But the information theoretic turn in fundamental physics is founded on a measurable dualism between information storage and entropy production. It is proper theory. — apokrisis

A description of the experience using informational constructs, is not the experience. Hence, people will be dissatisfied with your information theory as as a satisfying answer to the mind/body problem. How it is a process is equivalent to experience- the very thing that all other knowledge is gained from, is a more expansive theory than the simple computationalism you bring up.

Yes, thanks I am familiar with that decision and many of the other ones related to First Amendment.

Having a branch of government that interprets the written Constitution for practical use. Oh wait, we already have that. It's called the Supreme Court.

That's why the Supreme Court interprets the law for everyday cases so that "Fire!" in a movie theater is not Free Speech. The Founding Fathers were actually quite forward thinking on that front.

People (some?) bring up the notion of entropy to describe some fatalistic notions of the futility of the human will contra Nature's Will. I find that as a gross overgeneralization due to the fact that humans can adapt at a rate faster than what Nature imposes through superfluous notions of 'entropy'.

I find that idiotic to say the least. I hope that's not happening here. — Posty McPostface

Yes, I would agree as well. No, if you have paid attention to my thread, my main point was this:
The whole point of the thread was to show that it was not Schopenhauer's Will that I am proposing, but rather that the scientific principle of entropy does just fine bringing about the "willing" and "striving" that Will does, and though not in the same category of metaphysics (one a noumenal "beyond science" and one empirically concluded through observation and mathematics), the conclusions of a being that is striving is what is relevant here between the two.

Of course, then you may ask, what is the utility we get from this conclusion. Antinatalism would be one thing that comes to mind. If entropy creates a condition of negentropic organisms striving, and working to survive, then of course not creating new individuals that experience this would be an ethic that would spring forth. Do you want to participate in the imperative for more anxious, striving organisms that on a universal level, are a result of dissipating the transfer of energy?

On a further note, people who do not understand the negative character of Schopenhauer's conception of striving, might not see fully why this is a negative. There is a dissatisfaction, a lack, at the heart of our very existence as a normally-evolved, enculturated, surviving human being.

So he goes from willing (a) and willing (b) and willing (c) and so on to Willing ( ), where there is no object.

Then he goes from Willing ( ) back to willing (a), so that what (a) is, is the willing of (a).

Doubtless this is oversimplified, so finesse it if you must; but remember that I have to understand what he is saying from my own Stoa. In the end I am not interested in an exegesis of Schopenhauer but in what there is in his thought that can be useful. — Banno

Ok, this isn't a bad little summary.

This tale of Willing appears to have a very large problem. It's just that the world is not what is willed. There is stuff that stays as it is, with no regard to will. Stuff that stays as it is without regard to what we might think.

The stuff that stays the same regardless of what you think of it is reality. — Banno

The whole point of the thread was to show that it was not Schopenhauer's Will that I am proposing, but rather that the scientific principle of entropy does just fine bringing about the "willing" and "striving" that Will does, and though not in the same category of metaphysics (one a noumenal "beyond science" and one empirically concluded through observation and mathematics), the conclusions of a being that is striving is what is relevant here between the two. So I guess I am perplexed at your wanting to denigrate Schop's idea of Will, when it is not what I am even trying to focus on, but rather the parallels between how Will negatively affects humans and its parallels with entropy and how it negatively affects humans. In other words, I'm looking at the similarities in the pessimistic outcomes of both. The very point is, one doesn't even need to believe in the claim of Schop's Will, only look at the principle of entropy, and the pessimistic conclusion for humans operates the same. That is the matter I am trying to discuss. That is what @csalisbury meant when he said

I think maybe the conversation is foundering on 'will' which has been nicely domesticated in one quarter, has been assigned another function by others — csalisbury

You also said:

This tale of Willing appears to have a very large problem. It's just that the world is not what is willed. There is stuff that stays as it is, with no regard to will. Stuff that stays as it is without regard to what we might think.

The stuff that stays the same regardless of what you think of it is reality.

Folk tried to leave it behind by calling it being-in-itself, but it has a nasty stubbornness.

