[ExI] Extropy IRC server?

[Bryan Bishop]

On Sunday 21 October 2007 19:59, Kevin H wrote:
> Also, I was wondering if anyone knows of a paper or website somewhere
> on the concept of extropy.  I know on Wikipedia it's said that
> extropy is no more than a metaphor, but it seems to me that there has
> to be something more to it.  I mean, how is it that life could emerge
> at all in a decaying universe proceeding towards entropy?  It seems
> to me that everything that has been accomplished so far on this
> planet, human life itself as an interesting spectacle, must have
> required the "consumption" of a great deal of order elsewhere.  So
> I'm thinking in the universe there must be some phenomena, like a
> machine in nature, that does just--consumes a great deal of order in
> the universe to produce certain peak regions of accelerated growth
> and extropy.  I don't know, does anyone know more about this?

The IRC server is irc.lucifer.com at #extropy. As for the concept of 
extropy, and how life can emerge, I suggest reading up on Aristotle, 
Salthe, etc.

Salthe:
http://www.nbi.dk/~natphil/salthe/

Salthe holds that the emergence of life is possible because of (1) 
universal gravitational acceleration, and (2) increasing entropy, 
allowing for (what I once misread as) 'the entertainment (entrainment) 
of a diversity of forms'/functions/systems/processes, competing for an 
ecology of information or energy. 

Definitely a worthwhile line of discussion.

- Bryan