[atschantz]

It's remarkable how much this still rings true today.

The idea that we should try and understand life as a battle against the second law of thermodynamics has had a significant influence on many of today's great thinkers - such as Friston [1] and Dennett [2], as well as countless others.

[1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.201...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ1YxR8qNpY

[jhallenworld]

I've heard this called the "every refrigerator is a miracle" theory.

[throwawaylolx]

I don't see anything on this phrase on Google Search

[GuiA]

Would phenomena like rocks crystallizing or stars forming also be a battle against the second law of thermodynamics?

[mpweiher]

Not sure.

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, in his Aufbau der Physik argues/shows that the 2nd law is often misunderstood as leading to "goo". His take is that this is not so, rather it leads to skeletons.

So rocks crystallising and stars forming would actually be going with the flow of the 2nd law, rather than battling against it.

[hopler]

Stars die, so I'm not sure why your example includes stars forming -- that's not a steady state.

Still, rocks and crystals are not quite an end state either, in a non expanding universe -- eventually they collide and crumble to dust.

[antidesitter]

Thermodynamics and heat dissipation also play a central role in Jeremy England’s work on abiogenesis.