So Schopenhauer's story is fun, but ultimately misguided. — Banno

Yes, I am not an expert on Schop, but I will say that I think Schop waffled between being a proto-panpsychist and a straight-up idealist. At first, he discusses that appearances are illusions of individuals- just the will striving for an object, but then the question is, are there a multiplicity of POVs or just my POV? It seems he does allow for a multiplicity of POVs, as he believes there are Platonic ideas that mediate the Will, and even that each individual human has a Platonic essential character, etc. But then, it also seems like forces nature themselves can have aspects of Will, like gravity, and complex objects like rocks, etc. So that would indicate more of a panpsychist stance- there is a dual aspect of internal will and external object to every phenomena at every level perhaps. But then, where do the Platonic ideas fit into this scheme? So yeah, I can see where one would be confused if I were to be completely objectively critical.

However, I will defend that Schop is more wiley and sophisticated than you let on, though I know you don't want a complete exegesis. The main idea is that the phenomenal would be at its most primal, an illusion of a Will that entraps itself in some way. Anyways, we don't have to go down this fun rabbit hole if you don't want to. We can take the very well-trodden Main Street of entropy, which functions similarly to Will in what it is for the individual human (not in its metaphysics).

So the more schopenhauer1 shows the Will to be like entropy, the less the Will is like the sort of will we usually talk about. — Banno

Yes, but Schopenhauer never really conceived of Will in the way you are using it, what I'll call the "common usage". He thought of Will (with a capital W to show its primacy) as noumenal character of reality. It is not just the appearance of things, but the thing-in-itself. Will is a striving principle, a force (but not in any scientific way) that has for itself a sort of an illusory aspect that we might call "mind". This illusory aspect is the world as appearance (hence the name of his book, The World as Will and Representation). This appearance of things has a structure to it. It seems to have qualities of space/time/causality, for example. Within these parameters, there seems to be the flow and emergence of matter/energy. This is the world of the phenomena. This is the world that we can empirically see through experience and observation. This is the world of science that we all seem to think is real.

So, Schopenhauer starts with the self, as your own body is in a way a gateway point to the thing-in-itself. It is both a physical body, yet we perceive an internal aspect to this physical body. When he gets to the root of it, he sees the body and the internal aspect of mind behind it, as a striving something. It must be then, but a manifestation of the general noumenal principle behind everything, which is the general principle of Will. So our own wills is in a way a case in point of the more general Will. The appearance of a self that is a subject for an object, with an identity, that is perceives objects in space and time, is just that, an appearance. The underlying reality is Will. A good quote about this is from the Wikipedia page about Will as seen in this quote:

Schopenhauer disagreed with Kant's critics and stated that it is absurd to assume that phenomena have no basis. Schopenhauer proposed that we cannot know the thing in itself as though it is a cause of phenomena. Instead, he said that we can know it by knowing our own body, which is the only thing that we can know at the same time as both a phenomenon and a thing in itself.

When we become conscious of ourself, we realize that our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring. These are characteristics of that which we call our will. Schopenhauer affirmed that we can legitimately think that all other phenomena are also essentially and basically will. According to him, will "is the innermost essence, the kernel, of every particular thing and also of the whole. It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man…."[8] Schopenhauer said that his predecessors mistakenly thought that the will depends on knowledge. According to him, though, the will is primary and uses knowledge in order to find an object that will satisfy its craving. That which, in us, we call will is Kant's "thing in itself", according to Schopenhauer.

Now a main conclusion from Schopenhauer's Will is the part in the quote where it says that our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring. This is where his pessimism comes in. It is a constant lack or dissatisfaction that is rarely satisfied and rarely satisfied for long. The point was not that the metaphysics of entropy and the metaphysics of Will should be equated, but that entropy's proscription to organize energy into work, creates its own striving, craving, wanting, and desiring- that is to say working humans. And just like Schopenhauer's Will, which has no intent, no goal, no aim, but just to strive, entropy has no goal, no aim, no intent, but just to carry out its principle which consequently leads to the work of the negentropic organism. Just like Will is a ceaseless task master for the illusory self caught in its grip, entropy is a ceaseless task master for the individual organisms that must strive under the work and striving of surviving, maintaining, and entertaining. Just as we can see the restless character of Will in our internal view of the world, so too can we see the restless character of the organism, experiencing the work of entropy from a first person point of view- striving, surviving, trying to deal with the physical and social environment, to keep moving. Entropy and Will don't care about the individual, they simply do what they do, which is carry out their principle. We simply are manifestations of this and must deal with this principle working itself through us as individuals- carrying forth our goals.

