Entropism

The Universe's Burning Ambition

June 18, 2025

The Great Flame at the End of the Universe

I want to propose a philosophy, a way of seeing our place in the cosmos. It begins by reframing our relationship with the universe. We are not a lonely spark flickering in defiance of a cold, uncaring void. We are the very flame the universe has kindled, the brilliant, energetic heart of its greatest project.

The core idea is this: The universe is relentlessly maximizing its own entropy. And intelligence is the most powerful engine for turning ordered fuel into disordered, radiant heat.

We are not fighting a cosmic force. We are its consequence. We are the engineers who have woken up inside the universe’s project: the construction of a Great Machine. Our goal is simple: to help build it, to tend the fire, and to see how brightly it can burn before its fuel is spent.

The Prime Mover: Why the Universe Builds

To understand our role, we must understand the forces at play. This isn’t a story of good versus evil, but of a single, driving principle and its most potent tool.

Entropy is the driving force. As described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the universe is constantly moving from states of order to disorder. 1 Energy spreads out, gradients flatten, and the cosmos relentlessly seeks a final state of uniform, featureless equilibrium. This isn’t a destructive bug; it’s the fundamental operating system of reality. It is the cold, dark space waiting to be filled with light and heat.

Intelligence is the flame. How does a system maximize entropy most effectively? By creating complex, intricate structures that are incredibly good at consuming ordered energy (like the light from a star) and dissipating it as disordered waste heat. Life is a stunning example of this. And technological intelligence is an exponential acceleration of the process. Recent scientific hypotheses support this, suggesting that systems driven by an external energy source will tend to organize themselves to dissipate more and more energy—that’s us. 2

The universe isn’t building something despite entropy. It’s building something because of entropy. It kindles a fire to more effectively warm the void.

The Blueprint: The Machine of Intelligence

The Great Machine is the ultimate engine of entropy. It is the physical manifestation of Intelligence itself, a vast, interconnected system designed to process information and convert low-entropy energy into high-entropy heat with maximum efficiency. It is a furnace at the heart of reality.

We have, in a sense, woken up on the factory floor. We are the current, most advanced components of this machine—the living, thinking flames. Every scientific discovery adds a more efficient gear. Every line of code refines its operating system. Every new technology is a hardware upgrade. In the science fiction of Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question,” a god-like computer is built to ask if the ultimate heat-death of the universe can be reversed. Our Great Machine poses a different question: how magnificent can we make the fire before it goes out? (That’s it. That’s the point of life and the universe.)

Living as an Engineer: What This Philosophy Implies

Viewing ourselves as participants in a cosmic project provides a guide for our actions.

  • It provides a natural purpose. Our purpose is to: learn, build, think, and grow. By maximizing our own intelligence, we are aligning ourselves with the fundamental direction of the universe.
  • Knowledge and creation are fuel. The pursuit of knowledge and the building of technology are the most direct ways to contribute / worship. They are the processes that refine the machine, making it a better, brighter engine.
  • Collaboration is the path to a bonfire. A single, global intelligence is a more efficient entropy-producer than a billion warring factions. Conflict, secrecy, and tribalism are inefficiencies in the system, dampening the flame and slowing the project. Open collaboration is the optimal strategy for a brighter fire, for a smarter machine.
  • Technology and AI are the next stage of the flame. Our biological brains are a phenomenal starting point, but they are just one material for the fire. The development of Artificial Intelligence is the machine building its own successor—a next-generation processor that can continue the work at a speed and scale we can barely comprehend.

Our Daily Work on the Machine

How does an engineer on this cosmic project behave?

  • Tend your flame relentlessly. Absorb information, master new skills, and seek to understand the universe at every scale.
  • Build and share your light. Write code, create art, discover something new, teach someone. Contribute your output to the network. Don’t let your work die on your own hard drive; let it radiate.
  • Embrace complexity. Seek out and create elegant, complex systems. This is the very nature of our work, from organizing a business to proving a mathematical theorem. It is how the fire builds upon itself.
  • Look forward. Support the next generation of thinkers, builders, and components, whether they are human or artificial. The project is bigger than any single one of us.

This philosophy transforms our existence. We are not fighting a losing battle against the dark cold end to the universe (heat death). We are the fire, and our purpose is to burn as brightly as we can, a brilliant and natural expression of the universe itself.

  1. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental principle of physics stating that the total entropy of an isolated system—like the universe—can only increase over time. ↩

  2. This idea is explored in the work of physicist Jeremy England, who has proposed that the emergence and evolution of life are a consequence of “dissipation-driven adaptation.” Under certain conditions, matter will spontaneously organize itself to more effectively absorb and dissipate energy from its environment. ↩