
The Organization Energy Budget
- Accept that maintaining order requires constant energy input
- Choose where to spend your organizational energy wisely
-
Perfect organization everywhere is impossible – prioritize what matters
-
The Complexity Trade-off
- More features = more potential failure points
- Sometimes the simplest solution is the most sustainable
- Consider maintenance costs when acquiring new things
Beyond the Mess of Entropy¶
Understanding a little bit about entropy isn't just about knowing thermodynamic physics. It helps explain why:
- Simple tools often outlast complex ones
- Minimalism can reduce energy spent maintaining order
- The organization systems themselves add energy to maintain and use.
- Sometimes, accepting a little disorder is better than fighting for perfect order
We can't eliminate disorder – it's a fundamental property of our universe. But by understanding how things naturally tend toward disorder, we can:
- Design better systems for managing our stuff
- Make smarter choices about what we bring into our lives
- Focus our energy where it matters most
- Find the sweet spot between chaos and order
Remember: perfect order isn't the goal. The goal is finding a sustainable balance between the energy we spend maintaining order and the function we need from our things.