With Entropy and heat death, you have something akin to the will cancelling itself out globally, long-run, by amping up locally (negentropy). The self-defeat of the will, in the entropy/heat death model, is baked into the very existence of something like a will. Poetically: the will wills so that it may not longer will. The million masks of the one thing, are work the one thing does to stop being that that thing. — csalisbury

Yes! This is very much along the lines I was trying to convey.

Whereas, with Schop (correct me if I'm wrong here, it's been a long time since I read WWR) but the will is kind of a constant ontological source, eternally self-renewing. It's only through the (non?)heroic attempts of individuals to snuff out the will that it can quiet itself.

If this is a fair characterization, I think these two ways-of-looking-at-things are deeply different. — csalisbury

So it looks like you are saying that Schop's conception is eternal and self-renewing, and can end in some individualistic way, through individual practices of asceticism. Entropy on the other hand, is inescapable for the individual but will end in some far off way at the universal level, at a point where it will not affect individual humans. I’d agree with this characterization of the two differences.

Also to add, Schops has a noumenal principle that is beyond space/time/causality and thus beyond principles mediated by the world of appearances. Entropy is squarely in the world of the phenomenon, to use his metaphysics.

The big picture is that we are working out the negentropic energy that is the main principle work in the universe. The internal striving, desires, and stresses, our very goals are underlying for
This principle. More people, more work that needs to be done and carried out by that individual. The principles of the universe, like entropy, does not care about the individual’s suffering, pains, and stress. As long as work is being done.

But this is simply an analytic statement - which is to say, a tautology: "bachelors are bound by the condition of being unmarried". Well no shit. But from this triviality you want to draw some kind of overwrought profundity by playing on the laden poetics of 'boundedness'. "Woe is the bachelor!". But this is wordplay, nothing more.

"We are conditioned by the conditions of our condition". Please. — StreetlightX

How are the Schopenhauerean conclusions overwrought though? As I quoted in a previous post, the main Schopenhaurean point is the endless will which has no reprieve. We are endless work, and it is not overwrought to see this on reflection.

Relative freedom as to where we focus our strivings does not negate the principle here either if you were going to make that point. Thus, social conditions are accidental to this very thought (if you want to do the whole rebuttal with the poor people in Africa thing).

Well gee you could have just said that instead of asking how one might go about 'proving a value' as though that made any sense at all. — StreetlightX

Okay, sorry for any lack of clarity on my part then. Proving a value, would in this case make sense though. If you are proving an ethical stance (that is a value judgement), you are proving that qualitative value, or set of values.

So your claim that entropy has no bearing on the human condition, I think is misguided. We are bound by the conditions of our physical existence. The maintenance of the individual animal, a principle directly related to the conditions of energy transfer, and the self-organizing nature of the organism, is something that puts us in an unconditional restraint of work. This can be felt in a multitude of ways on a sociological level and an individual psychological level by the way of stress, desires, pains, goals, and the like.

And yet no mention... — StreetlightX

No mention of what, each article I pasted had to do with value/valuation/ethics/aesthetics.. and "proving" I explained further meant some sort of logic/reasoning/justification for a theory of value that you might claim whereby a value statement can be made without it be dismissed as merely a value statement out of hand. I mean, I guess I can surmise a theory of ethics and aesthetics from your dismissal of a value statement itself, but that would just be conjecture on your stance.

