[VMG]

Is that true though? If I have say a box with mixed red and blue bricks and I sort them by color, both sides are "clean" now.

[ben_w]

In a sense that misses the metaphor, sure.

But the thing which is "dirtier" is the wider universe, where the energy you used to do that sorting has higher entropy.

At the scale of atoms and molecules in a gas, you can also sort them into high-energy particles on one side of a barrier and low-energy particles on the other side, and now there's a heat difference you can run a heat engine. This is totally a thing you can do with the right devices — but those devices will necessarily consume more energy than you get from a heat engine running on that heat difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon

[alpaca128]

Red bricks won't magically disappear by sorting, just like dirt won't disappear when you wipe it off a surface.

[arkey]

Cleaning is usually relocating dirt.

If either red or blue were dirt, one of the sides is dirty, and the other is clean.

If neither red or blue were dirt, then nothing was dirty, it was just mixed up.

[jackhalford]

That’s because the box isn’t a closed system, you’ve interacted with in and you have spent energy sorting the bricks. It’s the same story with humans on earth, things get sorted because of the energy inout from the Sun.

[jacquesm]

You've just marginally warmed up everything else including yourself.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

You've left out the entropy you've added to the universe by ordering the system. That entropy is in the form of wasted heat.

[Etheryte]

Sorting something is not the same as cleaning it, just like sorting an array doesn't sanitize its contents.