The happy, contented and sufferless to move in their ways of living. Such a life would always be engaged in its maintenance, people doing whatever amounted to a life without burden

If this entropic movement does not fit with Schopenhauer's Will, so much worse for Schopenhauer. Entropy clearly doesn't reflect the Will on account of the latter being only a specific experimental results reaction. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But desire in itself is framed as always negative. Sure, it is what we do, but it is also characterized by a restless pain of unfulfilment. It is the anxious animal trying to get by. A quote from Schop:

All willing springs from lack, from deficiency, and thus from suffering. Fulfillment brings this to an end; yet for one wish that is fulfilled there remain at least ten that are denied. Further, desiring lasts a long time, demands and requests go on to infinity, fulfillment is short and meted out sparingly. But even the final satisfaction itself is only apparent; the wish fulfilled at once makes way for a new one; the former is a known delusion, the latter a delusion not as yet known. No attained object of willing can give a satisfaction that lasts and no longer declines; but it is always like the alms thrown to a beggar, which reprieves him today so that his misery may be prolonged till tomorrow. Therefore, so long as our consciousness is filled by our will [which is as long as we are will-filled living beings], so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never obtain lasting happiness or peace. Essentially, it is all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear harm or aspire to enjoyment; care for the constantly demanding will, no matter in what form, continually fills and moves consciousness; but without peace and calm, true well-being is absolutely impossible. (Die Welt, vol I, p 196)

So your thought-experiment of a possible world with no Schopenhauerean striving, if you will, would be like a world with p-zombies. Is it possible that p-zombies could exist? Perhaps, but the way we are designed, in this actual world, the internal nature of consciousness goes with entropy. According to some theories, the internal nature of the animal is an impossibility in how animals operate and complexity ensues given enough time.

I meant proving a theory of value, a theory of things that don't have to deal with simply "what exists" (metaphysics) and "how do I know something" (epistemology).. That is to say, the realm of ethics/aesthetics. Axiology is a branch that covers both those topics as far as I've seen it used. And thus, how something is ethical or aesthetic would be the question I am asking when I say "prove" here.

The term “value theory” is used in at least three different ways in philosophy. In its broadest sense, “value theory” is a catch-all label used to encompass all branches of moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and sometimes feminist philosophy and the philosophy of religion — whatever areas of philosophy are deemed to encompass some “evaluative” aspect. In its narrowest sense, “value theory” is used for a relatively narrow area of normative ethical theory particularly, but not exclusively, of concern to consequentialists. In this narrow sense, “value theory” is roughly synonymous with “axiology”. Axiology can be thought of as primarily concerned with classifying what things are good, and how good they are. For instance, a traditional question of axiology concerns whether the objects of value are subjective psychological states, or objective states of the world.

Axiology (from Greek ἀξία, axia, "value, worth"; and -λογία, -logia) is the philosophical study of value. It is either the collective term for ethics and aesthetics[1], philosophical fields that depend crucially on notions of worth, or the foundation for these fields, and thus similar to value theory and meta-ethics. The term was first used by Paul Lapie, in 1902,[2][3] and Eduard von Hartmann, in 1908.[4][5]

Axiology studies mainly two kinds of values: ethics and aesthetics. Ethics investigates the concepts of "right" and "good" in individual and social conduct. Aesthetics studies the concepts of "beauty" and "harmony." Formal axiology, the attempt to lay out principles regarding value with mathematical rigor, is exemplified by Robert S. Hartman's science of value.

You think axiology deals with proving values? — StreetlightX

ax·i·ol·o·gy
ˌaksēˈäləjē/Submit
nounPHILOSOPHY
the study of the nature of value and valuation, and of the kinds of things that are valuable.
a particular theory of axiology.

I'm not sure what it means to 'prove a value'. This strikes me as bad grammar. — StreetlightX

A theory of value.Value theory. Axiology. The branch of philosophy dealing with aesthetics/ethics/value.

Granted, the way he conceptualised it, it wasn't a practical solution short of literally becoming a renunciate monastic or anchorite, but at least it was real. Nothing like that in the thermodynamically-driven processes of the physical universe. — Wayfarer

Not sure what you mean though by at least it was real.

(It has also provided the basis for comparison between Schopenhauer and Buddhism and Vedanta, which is a fair comparison, albeit Schopenhauer didn't have any contact with actual exemplars of those traditions, even though he frequently wrote highly of them, and regarded himself as having a similar kind of philosophy.) — Wayfarer

Yes, he saw the parallels even in his time. His form of asceticism was definitely a strict one. I don't think there is a way out of the human predicament once in- asceticism is just a very focused behavioral practice. There cannot be a denying of one's own will while alive. Herman Hesse's Siddhartha comes to mind for what you are probably thinking of though. It is just a sort of disciplined practice, but I don't see it as a metaphysical escape hatch.

A world without suffering, for example, would still have entropy. Humans would be doing what was an absence of their entire lives. They would always be this "work." Thinking about entropy this way leaves out our own lives and how they are distinct. We are more complex than being of a system that moves. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But the striving part of Schopenhauer's will.. thinking of it in terms that, psychologically, the striving described by Schop can be "rooted" in the general striving of a negentropic system of organization that needs to maintain its order. Our goals, survival/maintenance/entertainment are all part of this. Human behavior/cognition is part of its survival- it is not epiphenomenal or other to it.

I gather this is a continuation of a discussion of which I have previously been unaware....? — Banno

Not this particular topic, but a common theme of my posts is the structural suffering, and antinatalism (not procreating more people that will suffer), something that is often scorned and then relegated as psychological disorder/disposition rather than a legitimate claim of the structural suffering of existence.

Thanks. I'm not too familiar with Schopenhauer, so tell me, do you understand him as having thought that Will did not require intent? — Banno

I have a hard time making that work; how can you divorce will from intent? — Banno

Yeah, it is confusing because Schop used the word "Will" for his underlying metaphysical principle and you would think that implied intent, but it doesn't regarding his idea of the overarching Will. According to him, the world is really will- a striving force that has no aim or purpose. The world of appearance makes us think that there is time/space/causality and creates for us a little umwelt where we think that attaining goals will give peace, but are maniacally designed to trick us into continuing the goal-seeking process. At bottom all is aimless striving of will, and thus nothing in the world of appearance will ever truly satisfy. The goal then of the enlightened individual is to turn the will against itself, live an ascetic life where will becomes gradually diminished, until it loses its grip completely thus somehow diminishing the reign of will's supremacy in some fashion.

Edit: Ah right, there it is, the balderdash about suffering. — StreetlightX

This is the most important part though :grin:. Let me ask you this then, what counts to you as a "legitimate" (streetlightx approved) way to prove a value?

Can I check that I understand - you are proposing something like that the will and the struggle against entropy are two aspects of the same thing? — Banno

Not quite. I would never say Schopenhauer would equate his idea of Will with something from the phenomenal world like some physical law/principle. But I am saying that for all intents and purposes, if you replaced his noumenal will, with the law of entropy, the ideas that he concludes of a striving-but-for-nothing principle can still be reached, with its same pessimistic conclusions regarding the suffering human animal. Now, StreetlightX says this is a value judgement, but I am saying the very fact that we are embodied beings of a principle of striving can be a basis for proving a structural suffering of sorts- all the more so for a self-reflecting being.

This is not a sentence that makes sense in English, and is not what I said. — StreetlightX

Sure it does. Negentropy is a temporary state of order (like life), where organization is increasing, but these clumps of orderliness are following principles of entropy and eventually contribute to universal disorder. And we are living out the principles of this temporary state of orderliness and thermodynamics. All the principles from biochemical/cellular development, evolution, to the complex minds of animals, are working on this general principle. But, as a thinking, feeling, self-aware human, it is seen in our experiences of life, and specifically in the WORK we do in survival/maintenance/entertainment- what one might call the phenomenological aspect of being a normally enculturated human being.

Value judgements are part of the work/stress of beings working on the principles of entropy. Actually no, I don’t think entropy too general a principle when applied specifically to its more complex version of negentropy. I’d like you to outline how it would be some category error or misplaced POV if you are not just dismissing out of hand.

Not really. We cannot help but live out the very parameters that organize the universe. That’s a pretty big implication. But as beings affected by the principle, it brings the pessimistic outlook..mainly to do with the stresses and striving mentioned earlier.

Sure I do, but is this 'striving' my 'root' or 'essence'? Does this question even make sense? What would even motivate this line of questioning? Surely nothing about the cold and mundane fact of entropy. — StreetlightX

This is rhetorical equivocating to make what I'm saying seem incomprehensible. By root or essence I mean, a principle which we are all "proscribed" by in its negentropic form. The striving of the human animal, as seen in our goals mitigated through language/enculturation is a manifestation of this proscription.

Root? Again, from what POV? And why afford it any significance? — StreetlightX

So wait, you don't seek out goals as a normally enculturated human (not asleep/coma/unconscious)? You don't do work or make sure work is done to survive/maintain/entertain? I'd like to see you counter that.

Long story short: Schop's Will can be roughly equated with principle of entropy.. compromise with realists on metaphysics.. same pessimistic conclusion from both.

Can be, yes, but I see no reason to. Nor even adopt or rather import and impose the langauge of 'essence' on the discussion, which is just alien vocabulary. — StreetlightX

How so? Essence here meaning "the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character" (Google Dictionary). The principles of negentropy create the circumstances for the very striving at root in the human animal. I categorize the basic goals into survival/maintenance/entertainment.. but whatever category our striving nature falls under, it is proscribed due to the principle of negentropy.. Our work is a localized version of the general principle of energy eventually being more disordered and spread out until all work is used up.

If you want to bring in phenomenology- goal-seeking is very much part of the human work to survive/maintain/entertain.

I take issue with this 'just' here. Surely, all the things you mention are indeed cases of localized negentropy, but they are quite plainly not only cases of localized negentropgy. They are, well, anything they can possibly be from points of view other than that of entropy. The privilege afforded to the entropic POV seems unmotivated and at the very least unjustified so far. — StreetlightX

Fair enough. But the point is not to deflate all POV to localized negentropy. The point is that BEING localized negentropy, we can be characterized, at essence, what Schopenhauer characterized existence at its essence- a striving principle. In the human animal that would be seen in our striving towards goals, restlessness, stresses I brought up earlier, etc. It has larger implications of the essence of being, it is not meant to merely create synonyms (i.e. life= negentropy or life is just negentropy or some such). It is the pessimistic implication surrounding this idea.

In any case, the langauge of 'purpose', as ordinarily understood ('that for the sake of which', roughly), does seem a poor fit to speak about it. — StreetlightX

Yes, I agreed with Banno for reasons you bring up here, and changed the thread's title accordingly. Though, I did mention the caveat that if it is a necessity that entropification occurs, then in a way, entropy is a necessity and thus a baked in final cause or telos that the energy of the universe is leading towards.

from the point of view of existing things, its structure is closer to that of a double-negative: you can't not put in work in order to sustain a particular organization of matter. Framing it this way makes it kind of like a meta-rule for organized structures: whatever structures there are (planets, plants, or pond ecosystems), you can't not keep feeding it with energy if you want it to persist. — StreetlightX

Yes, every thing seems to be ruled by it. However, I wouldn't even use the phrase "in order to sustain". As you and Banno noted, there is no intention here. The principle exists and thus, localized negentropic organized matter that is dynamically self-regulating/generating/evolving (life) is an outcome. It probably didn't have to go that way, but then again, perhaps it was inevitable at some point, even if not in the exact contingent manner it actually did go down.

What the consequence is for us, is the striving principle. The main point in the OP is thus:

the localized negentropy of the animal is characterized by all that work of the body/mind to survive, maintain, entertain. The stresses of life, the stresses of society, the stresses of psychology, the stresses of circumstances of the animal vs. the environment, this is all just localized negentropy (contributing its part in the universal entropy). The quietus of non-existence interrupted for the work-to-b-done. Yet we can see this from the internal view. We see the very essence of our striving in our individual goals, social organization, and the individual restless mind that needs stimulus and entertainment.

We are the universe's self-reflecting strivers. Pursuing due to the unrecognized underlying principle of entropy. We must work, work, work..

Fair enough. I saw the connections there and wanted to share it. Entropy does not have to be the underlying principle for this to be what is the case. Mass/time can be more fundamental, but not essential to what it is we are "doing" in our work-striving as negentropic entities.

Now, if entropy doesn't exist in other possible universes, what are the implications? I am not sure. First I am not sure if that is even something that can happen. Second, if it is, it certainly would change things in terms of what is fundamental to reality as a whole. In that possible universe though, striving would maybe not be a thing. In ours it would still hold.

You will find plenty of folk hear who will agree to the primacy of entropy. I remain unconvinced; I still think that it might be a secondary feature. — Banno

Okay, a secondary feature of what underlying principle?

The problem with "purpose" is the hint of intent it carries with it. Forever oust that and I see no problem. Replace Will with Purpose, and the hint of intent becomes apparent. — Banno

Okay, I will agree that perhaps changing purpose to something else, conveys the topic better. I was using it in the vein of Aristotle's final cause, not in the idea that there is some being's purpose or intent behind it. However, interestingly (and a bit tangential), if entropy was baked in from the beginning (the universe could not but necessitate that it entropifies) then there is necessity built in from the beginning, though not "purpose" in terms of a being that designs something to run a certain way.

However, true enough, if I am making connections with Schop's Will, that has no hint of purposefulness, then using that word draws too much attention to the idea that there is an end goal to strive for. So for the purposes of clarifying my own position, I will change the title.

For me, "the purpose of entropy" is a misappropriation of purpose. Entropy just is. — Banno

Okay, and I guess the goal of the OP was to explain more that we are manifestations of entropy, so if I changed the topic to:
Entropy- Universe's Overarching Principle or
Entropy- How we are One Manifestation of General Principle of...
Would that be more satisfactory to the goal set out in the OP for you without misappropriation?

However, to challenge your claim that the use of "purpose" is an error, if the universe is heading, inevitably in that direction, than "purpose" as it is seen as "final cause" (in an Aristotlean sense) seems to be appropriate.

Isn't it just an error to say that since the total entropy of the universe does increase, that's the purpose of the universe? — Banno

I was trying, for the sake of this thread at least, to accommodate the purely realist position that would discount a noumenal reality (like Schop's Will). But, even discounting the foundation of Will, Entropy, does just fine in being its backup. In other words, all the functions of being-as-function-of-will, can be explained (roughly) as being-as-function-of-entropy without too much of a hiccup in consequence and conclusion. We are still striving- little manifestations of entropic principle (instead of illusionary manifestations of a monistic Will). We strive because of our negentropic tendencies that necessitate it rather than strive because of our willing tendencies that necessitate it (in the realm of "playground" of the phenomenal illusion, I guess).

So, it was less of a hard claim, then a compromise that was showing the similarities between the two. Of course Schop's noumenal Will has a lot of interesting implication (experience is explained as a double-sided nature, etc.), but putting issues of theory of mind aside, the pessimistic nature of beings striving to survive/maintain/entertain, and mediated and felt directly through the language-mediated goal-seeking, is intact in either conception.

So, using phrasing it as the purpose of entropy is to show the overarching theme that we are manifestations of this general principle, "living out" the very principle of entropy in our self-ordering, negentropic way.

Is there anything wrong with this situation? — Posty McPostface

Yes, the striving.

Yes, but those things make goals worthwhile. Without entropy the world would be a boring place, perhaps moreso than it already is. — Posty McPostface

The world wouldn't be a place without entropy, so that's slightly mischaracterized. Boredom is simply striving without a fixed goal- an understanding of one's striving nature at its essence.. its propensity for tasks-at-hand.. the mind needs to be occupied. The striving nature of the work to survive/maintain/entertain.

But it's a trite thing to say about life. Entropy eventually negates all our goals but it's not at a faster rate than what we can muster against. — Posty McPostface

Yeah, we won't see the results of our negentropic > entropic writ large activities. Rather, we are simply living out a manifestation of it. As with Schop's Will are the Universe's Entropy.

So, talking about goals. How do we determine which are within grasp or not? — Posty McPostface

It's not about what goals are attainable. It's about needing to pursue goals at all.. Clipping your nails, getting food, getting to such and such place, what you will do at such and such place. People automatically go right to sub-Saharan African levels of starvation in a rundown village with dirty water. ANY goal- survival or what some would deem as trivial, frivolous, or even the pursuit of entertainment.

What do you think? — Posty McPostface

There's probably a disconnect in what people are trying to achieve and what is actually happening in real time.